The kind of education that will end the Indian Problem, by saving the Indian to material usefulness and good citizenship, is made up of four separate and distinct parts, in their order of value as follows: First

Usable knowledge of the language of the country. Second: Skill in some industry that will enable successful competition.

Third Courage of civilization which will enable abandonment of the tribe and successful living among civilized people. Fourth Knowledge of books, or education so-called.

In justice to itself the Government can have but one aim in all it may do for the Indians, and that is to transform them into worthy, productive American citizens. The vital question is, can the material be made to yield the desired product?

The Indian is a man like other men. He has no innate or inherent qualities that condemn him to separation from other men, or to generations of slow development. He can acquire all the above qualities in about the same time that other men acquire them, and is hindered or facilitated in acquiring them only by conditions and environment that would equally hinder or facilitate other men in acquiring the same qualities. If the Indian has not had a chance to acquire these qualities he is not to be blamed for not having them. If he is not acquiring them now as rapidly as he might and ought it is because he is hindered by the contrivances we have forced upon him.

Take the first quality, that of a "usable knowledge of the language of the country." How is a usable knowledge of any language to be best and most quickly learned? Manifestly, by associating with those who use it. All people learn their own mother-tongue that way. Neither books nor special teacher are necessary. Simply such association as will place the person to be taught where he can hear the language constantly in use. Wise American parents desiring their children to become proficient in the German or French language send them to Germany or France to live in a German or French family. Why not, then, contrive that the Indian have this same opportunity to learn the almost universal language of the country in which he lives and which he must learn in order to be at one with the great body of its people? Thus theory and patois are eliminated, and practical, usable knowledge takes their place.

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In doing this service for the Indian in this really necessary way, we come to the second and almost equally important quality to be acquired, skill in some industry that will enable successful competition." How is this to be gained? The answer is practically the same. The best agricultural school is the agriculturist himself on his own farm. If we want a boy to become a farmer we put him on a farm where the daily pressure of a necessity to get the work done bears upon him, and where a living and something more hinges upon skill and intelligent management. In the same way if we want the boy to become a blacksmith or a carpenter, a blacksmith shop or a carpenter shop with a competent head and surrounded by competent workmen is the place. Associated with the farmer and the mechanic, the boy learns what a real day's work is, and becomes in every way a very part

of the situation. The same factors are needed if the boy has the ability and can reach the means for professional life. To be a lawyer he must associate and contend with lawyers.

If the way to the acquirement of the first two qualities necessary in the education of the Indian is properly indicated above, then the way to get the third and most vital quality solves itself. The courage of civilization, like the courage of battle or the courage of any other phase of life for that matter, is best, and perhaps only to be, acquired by experience.

For the Indian, then, the language of civilization is quickest and best gained, the industry and skill of civilization is quickest and best gained, and the courage of civilization is quickest and best gained by his being immersed in these influences. But the Indian must become individual. The tribes and all tribalizers and tribalizing influences are enemies of the individual, for, immersed in the tribe, how is the individual to take on successfully anything foreign to the tribe?

Book-education logically comes last. If a man speaks the language of the country, is skilled in some industry of the country, has the courage of the country, and practices these qualities, he is a useful citizen without a knowledge of books. The first are the foundation qualities. Book-education enlarges and embellishes language power, industrial power, and courage power. These three qualities being requisite to accomplish the transit of the Indian from tribal to national allegiance, the door of education must open the way to full chance for enlarging these qualities that no slavish restraint on manhood oppress and discourage the ambition to compete and rise.

The school, its aim, quality, and location now assume importance as factors. If the language, industry, and courage of civilization needed can best be gained in the environment of the civilization in which the subject is to contend, where shall the book-education be given? There is only one right answer, and that is, let all the qualities grow together in the subject. Give him schools in the environment of civilization; but better still, put him into civilization's schools. Do not feed America to the Indian, which is a tribalizing and not an Americanizing process: but feed the Indian to America and America will do the assimilating and annihilate the problem.

Indian Education at Carlisle

O. B. Super, in a recently published magazine article, says of the Carlisle school:

The establishment of the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle marks an epoch in the history of our treatment of the red man. To Captain R. H. Pratt, the superintendent of this school, is due the credit of conceiving and, so far as possible, of carrying out the idea that the most effectual way of getting civilization into the Indian is to get the Indian into civilization." He believes the same system which converts the dregs of European civilization into respectable, self-supporting American citizens will, if applied to the aborigines, produce the same results. He sees no reason why Indians should not be allowed an equal chance, at least, with the foreigners who annually flock to our shores by the hundred thousand.

During the Indian war of 1874-75 he had charge of hundreds of Indian prisoners at Fort Sill. Seventy-four of the worst of these were selected and sent in care of Captain Pratt to the Spanish fort at St. Augustine, Florida. It may be said, too, that although these men were regarded as incorrigibles, and although Captain Pratt was their jailer and took them to Florida in chains, by his humane and reasonable treatment of them he won their affection, and the survivors even now regard him as their best friend. The Carlisle school had its origin in convictions that grew out of Captain Pratt's service against the Indians. The school was established in 1879.

A characteristic feature of the school is the printing-office, which has always been regarded as one of the most valuable departments of the school. Under the editorial supervision of a woman, the pupils publish two papers, The Red Man, an eightpage quarto, with a monthly circulation of about two thousand copies, and The Indian Helper, a small four-page weekly, with a circulation of over ten thousand copies. They also do a large amount of job printing for the school, which would cost hundreds of dollars if done outside.

The aim of the school has always been to make of the Indians thrifty, industrious, capable American citizens. That the pupils give satisfaction as workers is further shown by the fact that of those annually sent out from the school not more than four in a

hundred are returned as unsatisfactory, although anyone who hires a pupil from the school does it with the distinct understanding that the pupil shall be at once returned if either party to the contract has any cause for dissatisfaction. It would be impossible to show that any of the graduates, and even any of those who have been at the school half the time required for graduation, are living in crime or hopeless degradation.

The following extracts from the graduating essay of Clark Gregg, an Assinnaboine Indian, of Montana, who recently completed the course at the Carlisle school, are suggestive because presenting the matter from the Indian's point of view. The entire essay is published in The Red Man.

Some people are trying to prove to the Indians that "united on a reservation they will stand as a people; divided by sending their children to the Eastern schools they will fall."

The reservation is like a prison where the Indian is compelled to stay within its limits, and when he goes out a policeman is sent after him and he is brought back unless authorized by the agent to go beyond the line. On this barren land he can raise nothing for his physical sustenance and can gain no knowledge of the outside world by which he may expand his powers and is incapable of gaining any attainments by which he may become a worthy citizen of this grand country of ours.

There are two kinds of schools established on the reservation, namely: the day-school and the boarding-school. In the former the children are kept in the tepees when not at school. One of the drawbacks which the youth has to overcome is the constant interruption of his lessons by the surroundings in which he is placed, but he cannot overcome them so long as he stays on the reservation. He is under civilized influences while in one of these day-schools and just as soon as he gets out to the tepee what little education he has gained is driven out by barbarism. A child cannot live twelve hours in a civilized house and the other twelve in a tepee and be elevated. The height of success will never be reached under such circumstances. He must take the one and leave the other.

The boarding-school is said to be a little better than the dayschool, but I think both are equally bad in this, that both are on the reservation. In the boarding-school the children are clothed and fed. Here they have two or three teachers sometimes not able to perform their duties because of the influences from outside. At the boarding-schools the parents are careful not to lose sight of their children. They make their daily visits, talk with their children, and fill them with thoughts of the wild life at home instead; thus crowding out what they had learned in the schools. In a place like the reservation there is no possibility for the Indian youth to advance.

We often hear people say that it is cruel to take the children from their dear parents and send them East for education. Look at this picture which I have just drawn for you, then on the one now before your eyes [at Carlisle]. Which do you say is cruel? If you want to educate the Indians let them out among the people who have the light which they need.

The Eastern schools are the only salvation for the Indian. To me whose home is so far West the East is anywhere this side of the Mississippi. The advantages over the reservation schools are many. The chief advantage is that we are placed in a community where we can come into contact with people who are willing to cooperate with us on our journey toward civilization. In the Eastern schools our daily surroundings are elevating whereas in a reservation they pull us down. They teach the Indian independence, loyalty, and make him a self-supporting man. There is only one Carlisle Indian School in the world. It alone has done more than all the reservation schools combined. It not only trains the mind but the hands which is perhaps the most important.

Mr. Arizona Smith in his speech upon the Indian appropriation bill, said: "The hope of civilizing the Apache is just as bright as the hope of civilizing his food, the rattle-snake. You cannot conceive of the Apache until you see him. He is absolutely incapable of the emotions that we feel." Dr. Montezuma is a living proof that that is a lie. We at Carlisle believe that the time has come and is here when they can be considered as experiencing greater and more generous emotions than Mr. Arizona Smith.

Springfield Republican: Rev. Nicholas P. Gilman of Boston, the well-known student of social problems, author of several books on socialism and profit sharing, and editor of the Literary World, has been appointed professor of sociology in the Unitarian theological school at Meadville, Pa. The professorship has been endowed by Mrs. Caleb B. Hackley of Tarrytown, N. Y., as a memorial of her husband. Mr. Gilman, who was married Thursday in Boston to Mary Sherwood Stubbs, is a ripe scholar, and is sure to be successful in this new work, for which he is so eminently fitted.

SOCIOLOGICAL

Self-Assertion and Self-Denial *

J. S. MACKENZIE, University College, Cardiff, Wales, in the International Journal of Ethics, Philadelphia. Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION Throughout the whole course of ethical speculation, and throughout the whole history of the moral life of mankind, a certain opposition between Egoism and Altruism has constantly tended to appear, and sometimes the one and sometimes the other has been taken as the basis of the moral ideal. There have, indeed, been certain periods at which the opposition between the two has almost vanished; and at all times there have at least been efforts to reconcile them. The most obvious way out of the difficulty is to deny that one of the two apparent ends has any claim upon us; and in an age like ours, in which social claims are para. mount, it is the egoistic side that can most easily be set aside. The highest good is to be found, according to this view, in complete self-renunciation, in absolute devotion to the whole or organism of which we are merely members. But however powerfully such an ideal as this may appeal to the reason and to the heart, yet the apparently opposite conception of self-realization as the moral ideal is found continually recurring both in ethical speculation and in the ordinary moral consciousness.

The true friend is not merely self-denying, but self-forgetting. His interest is absorbed in the good of another, and he does not care for the beauty of his own attitude. The love of love, as distinguished from the love of a person-such love as that which George Eliot describes as aiming at its own perfection-is not love, but sentimentalism. As for the Stoics, they may easily be disposed of. Their thin philanthropy, it may be urged, is the fitting counterpart of their spiritual pride. The "philanthropist " is no doubt a self-lover; self-forgetfulness is found in the love of men, not in the love of man. It is an affair of passion, moreover, and not of mere reason. And thus the Stoics may be safely set aside. Christianity, perhaps, will not yield quite so easily: but here, also, it may fairly be maintained that the idea that the good man is primarily interested in the saving of his own soul involves a confusion. That the coarser form of this belief is erroneous-the form which is known as "other-worldliness"— would now, I suppose, be universally adınitted. But even in its finer form of the concentration of interest in personal "holiness," it seems clear that the self-conscious type of character which was produced by this belief is not the highest type.

What constitutes a selfish man? A natural answer would be that a selfish man is one who thinks a great deal about himself, and acts a great deal with reference to himself. Now, this may be true; but is it clear? Is it the case that a selfish man is particularly self-conscious? Reflection will, I think, convince us that it is not so. There is even a certain antagonism between the two things. Selfishness is associated with hardness of moral fiber; while self-consciousness implies sensitiveness if not sensibility. The man who is keenly self-conscious may naturally be retiring and modest; but he need not be specially selfish he may "do good by stealth, and blush to find its fame." Or, again, he may be self-conceited. But even self-conceit is not the same as selfishness.

Selfishness is essentially negative. It is an exclusive interest; and the essence of it lies in its exclusiveness. It is really no-otherishness. It is not that we are interested in the "me," but that we care for nothing else. The generous man may be quite as much interested in the "me" as the selfish man is; but he is interested in other things as well, and puts the "me" in its right place. It may even be his superior interest in the "me" that makes him conscious of its wider relations. But we may advance still further, without altogether getting rid of the element of

* Read before the London Ethical Societies, February 18, 1894.

negation. Even love has been somewhat cynically described as "selfishness for two." Similarly, a man may be benevolent with regard to his family, but selfish toward everything beyond. Even patriotism-I mean genuine patriotism, not merely "the last resource of a scoundrel"-may become selfishness. Exclu siveness is, throughout, that which constitutes the essence of selfishness, in so far as selfishness is a vice. On the other hand, so far as selfishness is positive, so far as it means interest in the "me" and not merely the absence of interest in that which is not "me," it is not a vice but a virtue. It is a real step forward when a man gets above the mere gratification of his particular impulses, and begins to take an intelligent interest in his own life as a whole. It is then that wider interests become possible. The man who cares nothing for his own "me" is not likely to care much for any one else's. "A poor thing, but mine own," is not an altogether ignoble sentiment. The interest in the self becomes mean only when it is ossified; when it refuses to grow; when, in short, it becomes negative or exclusive. Me-ishness, in short, is, properly speaking, good: it is only nothing-that-isnot-me-ishness that is bad: but it is this latter that is meant in ordinary discouse by "selfishness."

Now, if selfishness is essentially negative, it follows that selfdenial is essentially positive. If the one means the absence of interest in anything that is not "me," the other will naturally mean the presence of an interest in something other than "me." There is, indeed, a kind of self-denial which is properly negative. Asceticism is, in the main, of this nature: it is simply an effort to snub the " me." But even this effort is generally made, at least at first, with a view to the realization of some positive end, to which the "me" blocks the way. But asceticism pure and simple is merely a sort of spite against the "me"; and, in this sense, it is a vice-a vice which is the counterpart of selfishness, if it may not even be called a species of selfishness. But, of course, asceticism, in this purely negative sense, is rare-at least in modern times. Such asceticism as exists is generally with a view to some positive end; and, so far, it may be good. It is hardly necessary to warn people against standing on pillars or walking on peas: yet we do still find some who think themselves bound to abstain from certain enjoyments simply because they like them; and it may be as well to remind such that they are on the negative road-the road to the desert, to negative selfishness, to the emptying of life of its interests, even the poor interests in the "me." Of such self-sacrifice Mr. Bradley remarks that it is too often the great sacrifice' of trade, the giving cheap what is worth nothing." It was of this kind of self-denial that St. Paul was thinking when he said, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." He meant that asceticism is morally valueless without a positive interest in things beyond ourselves.

Invention and Injustice

Col. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, in the Twentieth Century, New York. Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION

Invention has filled the world with competitors not only of laborers but of mechanics-mechanics of the highest skill. To-day the ordinary laborer is, for the most part, a cog in the wheel. He works with the tireless-he feeds the insatiable. When the monster stops, the man is out of employment-out of bread. He has not saved anything. The machine that he fed was not feeding him-the invention was not for his benefit. The other day I heard a man say it was almost impossible for thousands of good mechanics to get employment, and that in his judgment the Government ought to furnish work for the people. A few minutes after I heard another say that he was selling a patent for cutting out clothes; that one of the machines could do the work of twenty tailors, and that only the week before he had sold two to a great house in New York, and that over forty cutters had been discharged. The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workingman that he must be economical-and yet, under the present system, economy would only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand every

saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough.

Capital has always claimed, and still claims, the right to combine. Manufacturers meet and determine prices, even in spite of the great law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the same right to consult and combine? The rich meet in the bank, club house, or parlor. Workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. All the organized forces of society are against them. Capital has the army and the navy, the legislature, the judicial and executive departments. When the rich combine, it is for the purpose of “exchanging ideas." When the poor combine, it is a conspiracy." If they act in concert, if they really do something, it is a "mob." If they defend themselves, it is a "treason." How is it that the rich control the departments of government? There are times when mendicants become revolutionists-when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest and the bravest battle for the right.

How are we to settle the unequal contest between man and machine? Will the machines finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workmen become intelligent enough and strong enough to become the owners of machines? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just; or does the same law or fact control him that controls the animal or vegetable world? In the days of cannibalism the strong devoured the weak-actually ate their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all advances in science, the strong, the heartless, still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and the foolish. When I take into consideration the agony of civilized life-the failures, the anxieties, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame-I am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man.

It is impossible for a man with a good heart to be satisfied with the world as it now is. No man can truly enjoy even what he earns-what he knows to be his own-knowing that millions of his fellow-men are in misery and want. When we think of the famished we feel that it is almost heartless to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering makes one almost ashamed to be well dressed and warm-one feels as though his heart was as cold as their bodies.

Will

Will

Is there to be no change? Are the "laws of supply and demand," invention and science, monopoly and competition, capital and legislation, always to be the enemies of those who toil? Will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give their earnings for the useless? Will they support millions of soldiers to kill the sons of other workingmen? Will they always build temples and live in huts and dens themselves? Will they forever allow parasites and vampires to live upon their blood? Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they support? honest men stop taking off their hats to successful fraud? industry, in the presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees? Will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that every healthy man must earn the right to live? Will they finally say that the man who has had equal privileges with all others has no right to complain, or will they follow the example that has been set by their oppressors? Will they learn that force, to succeed, must have thought behind it, and that anything done in order that it may endure, must rest upon the cornerstone of justice?

Maryland Medical Journal (Baltimore): New York City is to have a model school building with a large playground on the roof for pleasant days and an indoor playground on the first floor. On the fifth floor will be a manual training school, with gymnasium and cooking school, and in the basement will be either a number of shower baths or a large swimming pool for the free use of the pupils.

SCIENTIFIC

Color-Shadows

A. E. WRIGHT, in the May Nineteenth Century, London (New York: L. Scott Pub. Co.). Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION

It is beginning to be popularly understood that the phenomena of our color-vision can be best explained by the assumption of three pairs of contrast colors, white and black, red and green, and blue and yellow; and almost everybody is familiar with the conception that each of these primary colors calls up an after-image of its complementary or contrast color. We may, for instance, consider the case of a stimulation of a portion of the retina field by yellow light. Now the reaction to the retinal stimulation in such a case would manifest itself in the form of a "blue response." On the stimulated portion of the retinal field the blue response would continue in partial abeyance as long as the yellow stimulation lasted. As soon, however, as the yellow light was withdrawn, it would manifest itself as a definite after-image phenomenon. On the unstimulated portion of the retina the after-image phenomenon will be identical with that which occurs on the stimulated portion of the retina, except for the fact that the blue response will here be contemporaneous with the period of the yellow stimulation. It will begin when the eye is turned to the yellow light, and it will cease when the eye is averted from it. We may, with Hering, designate this portion of the blue response the "colorshadow."

Pure black and white are comparatively easy to deal with. When, however, we pass on to consider the ordinary coloration of nature, we find ourselves confronted by the fact that the primary colors are very seldom found pure. Unless the circumstances are unusually propitious, we must go through a certain schooling before we can detect our color-shadows in nature. We shall suppose ourselves to be looking, for instance, at a patch of greensward dotted over with trees. We may first note that the leaves of the trees and the grass in the foreground are of a bright yellowish-green. Now the after-image color to this yellowish-green will evidently be bluish-red or purple, and this color-shadow will manifest itself only upon those portions of the retina upon which the light is comparatively subdued. In other words, it will manifest itself upon the less illuminated portions of the color-picture before us. Now the less illuminated portions of our color-picture will evidently be the far distances and the deeper shadows under the trees; and, as a matter of fact, we do actually see a purple color upon these portions of our picture. We may perhaps note, in passing, that it is an important part of the landscape-painter's craft to paint these after-image phenomena. For it is only by making the colors which he employs in his high lights cast the appropriate color-shadows that the artist can convey to us anything of the brilliant coloring of nature; he must, in short, paint his shadows not as black shadows, but as true "color-shadows"-i.e., as shadows which take on the contrast color to the dominant color of the environment. The instinct of the true colorist seems to guide him unerringly in this matter. When he is dealing with a foreground of bright green grass, he introduces a purple into his deep shadows; and when he changes this foreground of grass for a foreground of withered beech-leaves, he abandons his purples and introduces a turquoise-green into his shadows.

We may now pass on to consider the part which the afterimage phenomena which we have been discussing play in determining the character of the color-combinations as esthetically agreeable or disagreeable. We may lay down that no combination of color is agreeable which involves the juxtaposition of violently contrasted colors. But these color-combinations acquire a very considerable esthetic worth as soon as the over-vivid contrast is toned down by the employment of a groundcolor which is common to both of the contrasting colors. When

it is a question of blending colors with a view to obtaining an agreeable effect, we must evidently allow for the mutual intensification of opposite contrast colors; and even where we are not employing opposite contrast colors, we have to consider what the effects of our color-shadows will be. But if the after-image phenomena come in thus and depreciate the esthetic worth of many of our color-combinations, they compensate by introducing an unexpected extraneous element of beauty into other color-combinations. The color-shadow, for instance, of the blue sky on a bright day probably does not go for nothing in the pleasurable color-sensations which we derive from the bright yellow-greens which we see in the grass; and the whiteness of the sky above the skyline long after sunset is no doubt intensified by the white color-shadow of the black ground. Similarly, beautiful effects are produced by the green color-shadows on the sails of the ships when we see them against a red sunset. The skilful painter is the painter who knows how to manipulate his after-image phenomena so as to get an added brilliancy upon his color wherever he may require it. Such a painter will, for instance, render in marvelous brilliancy the bright yellowgreen glint of the moss when it is shone upon by the sun after rain; but when we come to inquire how he gets all this brilliancy into his greens, we find that he has introduced lavender-purples into his shadows; and it is evidently the after-image of these purples that has reverberated back upon the yellow-greens in his high lights.

When we apply color in any form to the walls of a room, whether it is as paint, or as distemper, or as wall-paper, we find ourselves confronted with very distinct after-image phenomena. For instance, if we color the walls pink, and leave the ceiling untinted, we shall find that our ceiling assumes a distinct yellowish-green color. Similarly we have to take our after-image phenomena into account in making a selection of tints for colored windows. A pane of red glass will be found to acquire a bluish tinge when placed in juxtaposition with a yellow-tinted pane. A yellow pane will similarly take a greenish tinge when it is placed beside a red pane. It is also essential to take into our reckoning the predominant after-image effect of any room for which we are selecting furniture. A particular yellow shade in a curtain may have a certain esthetic worth when seen on a gray background; but it would be overlaid with a green colorshadow if it were seen against a red wall-paper; and it would be too yellow if seen against a blue paper, and it would be orange if seen against a green paper.

A correct exploitation of the color-shadows constitutes a very important element, if it does not constitute the essence, of the art of dress. For instance, a black evening dress casts invaluable white color-shadows over a bare neck and shoulders, and mourning throws a similar added whiteness over the face. Again, a dark green dress, especially if there is a shade of blue in the green, lights up dark auburn hair in a very beautiful way with its bright color-shadows. On the other hand, such a material as blue serge throws up into disagreeable prominence the unpleasant yellows of some of the lighter shades of red " hair. The vivid yellow color-shadows of any bright blue are very "trying" to any complexion. A similar remark applies to pink, for, unless in youth and health, when there is a sufficiency of natural pink in the cheeks to repress the after-image phenomena, the yellowish-green color-shadows make their appearance, and give a ghastly hue to the complexion. We need not, however, go into the minutiae of this matter. They will present no difficulty to anyone who has familiarized himself with the three pairs of contrast colors and with the importance of the colorshadow as a factor in all our color-sensations.

The Antitoxins of Diphtheria

G. A. BUCKMASTER, M.D., Lecturer on Physiology at St. George's Hospital, London, in Science Progress, London. Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION If it can be affirmed that a disease is caused by the invasion of specific microbes, or their products, attempts to destroy these would be a strictly scientific procedure; in other words, attempts to disinfect the living body. Quinine, salts of mercury, iodine, or

Salicylic acid are powerful disinfectants, and also valuable drugs frequently employed in the treatment of diseases produced by the spread of bacteria in the body. In order to accomplish a disinfection of the living body numerous experiments have been made, but the results were unfavorable, until Behring and his colleagues Knorr and Boer announced that this was possible in tertain diseases, such as anthrax, tetanus, and diphtheria; trichloride of iodine especially was found to possess a distinctly curative power. Behring later conclusively showed that in several diseases, among which diphtheria was included, serum yielded by the blood of an animal rendered artificially immune exerted no bactericidal action upon the bacillus of the disease, but was apparently capable of destroying the toxins produced by the bacillus. Antitoxic bodies are therefore presumably present in the blood of animals which are made immune, and serum from such an animal can be both protective and curative; an already developed disease can be permanently arrested by the introduction of serum charged with antitoxins.

Upon this discovery, which is undoubtedly the greatest contribution that bacteriology has at present rendered to practical medicine, rests the treatment of diphtheria by antitoxic serum. The details just briefly mentioned have been known for years. and the recent interest which has been aroused is due to the evidence adduced by Roux in favor of the value of serum as a therapeutic agent at the recent Congress of Hygiene in BudaPesth. It is a purely medical question whether the mortality of the disease under treatment diminishes by antitoxic serum, but sufficient evidence has now been collected to convince the most skeptical that the subcutaneous injection of serum is a valuable therapeutic agent. The remedy is harmless, though a transient inflammation of the skin, which may be accompanied by slight pains in the joints, is occasionally produced.

Since Behring's discovery it has been established that the serum of immunized animals is prophylactic and curative for many other diseases besides diphtheria. For many infective maladies, among which pneumonia, cholera, typhoid, hog-cholera may be mentioned, this has been abundantly proved by the researches of F. and G. Klemperer, Issaef, Pfeiffer, Sanarelli, and Metchnikoff. The universal application of Behring's theory of antitoxins is, however, limited, since in tetanus and diphtheria the toxins of bacilli are neutralized or destroyed, but in other diseases the serum protects not against infection with toxins, but against infection with living bacteria. In this case it is possible that the cells of the organism, even if they do not ingest and destroy the invading microbes, as Metchnikoff affirms, are roused or stimulated so as to oppose the spread of infective micro-organisms or the products of these throughout the body. In the case of protection against diphtheria the antitoxin which appears is therefore to be looked upon as the product of living cells, or as a metabolite occurring under special conditions, one of which may be the stimulation of the cell by the toxin.

A partial solution of the therapeutic effects which follow injection of antitoxic serum in cases of diphtheria may be that the material introduced does not act directly upon the toxin, but indirectly does so by operating as a stimulus to the cells of the organism, which are then capable of producing chemical bodies which destroy the toxin, and such substances may be antitoxic in character. This conception is largely due to Roux, and under his direction Calmette, Phisalix, and Bertrand have shown that no specific action can be claimed for antitoxic serum. These observers have discovered that the serum of animals which have been rendered immune against cobra poison is antitoxic both in the body and in vitro. In the latter case, on warming the mixture to 70°, the antitoxin is destroyed, the toxin remaining unaltered, from which it may be concluded that the toxin remains active side by side with the antitoxin. Moreover, the serum of animals immune to rabies or tetanus is powerfully antitoxic to cobra venom. From these observations the products of cell activity which accumulate in the blood of animals immune to tetanus, diphtheria, or cobra poison, are all of an antitoxic character similar in nature, and the view that antitoxic serum is specific for a definite bacillus or its products must be modified.

The practical results of serum as a therapeutic agent in diph

theria have exceeded the most sanguine expectations. Every civilized country has already established institutes from which supplies of serum can be obtained for the treatment of this disease. Not only diphtheria, but also traumatic tetanus, which formerly was without exception fatal, has been successfully treated with antitoxic serum, and more than a hundred cases have been collected in which there is a large percentage of recovery. Enthusiasts regard serum-therapy as the treatment of the future for infective diseases. On this point judgment must be suspended; at present it is sufficient to have established a proof that bacteriology, the youngest of the sciences which support medicine, has not only placed the etiology of many diseases upon a sound foundation, but has also contributed a marked advance in treatment.

The Serum Remedy in Germany

New York Times

In an interesting paper read by Heubner of Berlin, at the 13th Congress of Internal Medicine held recently at Munich, reference was made to the effect of the new remedy upon the mortality from diphtheria in that city, which had been 39 per cent. in 1,332 cases immediately preceding the use of antitoxine, and 21 per cent. in 1,390 cases (nearly the same number) since the beginning of the serum treatment. Out of 181 cases of pure diphtheria of which he had personal knowledge, all in which the treatment had been applied on the first or second day recovered, and only two of those in which the injections were first administered on the third day had a fatal termination.

The record in the Kaiser and Kaiserin Friedrich Hospital at Berlin was brought down to March 15 by Dr. Baginski. During the twelve months ending on that date 525 cases were treated there with antitoxine. For the four preceding years the average annual mortality had been 41 per cent., but for these 525 case: it was reduced to 15.81 per cent. The prevailing epidemic was of a virulent character. This is indicated by the fact that while the serum treatment was discontinued during the months of August and September, owing to a temporary exhaustion of the supply of serum, the death rate rose to 52 per cent. Prof. Widerhofer of Vienna, relating his experience with the new remedy in the hospitais of that city, reported that the mortality had been cut down more than one-half. Von Ranke of Munich declared that the mortality in the hospitals of that city had been reduced more than one-half since the introduction of antitoxine.

"There was," says the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, "at this discussion, participated in by some of the most careful observers among the German clinicians, almost entire agreement as to the efficacy of the antitoxine treatment in reducing the rate of mortality in diphtheria. There was also a general consensus that thus far no serious complications or sequelae imputable to the antitoxine serum have attended the injections."

Various Topics

George H. Taylor, a Chicago paper dealer, suggests that water-proof strawboard boxes be used as garbage receptacles in cities. As the cost of these boxes would be less than one cent each, the box and all could be carried away by the collector, the box itself serving as an excellent fuel for the burning of the garbage.

Engineering and Mining Journal: In a communication to the Comptes Rendus of the Paris Academie des Sciences, M. Daniel Berthelot suggests a method of determining the temperature of a furnace, which is based on the fact that the refractive index of a gas varies with its density. Thus two tubes are taken filled with the same gas, and a spectrum refracted through each, the two spectra being observed together. If then one is raised to a high temperature, and its contents allowed to expand, so as to maintain the pressure inside constant, it will be necessary to reduce the pressure in the second tube in order to reëstablish coincidence between the two spectra. Preliminary experiments in the laboratory have shown the method to be capable of giv ing very accurate results.