pleader at the bar is disgusted that with all his well-known and wellearned reputation for logic and eloquence, the judge and jury sleep. Nothing is proof against the insidious power of the air from which the living principle has been extracted. The physician, with all his skill, finds his patient daily grow weaker and weaker, and finally sink into his last sleep. He has simply failed for want of the exhilarating influence of the everywhere abounding fluid of which he has been deprived by the ignorance, penury, miserliness, or recklessness, of those who have him in charge.

Let us see if there is a remedy, and what it is. When such results as have been named proceed entirely from a want of pure air, the simple remedy is to obtain a proper supply. We can, of course, go out of doors, if we are well and have the time. But we cannot always sleep out of doors, nor perform all our labors in the "open space." We must have protection from the elements as well as their good offices. To obtain them requires both time and money. We have in late years made many forward steps. But much remains to be done. Our first duty is in our homes; there where all that we hold " precious and dear" are gathered, and where our restful hours are spent.

One thing prevents the ill effects that might otherwise be expected to follow what would seem to be poor ventilation; and this is that we cannot, if we would, make our houses air-tight; so that in spite of all our efforts to keep out cold or heated air, Nature steps in and defends our health, when we are doing much to destroy it. Neither wood, nor brick nor stone, can prevent the air from reaching the interior of our domicile be it ever so high or ever so humble. Our doors and windows leave openings for its entrance; so that at least one of the requisites for ventilation, to wit, an INLET for the air, is furnished for every house. These inlets, however, may be very far from accomplishing the most desirable results. The openings thus furnished may be productive of unpleasant and unhealthy draughts, may pass directly from the point of entrance to one of exit, and thus freshen only a very small portion of the confined air. Besides, if the room have another of the requisites needed for good ventilation, namely, an OUTLET, the pressure toward this opening may be so great that every time a window or door is opened, a deluge of cold air will rush in and destroy what should be a steady current setting toward the outlet. Thus, in an ordinary dwelling, the outlet may be, and very often is, the chimney, the heated air and gases in which being lighter, rise, or rather, are forced upward by the pressure of the colder air. This power has not only to do the work on the column of air within the chimney in setting it in motion and overcoming frictional resistance to its flow; but it has also to set the air entering the room in motion and to overcome frictional resistance at the inlets. In many instances, the latter part of the chimney's work is the more considerable of the two. From want of proper inlets air has to be dragged in at a high velocity and against much resistance.

The true remedy is to provide proper inlets. The discharge of air by an ordinary open fire and chimney varies widely, depending on the rate of combustion, the height, and section, and form of the chimney, and the freedom with which air is entering the room. When, therefore, a room is occupied by half-a-dozen persons, and air is to be supplied to them at the rate of 10,000 cubic feet per hour, it is probable that an ordinary chimney will serve the purpose of an outlet. If more than this number is to occupy the room, some additional means should be used, such as gratings in communication with flues leading to the open air, carry off the excess of impure air. Proper inlets for the air are of just as much importance as outlets. Their absence in a house where several fires are burning, forcing a great amount of air through the chimneys, involves a very serious danger. When air which must be supplied to take the place of that discharged by the chimneys can only struggle through small openings and the pressure within the house falls considerably below that of the outer air, the water traps, basins and closets are liable to be forced, and foul air is drawn in from every leak in soil pipe and drain. In this way, it has been found that a house was drawing what seemed to be its main supply of "fresh" air from a public sewer, through a defective joint between the soil-pipe and the (untrapped) house-drain. And it has been found on many occasions that some of our modern dwellings, finished in the highest style, and garnished with the richest coverings, have been merely the abode of disease and death, whither innocent mortals have been enticed in the hope of happiness and health.

While, then, we see the necessity for ample inlets for air, care must be exercised to avoid such currents of air as will give the disagreeable and dangerous sensations of draught. At ordinary temperatures, a current of outer air to which the body is exposed will be felt as a draught, if its velocity exceeds two, or at most three feet per second. The current entering the room may, however, be allowed to move at a speed much greater than this without causing discomfort, provided its direction. keeps it from striking directly the person of the inmates. To secure this, it should enter, not horizontally, nor through gratings in the floor, but vertically through openings high enough to carry the entering stream into the upper atmosphere of the room, where it will mix as completely as possible with the warm air of the room before its presence can be felt. This I understand to be the opinion of J. A. Ewing, in the Encyclopedia Brittannica.

Many devices for this purposes have been tried, and with varying success. But there really seems to be no reason for this manner of introducing the outside air except the first one given, to wit: the prevention of contact between the draught and the persons of the occupant of the chamber. Consequently, any device that will prevent this contact should answer the purpose. It is even believed by some that no danger exists in sleeping in a room where a current of air passes over

the body of the sleeper; and that even should the current strike him the danger would be trifling did he but have his face toward it. However this may be, there is generally little need to run the risk. A simple contrivance within the reach of all, a muslin-covered frame placed at the top of the sash, occupying a part of its space, will admit the air, and avoid draught.

If, instead of fire places, houses are furnished with stoves for heating purposes, it is evident that all the precautions must be redoubled, and that the danger is greatly increased by the difficulty of keeping the stoves at a proper temperature, so as not to destroy by heat the life. giving principle of the air.

Hence, the ventilation of our school buildings is a matter of great interest to every parent; for a goodly part of the life of every child is spent in the school room. In the small buildings in the country, the same means of obtaining good air may be employed as in smaller dwellings. But in large educational structures the fire place and stove cannot be used to advantage, and a resort must be had to other means of heating. The necessity for this is manifest when we consider the number of children usually collected in a single room. On the supposition that fifty are present,. there should be a supply of at least 40,000 cubic feet of fresh air each hour. That is, in each room containing fifty children there should pass into the room 800 cubic feet of air, and pass out of the same room the same number of cubic feet of vitiated air every minute; or, in a room thirty feet square and nine feet high there should be an entire change of air every ten minutes. This we take to be a very moderate estimate, the authorities varying greatly on this point, their estimate ranging from 300 to as high as 2000 feet per hour for each person.

In addition to having proper inlets and outlets, means must be employed to drive in and draw out-drive in the pure air and drive out the foul; and a perfect system for this purpose is a desideratum. Many plans have been projected; but none as yet is perfcet, though there are some very good approximations.

Another matter is the bringing of the air to the proper temperature. In some respects it would be preferable to bring the air from the outside directly into the room; but this is met with the objection that there is too much danger of suddenly chilling the air. The method of first heating the air in an outside chamber before introducing it, has the ob jection that when it enters a room it is much more apt to deposit on the walls the deleterious substance suspended in the air. There should be a mean between these two. The air admitted should be neither too cold nor too hot. And this can be arranged by allowing it to pass through a heated chamber, and if heated to too great a degree tempered with air admitted from without on its way to the room which is to receive it; valves being arranged so that air may be admitted from either source, and in quantities easily regulated.

Two other rules should be followed:

1. In whatever manner air be brought to the chamber, it should enter at a point at least three feet higher than the heads of the persons oc cupying the room, and never admitted through openings in or near to the floor: since such admission not only occasions uncomfortable draughts, but is apt to foul the air.

2. The outlets should be near the floor. It is well known that these rules are sometimes reversed, that the pure air is admitted through openings in or near the floor, and the impure air allowed to escape or be drawn off from openings in or near the ceilings, and with moderately fair results. But this latter method would not be our preference. But we have more than occupied the time allotted to us. We have spoken almost wholly as to the importance of pure air as a hygienic factor. There are other factors quite as important.

As we have said, our health, our lives, are dependent on the air we breathe. But what has been said and what yet remains to be said as to our daily food, our habits, the climate we choose, the land upon which we locate our dwellings, the clothing we wear, the tempers we cherish, the passions we gratify or repress, and the thousand and one things that have a bearing on our hygienic condition? These are all matters that demand our serious, earnest attention, and call upon us, as we value our own lives and those of our families and friends, to be up and doing that the sanitary condition of our people may be improved, and valuable lives longer spared to act well their part and be a blessing to the nations.

No man endowed with the single sense of smell can walk the streets of these two cities without a solemn conviction that disease and death lurk in the damp and noisome cellars of many of our dwellings; that foul and decaying matter, beside pouring its flood of sickening smells upon the passer-by, is finding its way into the upper floors of these same houses, and endangering to an alarming extent, as we were yesterday so forcibly reminded, the lives of their inmates. The Almighty has showered upon us advantages exceeding those granted to any other people in that he has given us a fuel* that yields its results without an effort on our part. Yet upon every hand, are we saluted with the sickening odors of imperfectly consumed garbage, as it comes from the chimneys of our bakeries and manufactories where one would expect all cleanliness to be present, and this simply because a few cents daily may be saved from the hands of the man who carts away our rubbish. What the Jews had left over after certain days, was to be entirely consumed. I fear our combustion is not in accord with the Jewish law.

We have now, as you see, scarcely reached the threshhold of our subject; but had our chairman been strict he would some time ago have 'called a halt;" and lest he should be tempted still to do so, we leave *Natural gas.

these matters with you, hoping that you may have determined on your part, to do all that lies in your power to bring about the age when men of a hundred years shall be no more of a curiosity than now are those of fifty.

36. THE SMALL POX AT NANTICOKE.

By LEWIS H. TAYLOR, M. D., of Wilkes Barre, Pa.

The Steamship Rugia, from Hamburg, which arrived at New York, December 2d, 1888, brought, among other passengers, two families of German Poles named Liezkowski, who came directly from Castle Garden to Nanticoke, arriving December 4th or 5th. They went at once to live with relatives of the same name in that part of Nanticoke, known as Honey-pot.

On December 24, Dr. Daniel Evans was called to attend a child, aged two years, in the Liezkowski family, in which the newly arrived emigrants had taken their abode. He found the child suffering with smallpox, and a brother partly convalescent from the same disease, no physician having been previously called to the latter patient, although he had been ill since December 17.

Dr. Evans at once reported his suspicions to the borough council, and that body, through its sanitary committee, requested another physician, Dr. Holly, to investigate the matter also. This he did, finding two cases of genuine small pox.

The house in which these patients lived was immediately quarantined and no one allowed to enter. A pest-house was built as soon as possible, at least seven hundred yards from any other building, and these two patients were removed to it. The younger child died January 1st, 1889. These children were not of the emigrants, but were living in the house to which the newly arrived emigrants came, and the question naturally arises at this point, whence came the contagion? Subsequent investi gations revealed the fact that a boy of Franz Liezkowski's family that arrived in New York, December 2d, was slightly sick and had a few eruptions on his body soon after they moved into the block where the disease made itself manifest. Clearly then, in this account we have the origin of the trouble.

Had the sanitary committee displayed the same zeal and judgment in managing subsequent cases that arose as they did in the beginning of the trouble, there would have been no occasion for this paper, nor would there have been over fifty cases of this loathsome disease as a public charge upon the borough and district poor board.

At the time of the breaking out of the disease in the Liezkowski family, there were twenty-nine persons in the tenement house who were presumably exposed to the contagion, and of these the following developed the disease in the modified form: