The inventions and discoveries of my time may truly be included among some of the greatest and most wonderful which the world has seen. I have not yet passed forty summers, but perfectly recollect being one of the gaping crowd that first witnessed lighting the streets with gas. Near to the Marble Arch, at the top of Oxford-street, London, stands an iron post, on which is inscribed “Here stood Tyburn Gate, 1829.” Now I well remember this Oxford-street turnpike, and the oil-lamps ‘dimly burning,’ which enabled the University coach and the eight-horse waggons to nearside the off-side gatepost; at that time all Oxford-street and the shops therein protested against ‘the light of other days,’ and became illumined with Murdoch’s gas: thus the oil-lamps passed away for ever. Tunneling Primrose Hill for the first railway into London was a fund of enjoyment to me; there I learned my first practical lesson in mineralogy—to distinguish iron pyrites from real gold nuggets, which it at times resembles. One morning the newspapers teemed with an account of the late Duke of Wellington witnessing the first electric telegram from Drayton, twelve miles from London. People flocked to Paddington, and paid a shilling to do the same; of course I was among them! It appears to me but the other day when every housewife kept her linen rags to make tinder. The bunch of matches, like a large fan, the flint and steel were in every house. What a change has the lucifer produced? After hearing Professor Brande one night deliver a popular lecture at the Royal Institution, the Secretary read a letter received that day from Paris, announcing the discoveries of Daguerre. The assertion that the picture of a camera could be fixed by the mere agency of light startled belief, yet from that hour photography took its rise. Strange discoveries now crowd upon the memory. The oxyhydrogen flame that burns the diamond and volatilizes platinum; then came the Drummond lime-light that is visible as a star sixty miles away; now followed Dobereiner’s lamp that ignites itself when you lift a latch. Electroplating becomes one of the arts of the country. A new force of nature, actinism, was recognised. Wonderfully active principles of plants—quinine, morphia, and strychnine, are discovered. The food of plants and the balance of organic nature are developed at Giessen. New metals are discovered and are practically eliminated for the use of manufacturers; and so we thus come to the present, when I now write with an aluminium pen made from tiles laid in a wall when Constantine was crowned at York.[18]
Mr. Akermann, in an elaborate series of “Notes on the Origin and History of the Bayonet,” has been unable to verify the statement that this weapon derives its name from Bayonne, the reputed place of its invention. Voltaire alludes to it in the eighth book of the Henriade. The results of the inquiry may be thus briefly recited:—That “bayonette” was the name of a knife, which may probably have been so designated either from its having been the peculiar weapon of a crossbow-man, or from the individual who first adopted it; that its first recorded use as a weapon of war occurs in the Memoirs of Puysegur, and may be referred to the year 1647; that it is first mentioned in England by Sir J. Turner, 1670-71; that it was introduced into the English army in the first half of the year 1672; that before the peace of Nimwegen Puysegur had seen troops on the Continent armed with bayonets, furnished with rings, which would go over the muzzles of the muskets; that in 1686 the device of the socket-bayonet was tested before the French king, and failed; that in 1689 Mackay, by the adoption of the ringed bayonet, successfully opposed the Highlanders at the battle of Killicrankie; lastly, that the bayonet with the socket was in general use in the year 1703.
William Cobbett, who had been a soldier, and carried the bayonet, used to call it “King George’s Toasting-fork.”
This word, which so often occurs in the account of the late Indian war, is simply the Hindustani for plunder. Noun, “loot,” plunder; verb, “lootna,” to plunder. This is one of the many examples of Hindustani words generally used in English conversation in India, which gradually came into use at home, amongst the oldest and most familiar of which is, perhaps, the slang term “that’s the cheez,” for “that’s the thing,” “cheez” Hindustani for “thing.”
When this Indian term was first applied to our telegraphic messages, a considerable amount of learned disquisition was wasted in seeking its origin. Any one who has been in India must remember the curious pronunciation by natives of many English proper names, as well as of other words, for which they have no translation in Hindustani; generally abbreviating a long difficult expression, and sometimes even changing altogether the pronunciation. On the introduction of the telegraph into India, there being no Hindustani word, the natives were obliged to attempt English, and the easiest way they could manage to pronounce telegraphic message was “telegram.” This being an easy abbreviation was at once picked up and adopted by the English in India, and then came home in the same way that we got “loot” from India, and now again from China.—Correspondent of the “Daily News.”
Archæology, far from being a mere unprofitable dilettantism, has a positive money-value, one appreciable not only by the literary or scientific mind, but even by those who look exclusively to material interests—that commerce, in fine, no less than history or art, is under obligations to archæology. In the case of our pottery and earthenware manufacture,—now an important branch of our national trade—at the time when Wedgwood first began his operations, England was an importing country with regard to this article of trade, drawing her supplies from Holland, France, and Germany. About the year 1760, Wedgwood established himself in Staffordshire. The models which he selected for imitation were taken from the antique:—from the Portland Vase, Greek vases, cameos, and old coins,—but, above all, from the magnificent collection of Etruscan vases and earthenware, which was purchased about that time from Sir William Hamilton, for the British Museum. Such was the immediate improvement in classical elegance and purity of design, which the manufactures derived from these sources, that within very few years England became an exporting country in this article; and the trade was steadily developed, until, in the year 1857, the declared value of her exports nearly reached a million and a half of money. Wedgwood’s own sense of his obligation to ancient models was marked by the name he gave to the new village formed around his works in Staffordshire, which he called Etruria, in honour of them. More recently the collection of Etruscan antiquities made by the Prince of Canino, and brought to England by Signor Campanari, has marked another stage of progress in this branch of industry; and, at this moment, the best silversmiths and jewellers in London resort to the British Museum, to study these models, and copy them for reproduction. Much of the well-known Minton-ware is either copied from, or due to the study and imitation of, the Majolica ware of Mediæval Italy; whilst the smaller objects of Assyrian art, brought from Nineveh by Mr. Layard, are extensively copied by artists, and reductions of them made in Parian, in marble, or in bronze.—Address to the Cambrian Archæological Association, by Mr. C. G. Wynne, M.P.
There is no hope of the diffusion of a better taste till all classes of society are familiarized with the best works of the best artists; and English manufactures will never be generally improved in design till the purchasers as well as the producers know how to appreciate what is beautiful, and till a better intuitive taste prevails in the cottage as well as in the mansion. So long as it is cheaper to reproduce familiar shapes and ornaments, so long will it be vain to expect sufficient encouragement for improvements in design. Theorists may preach for ever as to abstract beauty, but the public will buy the old-fashioned, tasteless goods, if they cost less.
We do not believe that a beautiful thing need be more expensive than an ugly thing. At any rate, this is the lesson to impress upon such of our manufacturers as may be disposed to join the art-movement of the day. It is not enough to design a novelty in really good taste—it must be at least as cheap as the monstrosity which it is meant to supersede, and, if possible, cheaper. Is it not worth while to inquire whether there may not be some deeper reason than a supposed depraved taste for the hideous colouring, so dubious and sombre, of our Manchester goods, for example? To take an instance: we believe that Hoyle’s Prints, famous throughout the world for their slates and lilacs, are dyed of those most unpicturesque hues for no other reason than that they are the most “fast” colours that can be produced. If our chemists could discover the secret of making the primitive colours equally “fast,” and if the needful pigments were no dearer, we believe that cotton printing would be revolutionized. But, meanwhile, customers in every market of the world will ask for Hoyle’s Fast Prints, in preference to the brightest and most beautiful colours, which, however charming to the eye when bran-new, would disappear in the first wash.—Saturday Review.
From the profuse display of what are designated “gold chains” in the windows of jewellers’ shops, there is evidently a large demand for these articles, although the purchasers are little aware of the value of the articles. The gold coin of the realm is, in technical language, 22 carats fine—that is, it consists of 22 parts by weight of fine, or pure gold, and 2 parts by weight of copper; and gold plate, &c., is 18 carats fine—that is, it contains 18 parts by weight of gold and 6 of copper in the 24. The alloy of which a large proportion of gold chains is made contains only 8 or 10 parts by weight of fine gold in the 24 parts, the remaining 16 or 14 parts being common brass. The application of brass for this purpose is of comparatively recent date, and enables the manufacturer to adulterate gold to a much greater extent than is practicable with copper alone. This depends upon the fact that brass resembles gold in colour, and copper does not. The brassy gold chains in question are far inferior in colour to chains made of gold of 18 or 22 carats fine, and they would hardly be tolerated by many persons when seen side by side with those of the latter description. They are now manufactured on a very large scale by the aid of machinery, and so great has been the decrease in their cost of production, that the value of the labour upon certain kinds of chains has been reduced from 30s. to 3s. 6d., or even less. It is usual to deposit upon the finished chain an exceedingly thin coating of pure gold by the electrotype process. This, of course, is speedily worn off by friction, and consequently the original fine colour of the chain at the time of purchase disappears. The propriety of this practice is questionable. If the public like cheap brassy gold chains, and are satisfied with their appearance, it is their own affair, and no one has a right to say a word; but, in buying such articles, beware of the small value of the materials in comparison with gold.[19]
Among the artistic triumphs in the International Exhibition of 1862 was the magnificent work in gold and enamel, by M. Payen, which is stated to have cost him several years’ labour, or the sum of 6000l. In this work the late Prince Consort evinced considerable interest when he was in Paris; and it was mainly to the Prince’s kind interference on behalf of M. Payen, that the Great Seal of England was sent to Paris, in order that it might be copied as one of the great seals of the different nations, which form the border of the work. The subject of the allegory is the Reward of Genius and Industry: this is shown on a large centre-piece on a ground of blue enamel; and the border, in which the seals of different countries are emblazoned, is formed of filigree work in gold. There was besides in the Exhibition an immense variety of works by M. Payen, including gold rings from three francs to three thousand francs each.
Physiologists divide Human Life into four periods, the embryonic, immature, reproductive, and sterile ages: the first terminating at birth; the second at puberty, which is achieved at 15; the third at 45, after which few mothers have children; and the last at 100 and upwards.
Individual life exists on such conditions that it may at any moment cease; and the vital tenure varies not only with every change of external circumstances, but by natural laws at every year of age. It is most insecure in infancy and old age. At the age of puberty—before the period when the growth of the body is most rapid—before the age of its greatest strength—before the age of greatest intellectual power—it is less assailable by death. The chance of living through a given year increases from birth to the age of 14 or 15; it decreases to the age of 55-8 at a slightly accelerating rate; after which the vitality declines at a much more rapid rate.
It is worthy of remark that the very aged have not in the ten years [1851-1861] increased in near the same proportion as the general population. In 1851 there were in England 107,041 persons who had passed the limit of “14 years;” in 1861 the number had only increased to 113,250. In 1851 215 persons were returned as being above 100 years old, but only 201 persons in 1861—one in every 100,000. Of this last number 146 were women, and but 55 men—nearly three women to one man. Only 26 had never been married. About a third were found living in large towns—21 in London, 11 in Liverpool, five in Manchester, one in Birmingham, four in Bristol, one in Leeds. As in 1851, so in 1861, these very aged persons were not found so often in the midland districts of the kingdom as in the north and the east, and most of all in the west. At the last Census, Norfolk had among its 435,000 people 11 above 100 years old; Gloucestershire, with 485,000 people, had eight centenarians; and Somerset, with its 445,000, had nine. Wales, with its 1,112,000, had no less than 24, the same number as Lancashire with its 2,400,000 people, and more than London with its 2,800,000 inhabitants. So far as the occupations of these long-lived persons are given, the returns show a majority engaged in pursuits that caused them to be much in the open air. Three had been farmers, 13 out-door farm servants, five labourers, three hawkers, three seamen, three soldiers; there was a fisherman, a quarrier, a waterworks man, a miller. But there was also a scrivener, four shoemakers, a baker, a grocer, a carpenter, a marine-store dealer, three persons occupied in cotton manufacture, two in woollen, one in silk, one in lace. Of the women the returns commonly state only whether the person is wife or widow, but we are told that there were six who had been domestic servants, two nurses, three charwomen, two washerwomen, and a gipsy. One centenarian was a member of the Household. Fourteen are described as land or house proprietors, or independent; 19 were passing their last years in the workhouse. Six were blind.—From the Census Report.
If we regard the construction of the blood-vessels, and other parts of the circulating system, we find that they are constructed entirely on physical laws. The Heart is the mover which propels the blood, and, after having given the stroke, its fibres become relaxed, to receive a fresh supply. In this case it is important that the fluid should not again regurgitate into its cavities; and to prevent that, a system of valves, not thicker than paper, has been contrived. Here we see a design identical with that pursued by man in the construction of his pump, or even, in some cases, of his floodgates. The only difference between the work of man and the work of Nature is, that the latter is executed in a manner so superior, that man feels that he sinks into insignificance beside the Creator.
That wonderful machine, the Heart, goes night and day, for eighty years together, at the rate of 100,000 strokes for every twenty-four hours, having at every stroke a great resistance to overcome. Now, each ventricle will contain at least one ounce of blood; the heart contracts 4000 times in an hour, from which it follows that there pass through the heart every hour 4000 ounces, or 350 pounds of blood. The whole mass of blood is said to be about twenty-five pounds; so that a quantity equal to the whole mass of blood passes through the heart fourteen times in one hour, which is about once in every four minutes.
Mr. John Marshall, in a Lecture on the special organs of the Sense of Hearing, describes the wonderful arrangements for the protection of these organs and their adaptation to their office; the examination of their relative duties, in distinguishing the kinds and intensities of the sounds of such exceeding variety, produced by inanimate nature, by animals, and by art (music). For the appreciation of the pitch and quality of sounds Mr. Marshall considers that we are indebted to the delicate fibrous structure of the cochlea; for the knowledge of the intensity of sound to the tympanum or drum, which, possessing the power of tension and relaxation, thus acts a protective part; while in our knowledge of the distance and direction of sound we are guided by the external parts of the ear and by our experience.
Dr. J. H. Bowditch, of the United States, having examined with a microscope the matter deposited on the teeth and gums of more than 40 individuals, selected from all classes of society, and in nearly every variety of bodily condition, has discovered, in nearly every case, animal and vegetable parasites in great numbers; in fact, the only persons whose mouths were found to be entirely free from these parasites cleaned their teeth four times daily, using soap once. Among the agents applied, it was found that tobacco-juice and smoke did not impair the vitality of the parasites; nor did the chlorine tooth-wash, pulverized bark, soda, ammonia, &c. Soap, however—pure white soap—destroyed the parasites instantly, and is, therefore, the best specific for cleaning the teeth.
It having been asked, “Did the Greek surgeons extract teeth?” Mr. George Hayes, the well-known dentist, replied, that on one of the ornaments found in an ancient building in the Crimea, is represented a surgeon drawing a tooth from the mouth of one of the barbarian royalties. “This,” says Mr. Hayes, “I think, establishes the fact that there were then peripatetics, either Egyptian or Greek dentists, who resorted to those distant countries for the purpose of practising their art. I believe this is the only representation of a surgical operation to be met with on ancient sculpture.”
Sugar has been proved injurious to the teeth, from its tendency to combine with their calcareous basis.
Many have been the appeals to our sympathy with the affliction of the loss of sight, but neither has, perhaps, exceeded in pathos the following from an address delivered by Sir John Coleridge, at the West of England Institution for the Blind:
“Conceive to yourselves, for a moment, what is the ordinary entertainment and conversation that passes around any one of your family tables; how many things we talk of as matters of course, as to the understanding and as to the bare conception of which sight is absolutely necessary. Consider again, what an affliction the loss of sight must be, and that when we talk of the golden sun, the bright stars, the beautiful flowers, the blush of spring, the glow of summer, and the ripening fruit of autumn, we are talking of things of which we do not convey to the minds of these poor creatures who are born blind anything like an adequate conception. There was once a great man, as we all know, in this country, a poet—and nearly the greatest poet that England has ever had to boast of—who was blind; and there is a passage in his works which is so true and touching that it exactly describes that which I have endeavoured, in feeble language, to paint. Milton says:
“The great poet when intent upon his work sought for celestial light to accomplish it. And this brings me to that part of the labours of our institution upon which I dwell the most, and which, after all, is the greatest compensation we can afford to the inmates for the affliction they suffer; and that is, the means we provide for them to read the blessed Word of God, which they can read by day as well as by night, for light in their case is not an essential.”
Mr. A. E. Durham, in a discourse at the Royal Institution, on these questions, commenced by some remarks on Sleep considered as pleasant, irresistible, and necessary. A Chinese murderer, whose punishment was total privation of sleep, died on the ninth day. The amount of needful sleep varies in different persons, eight hours being the average. John Hunter took four hours’ sleep and an hour’s nap after dinner. General Elliot (of Gibraltar) required only four hours. The conditions favouring sleep were referred to—e.g., silence, warmth, sufficient food, and, especially, a quiet conscience and a mind at ease; and various exceptions were noticed. Considered psychologically, sleep was defined as suspended consciousness, and dreaming as a partial revival of consciousness. Torpor through cold, and coma through disease, are not sleep. After describing the structure of the brain, Mr. Durham stated that he regarded the action of sleep as analogous to a chemical process, during which the brain tissue regains from the blood what it had lost through the activity of the mind. To enable him to ascertain the condition of the brain during sleep, &c., he administered chloroform to a dog, and, while it was insensible, removed a portion of the skull, substituting for it a piece of glass. He found thus that, when the dog slept, the blood-vessels were comparatively empty, the arteries lost their bright red colour and assumed the blue colour of the veins, and the brain tissue collapsed, leaving a space within the skull which was filled with cerebral fluid. When the dog was awakened the blood-vessels resumed their functions, and the brain once more filled the cavity.
It is better to go to sleep on the right side. If one goes to sleep on the left side the operation of emptying the stomach of its contents is like drawing water from a well. After going to sleep let the body take its own position. If you sleep on your back, especially soon after a hearty meal, the weight of the digestive organs and that of the food, resting upon the great vein of the body, near the backbone, compresses it, and arrests the flow of the blood more or less. If the arrest is partial, the sleep is disturbed, and there are unpleasant dreams. For persons who eat three times a day it is amply sufficient to make the last meal of bread-and-butter, and a cup of some warm drink. No one can starve on it; while a perseverance in the habit soon begets a vigorous appetite for breakfast, so promising of a day of comfort.—Hall’s Journal of Health.
Dr. Davy has read to the British Association an interesting paper “On the Question, whether the Hair is or is not subject to Sudden Changes of Colour.” This he decides in the negative, explaining away the evidence on which the contrary belief has become popular; and also maintaining with regard to seemingly analogous phenomena, such as the becoming white of the ptarmigan, and many animals and birds in winter, that it is through moult and not change of colour in feather or hair.
Nevertheless, in the biography of Montaigne, the celebrated French essayist, we read:—“Among others whose acquaintance Montaigne made in the bath-room, was Seigneur d’Andelot, formerly in the service of Charles V. and governor for him of St. Quentin. One side of his beard and one eyebrow were white; and he related that this change came to him in an instant. One day as he was sitting at home, with his head leaning on his hand, in profound grief at the loss of a brother, executed by the Duke of Alva as accomplice of Counts Egmont and Horne, when he looked up and uncovered the part which he had clutched in his agony, the people present thought that flour had been sprinkled over him.”
Mr. D. P. Parry, Staff-surgeon, at Aldershott, writes the following very remarkable account of a case of which he says he made memoranda shortly after the occurrence:—“On February 19, 1858, the column under General Franks, in the south of Oude, was engaged with a rebel force at the village of Chanda, and several prisoners were taken; one of them, a Sepoy of the Bengal army, was brought before the authorities for examination, and I being present had an opportunity of watching from the commencement the fact I am about to record. Divested of his uniform and stripped naked, he was surrounded by the soldiers, and then first apparently became alive to the dangers of his position; he trembled violently, intense horror and despair were depicted in his countenance, and although he answered the questions addressed to him, he seemed almost stupified with fear; while actually under observation, within the space of half-an-hour, his hair became grey on every portion of his head, it having been when first seen by us the glossy jet black of the Bengalee, aged about 24. The attention of the bystanders was first attracted by the sergeant, whose prisoner he was, exclaiming, ‘He is turning grey,’ and I with several other persons watched its progress. Gradually but decidedly the change went on, and a uniform greyish colour was completed within the period above named.”
Sir Edward Wilmot, the physician, was, when a youth, so far gone in Consumption, that Dr. Radcliffe, whom he consulted, gave his friends no hope of his recovery, yet he lived to the age of ninety-three; upon which Dr. Heberden notes: “This has been the case with some others, who had many symptoms of Consumption in youth.”
The life of Sir Hans Sloane was protracted by extraordinary means: when a youth, Sloane was attacked with spitting of blood, which interrupted his education for three years; but by abstinence from wine and other stimulants, and continuing, in some measure, this regimen ever afterwards, he was enabled to prolong his life to the age of ninety-three years; exemplifying the truth of his favourite maxim—that sobriety, temperance, and moderation, are the best preservatives that nature has granted to mankind.
The difference in disease produced by change to warmer or colder climate has been thus ably illustrated by Dr. Graves:
We observe that the English in India suffer greatly from liver disease; whilst, on the other hand, negroes and natives frequently die of phthisis (consumption) in England. Monkeys die of consumption, so do lions and tigers. This is a very important fact in the pathology of phthisis, as tending to prove that although phthisis is in many instances distinctly hereditary, nevertheless it may be, and is, frequently acquired. Nothing can furnish a stronger proof that phthisis may be acquired than the instances I have adduced, for I need not tell you that no lion or tiger is ever born in warm climates of a consumptive sire, or ever dies there of tubercular disease. An additional illustration of the influence heat exercises on the size of the liver is afforded by the celebrated Strasburg geese. By feeding these birds in a particular way, and keeping them in artificial heat, the liver becomes diseased, grows to an enormous size, and in this state furnishes the materials of the famous pâté. How many instances occur where our citizens, exposing themselves to the long continued operation of the very same causes, confinement, overfeeding, heat, and want of exercise, are affected by them in exactly the same way! How slight the difference between the morbid phenomena displayed in the post-mortem of a city feaster and the autopsy of an over-fed goose.
A knowledge of the nature and operations of Perfumes is a very proper thing to propagate. Ignorance respecting them often leads to mischief. Dr. Capellini relates the story of a lady who fancied that she could not bear the smell of a rose, and who accordingly fainted at the sight of one, which turned out to be artificial! This is rather an extreme case; but minor mistakes, adverse to the use of perfumes, are very common. Many persons suppose that they are injurious, because flowers left in a bedroom by night, will sometimes cause headache and sickness. But this is attributable, not to the escaping aroma, but to the carbonic acid which the air imbibes from the flowers. On the other hand Mr. Rimmel contends that perfumes are beneficial and prophylactic in the highest degree. He reminds us that after the Dutch had destroyed, by speculation, the clove-trees in the Island of Ternate, that colony was visited by a series of epidemics, which had been kept off until then by the fragrant smell of the cloves; and in more modern times, when London and Paris were ravaged by cholera, there was not a single victim among the numerous persons employed in the perfumery factories of either city.
A private letter from Her Majesty’s Vice-consul at Cape Bolivar to Her Majesty’s Acting Consul-General at Caracas states:—“An old woman, named Mariquita Orfila, has discovered a perfect remedy for the black vomit and yellow fever, by means of which several persons have been completely cured after a consultation of doctors had declared that the cases were quite hopeless, and that the patients must die in a few hours. The remedy is the juice of the pounded leaves of the verbena, given in small doses three times a day, and injections of the same every two hours, until the bowels are emptied. The verbena is a wild shrub, to be found growing almost everywhere, and particularly in low, moist ground. All our doctors have adopted its use, and now few or none die of those late fearful diseases. There are two kinds of it, male and female; the latter is most used.”
Upon the proper adjustments of the dynamical forces which keep up the ceaseless movements of the atmosphere, the life of organic nature depends. If the air that is breathed were not taken away and renewed, warm-blooded life would cease: if carbon, and oxygen, and hydrogen, and water were not in due quantities dispensed by the restless air to the flora of the earth, all vegetation would perish for lack of food. That our planet may be liable to no such calamity, power has been given to the wayward wind, as it “bloweth where it listeth,” to bring down from the pure blue sky fresh supplies of life-giving air wherever it is wanted; and to catch up from the earth, wherever it may be found, that which has become stale; to force it up, there to be deflagrated among the clouds, purified and renovated by processes known only to Him whose ministers they are. The slightest change in the purity of the atmosphere, though it may be too slight for recognition by chemical analysis in the laboratory, is sure to be detected by its effects upon the nicer chemistry of the human system; for it is known to be productive of disease and death. No chemical tests are sensitive enough to tell us what those changes are; but experience has taught us the necessity of ventilation in our buildings, of circulation through our groves. The cry, in cities, for fresh air from the mountains or the sea, reminds us continually of the life-giving virtues of circulation. Experience teaches that all air, when pent up and deprived of circulation, becomes impure and poisonous. In referring to ventilation, we are never to forget that, in order to secure Nature’s pure air, it is essential to guard against the many sources of its pollution. The air which descends to us is pure; but it is left to man to maintain it so; hence we have to drain our marshes, empty foul ditches, remove cesspools, and see that our streets are sewered and paved. The Deity has given laws for the moral government of society; but He leaves to man, on whom He has bestowed intelligence, the discovery and the application of those scientific means which are necessary to health and physical happiness.—Captain Maury.
In Wyman’s Practical Treatise on Ventilation we find these curious results. In a weaving-mill near Manchester, where the ventilation was bad, the proprietor caused a fan to be mounted. The consequences soon became apparent in a curious manner. The operatives, little remarkable for olfactory refinement, instead of thanking their employer for his attention to their comfort and health, made a formal complaint to him that the ventilator had increased their appetites, and therefore entitled them to a corresponding increase of wages! By stopping the fan a part of the day, the ventilation and voracity of the establishment were brought to a medium standard, and complaints ceased. The operatives’ wages would but just support them; any additional demands by their stomachs could only be answered by draughts upon their backs, which were by no means in a condition to answer them. In Edinburgh a club was provided with a dinner in a well ventilated apartment, the air being perfumed as it entered, imitating in succession the fragrance of lavender and the orange-flower. During dinner the members enjoyed themselves as usual, but were not a little surprised at the announcement of the provider, that they had drunk three times as much wine as he had usually provided. Gentlemen of sober, quiet habits, who usually confined themselves to a couple of glasses, were not satisfied with less than half a bottle; others, who took half a bottle, now extended their potations to a bottle and a half. In fact, the hotel-keeper was drunk dry. That gentlemen who had indulged so freely were not aware of it at the time is not wonderful; but that they felt no unpleasant sensations the following morning, which they did not, is certainly quite so.
Among the sanitary enactments of the last few years is the Local Government Act, for the better enforcement of appliances for Public Health. An Office has been established specially for the business of this Act, with a well-paid Secretary and Medical Inspector: it arose upon the cessation of the labours of the Board of Health; and the gain by the change may be estimated by the following Hints from an engineering Sanitary Inspector of the Local Government Office:
Sanitary work is not necessarily doing some great thing, but consists more in prompt and efficient attention to small matters. Fresh air is the best disinfectant, but most people, even in England, treat fresh air as if it were an evil. We shut it out of our houses by day, and confine foul air in our rooms by night, especially during the time we use them for sleep.
An invalid takes a carriage airing with closed windows; such a ride is, however, in truth, a carriage poisoning. If an open carriage cannot be used on any day in the year with safety, the individual had better not use a carriage; and no room should be occupied which has not an unceasing flow of fresh air through it—not necessarily a draught, but motion. Open flues, open doors, or open windows admit of change of air; not, however, always with comfort to the inmates. But as a room cannot be hermetically sealed up, provision ought to be made for an admission of fresh air, rather than for the stealing in of sewer, drain, cesspool, or sink gases. List up doors, carpet floors, paper window-joints, and block up fireplaces, if contagious diseases are to have their most malignant effects; ventilate houses, by open windows on staircases or in corridors if possible, but by all means ventilate. Cold does not kill so many as foul air, although a low temperature generally increases the weekly bills of mortality. But it is the very poor who suffer most. The Chinese say, “Fools and beggars only suffer from cold; the one have not wit to clothe properly, the others are too poor to clothe sufficiently.” Clothing ought to be the protection against cold, not warm and foul air. In every house in which typhus fever or small-pox prevails it will be safer for the inhabitants of such houses to remove the windows rather than to keep them closed. An open shed in a field with warm clothing will be better than a closed room in a town. I have seen fever patients and small-pox patients treated beneath open sheds in the country safely, and I have heard experienced surgeons remark that fresh air and diet were of more avail than medicine. I have seen a British army in hospital and in the field surrounded by foul air, wasting away by fever. I have seen that army restored to health by cleanliness and an admission of fresh air. The air was not cooked nor manipulated by any patented apparatus, but was admitted direct from the vast ocean of fresh air about and above, by slits in the ridge of huts in the Crimea, by the removal of top squares from fixed windows at the great hospitals on the Bosphorus, and by the opening up of flues wherever these could with advantage be formed in those hospitals. The ordinary atmosphere of any country freely admitted and unceasingly changed is the only safe medium in which to breathe. In all countries and under all climates excessive disease to man comes from foul air generated within his dwelling rather than from any external influences. The remedy against disease is, therefore, fresh air. Infection is scarcely possible amid abundance of fresh air. Soap and water can kill contagion if used in time.
The intercepting main sewers of the metropolis, if brought into use, will actually add to existing evils rather than remove them, if these sewers only pass away large volumes of surplus water which now dilute the deposit in many scores of miles of secondary and branch sewers and drains. There are hundreds of open sewer ventilators within the metropolis sending out unceasingly thousands of cubic feet of sewage gases to the streets above. All this vast volume of gas might be cheaply disinfected by being made to pass slowly through charcoal, and all foul sewers may either be cleansed or be disinfected in time.
Sir E. B. Lytton, in Blackwood’s Magazine, observes: We who are lovers of the country are not unnaturally disposed to consider that our preference argues some finer poetry of sentiment—some steadier devotion to those ennobling studies which sages commend as the fitting occupations of retirement. But the facts do not justify that self-conceit upon our part. It was said by a philosopher who was charged with all the cares of a world’s empire, that “there is no such great matter in retirement. A man may be wise and sedate in a crowd as well as in a desert, and keep the noise of the world from getting within him. In this case, as Plato observes, the walls of a town and the enclosure of a sheep-fold may be made the same thing.” Certainly, poets, and true poets, have lived by choice in the dingy streets of great towns. Men of science, engaged in reasonings the most abstruse, on subjects the most elevating, have usually fixed their dwelling-place in bustling capitals, as if the din of the streets without deepened, by the force of a contrast, the quiet of those solitary closets wherein they sat analysing the secret heart of that nature whose every-day outward charms they abandoned to commonplace adorers. On the other hand, men perforce engaged in urban occupations, neither bards nor sages but City clerks and traders, feel a yearning of the heart towards a home in the country; loving rural nature with so pure a fervour that, if closer intercourse is forbidden, they are contented to go miles every evening to kiss the skirt of her robe. Their first object is to live out of London, if but in a suburb; to refresh their eyes with the green of a field; to greet the first harbinger of spring in the primrose venturing forth in their own tiny realm of garden. It is for them, as a class, that cities extend beyond their ancient bounds; while our nobles yet clung to their gloomy halls in the Fleet, traders sought homesteads remote from their stalls and wares in the pleasing village of Charing.
The preservation of open places for the recreation of the people is watched with much jealousy by those who take an interest in the assertion of popular rights. Mr. J. S. Mill, the historian, has put in this eloquent plea for their maintenance:
There is room in the world no doubt, and even in old countries, for an immense increase of population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But although it may be innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain in the greatest degree all the advantages, both of co-operation and of social intercourse, has in all the more populous countries been attained. A population may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature, with every rood of land brought into cultivation which is capable of growing food for human beings, every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food; every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary long before necessity compels them to do so.
This is picturesquely eloquent; but it may be argued that a public “green” or common, in the neighbourhood of a large town, is often a rendezvous for the idle and abandoned, in their brutalizing sports: the great city, like a cauldron, with more evils than that in Macbeth, seems to boil over, and deposit its scum upon the circumjacent ground.
We might expect to find, from the universality of their application, remedies for