Chapter IV: ABSORPTION is performed in two ways, by the veins, and the (6)

_Disease Germs Carried in Soiled Clothing_ (p. 89).--The conveyance of cholera germs by bodies of men moving along the lines of human communication, without necessarily affecting the individuals who transport them, is now easy to understand; for it is well established that clothes or linen soiled by cholera patients may not only impart the germs with which they are contaminated to those who handle them when fresh, but that, after having been dried and packed, they may infect persons at any distance who incautiously unfold them. Thus, while the nurses of cholera patients may, with proper precautions, enjoy an absolute immunity from attack, the disease germs may be introduced into new localities without any ostensible indication of their presence. It is obvious that the only security against such introduction consists in the destruction or thorough disinfection of every scrap of clothing or linen which has been about the person of a cholera patient.--DR. CARPENTER.

I have known scarlet fever to be carried by the clothing of a nurse into a healthy family, and communicate the disease to every member of the family. I have known cholera to be communicated by the clothes of the affected person to the women engaged in washing the clothes. I have known smallpox conveyed by clothes that had been made in a room where the tailor had by his side sufferers from the terrible malady. I have seen the new cloth, out of which was to come the riding habit for some innocent child to rejoice in as she first wore it, undergo the preliminary duty of forming part of the bed clothing of another child stricken down with fever. Lastly, I have known scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, and cholera, communicated by clothing contaminated in the laundry.--DR. RICHARDSON.

THE SANITARY HOME (see p. 94).--1. _The Site_.--First and foremost of all the things you are to consider, is the healthfulness of a situation. The brightest house and cheeriest outlook in nature will be made somber by the constant presence of a doctor, and the wandering around of an unseen, but ever felt, specter in the shape of miasm....Malaria-malus, bad; aria, air--means, in its common definition, simply bad air. Miasma is its synonym,--infecting effluvia floating in the air. Because, as everybody knows, certain places have always chills and fever associated with them, and other places have not, it follows that between such places there is some fact of difference; this fact is the presence of miasm, a cause of disease, having a signification associative with the locality....

Vegetation, heat, and moisture: these are the three active agents in the production of miasma, to which a fourth is to be added, in the influence of non-drainage, either by the way of the atmosphere or running water. The strongest example of a malarious locality one might make would be in suggesting a marshy valley in a tropical climate, so overrun with fixed water as to destroy a prolific vegetation, yet not covering it enough to protect the garbage from the putrefying influences of the sun; this valley, in turn, so environed with hills as to shut off a circulation of air....Ground newly broken is not unapt to generate miasm. This results from the sudden exposure of long-buried vegetable matter to the influences of moisture and heat....It may readily be conceived that malarious situations exist where the miasm is not sufficient in quantity to produce the effects of intermittent or bilious fever, yet where there is quite enough of it to keep a man feeling good for nothing,--he is not sick, but he is never well. I know of one country seat of this kind, where forty thousand dollars would not pay for the improvements put upon it, and where, I am free to declare, I would not think of living, even if, as an inducement, a free gift were made to me of the place....Besides miasm, there are other atmospheric associations to be considered. I recall this moment a distillery, where attempt was made to get clear of the mash by throwing it into a running stream, with the anticipation of its being carried to the river, but where, on the contrary, it became a stagnant putrescent mass, impregnating the air for miles with its unendurable odor, and inducing such a typhoid tendency that half the countryside were down with fever....There are, again, situations where the filth and debris of sewage exercise a poisoning influence on the surrounding atmosphere. This has its principal application to the neighborhood of cities and towns drained into adjoining streams. London and the Thames furnish a notable illustration. A cove, attractive as it is, may prove a receptacle for the accumulation of dead fish and other offal, which shall make untenable the charming cottage upon the bank. A deep cove has rarely healthy surroundings, the circulation of its water being too sluggish to insure freshness and vitality. Water, like blood, to be healthy, must be in a state of continuous movement.

A nonobservant man, purchasing a beautiful stream, may be completely disappointed by finding that the opacity of its water depends upon a factory, of which he had never so much as heard; he may not let his children bathe in it, for he may well fear for them the fate of the fish he so plentifully finds lying dead upon the shore. A poisoned rural stream is as sad a sight as it has grown to be a common one. Always, before buying water, know what there is up stream, or what there is likely to be.

Never buy a country house without seeing to it that the foundation stands upon a higher level than some channel which may drain it, and this, by the way, is not to consider alone the dry summer day on which you go first to visit the place; you are to think of the winter and spring. Look to it that no excess of water shall be able to drown you out; some places, which in dry weather are glorious, are, in winter and spring, ankle deep in slush and mire, and everything about them is as wet as a soaked board. Open the front door of such a house, and a chill strikes you instantly. A fire must be kept the year round, or otherwise you live in the moisture of a vault. Places there are of this class where the question of the water from the kitchen pump comes to absorb the attention of the whole household.

No shade is an abomination. A bilious fever fattens in the sun as does miasm in a marshy valley. Too much shade, on the contrary, and too near the house, is equally of ill import; it keeps things damp, and dampness is a breeder of pestilence. An atmosphere confined about a house by too dense foliage is, like the air of an unventilated room, not fit for practical purposes. The sporadic poisons have an intimate relationship with dampness; miasm lives in it as does a snail in his shell. Besides this, it shuts out the cool breath of the summer nights, and makes restless swelterers where even a blanket might be enjoyed.--DR. JOHN DARBY, _Odd Hours of a Physician_.

2. _The House_.--So construct the dwelling from foundation to roof that no dampness can result. Give to the cellar dry walls, a cement floor, and windows enough to insure constant currents of air. Insist upon such a system of immediate and perfect sewerage as shall render contamination impossible. If "modern improvements" are afforded, see that the plumbing embraces the latest and most scientific sanitary inventions. Do not economize on this point; health, perhaps life, depends upon the perfect working of the various traps. Having employed the most skilled and intelligent plumbers, overlook their work so that you may fully understand the principle applied.

Provide for ample ventilation in every apartment, above and below. Let the sleeping rooms be above stairs, and furnished with appliances for moderate warmth in winter. Treat yourself and your family to as many fireplaces as possible. Indulge in a spacious piazza, so placed that it will not cut off the light from the family sitting room, and, if you can, include a balcony or two, large enough to hold a chair and a table, or a workbasket. Remember that a house is for convenience and protection _only when you can not be in the open air_.

3. _The kitchen and the Dust Heap.--Removal of Household Refuse_.--It has to be assumed, especially where servants are not carefully overlooked, that the dust heap of most houses will contain more or less decomposing organic matter, such as bits of meat, scales and refuse of fish, tea and coffee grounds, and the peelings of vegetables, which, though quite out of place in the ash heap, are apt surreptitiously to be thrown upon it. Such matter soon becomes offensive and even dangerous, and a few days' retention of it in warm weather constitutes a legal nuisance. Household refuse should be carted away as often as once in two days; in extreme hot weather, daily. Where it is inexpedient to remove it frequently, it should be kept covered to the depth of two or three inches with a layer of powdered charcoal, or freshly burnt lime, or, at least, of clear dry earth. All soil which has become foul by the soakage of decaying or vegetable matter should be similarly treated. The refuse heap should be protected from rain, and liquids should never be thrown upon it. Where obnoxious matter has been allowed to accumulate, its disturbance for removal should be conducted with special precaution, both on account of its temporary offensiveness of odor and the more serious results which may follow. It can not be too distinctly understood that cleanliness, ventilation, and dryness are the best of all deodorizers. One of the first of household regulations should be to see that no unsanitary rubbish remains in or about the dwelling. Keep the dust heap itself at the farthest practicable remove from the house. Sow grass seed plentifully upon the back premises, and induce tidiness in the domestics by having the kitchen door open upon a well-kept lawn.

_Burning of Garbage_.--The easiest, quickest, and most sanitary method of disposing of household garbage is to burn it This plan has been officially recommended by the Boards of Health in various cities. Many housekeepers have adopted it, and find it so practicable that in New York City there has become a marked decrease in the amount of household refuse collected by the scavengers. If, after every meal, the draughts of the range be opened, and all waste matter be deposited within, a few moments, or at most, a half hour, will effectually dispose of it, and prevent all the dangers that arise from its retention and accumulation. In the country, where there is plenty of ground, nearly all rubbish can be destroyed in this way and by outside fires, with the additional advantage that the--E. R. S.

4. _The Sewers and Drains.--How to Keep out Sewer Air_.--The most perfectly flushed sewers that are made, under the latest and fullest sanitary light, must, owing to the constant entrance of greasy and other adhesive material, contain more or less of particles that "stick," and also more or less of fungi and mold; so that here, shut away from light and air, goes on the peculiar fermentation that fits it for the soil or habitat of the malarial germ. These germs, the soil once ready, take possession and multiply, whether that soil be a sewer or the blood of a person who sits calmly unconscious in a gorgeous chamber above, with a small continuation of the sewer extending untrapped up to his washbowl.-- DR. DERBY.

Keep constant watch of your traps and drains. Cultivate the faculty of detecting sewer gas in the house. Always fear a smell; trace it to its source and provide a remedy. At the same time, bear in mind that it is not always the foul smell that is most dangerous. There is a close, sweet odor often present in bathrooms, and about drains, that is deadly as the Upas tree. Bad air from neglected drains causes not only fevers, dysentery, and diphtheria, but asthma and other chronic disorders. Illuminating gas, escaping from pipes and prevented from exuding by frozen earth, has been known to pass sidewise for some distance into houses. Thus also the air from cesspools and porous or broken drains finds its way, when an examination of the household entrance to the drain fails to reveal the cause of an existing effluvia. But, however bad the drain may be outside the house, there is little to fear provided the gas can escape externally. Every main drain should have a ventilating pipe carried from it directly outside the house to the top of the highest chimney. The soil pipe inside the house should be carried up through the roof and be open at the top.

Digging for drains or other purposes should not be allowed when the mercury stands above 60°; but if, as in repairs of pipes, it becomes necessary to dig about the house in hot weather, let it be done in the middle of the day, and replace the turf as speedily as possible. If the soil be damp, or the district malarious, sprinkle quicklime upon the earth as fast as it is turned.

_How to Clear Waste Pipes_.--The "sewer gas," about which so much has been written, and which is so justly dreaded, is not, as many suppose, the exclusive product of the sewer. Indeed, the foul and dangerous gases are not only found in the sewers themselves, but in the unventilated waste pipes, and those which are in process of being clogged by the foul matter passing through them. Any obstruction in the soil or waste pipes is therefore doubly dangerous, because it may produce an inflow of foul gas into the pipe, even though the entrance to the sewer itself has been entirely cut off.

In pipes leading from the house to the cesspool, there is a constant accumulation of grease. This enters as a liquid, but hardens as the water cools, and is deposited on the bottom and sides of the pipes. As these accumulations increase, the water way is gradually contracted, till the pipe is closed.

When the pipe is entirely stopped, or allows the water to fall away by drops only, proceed thus: Empty the pipe down to the trap, as far as practicable, by "mopping up" with a cloth. If the water flows very slowly, begin when the pipe has at last emptied itself. Fill the pipe up with potash, crowding it with a stick. Then allow hot water to trickle upon the potash, or pour the hot water upon it in a small stream, stopping as soon as the pipe appears to be filled. As the potash dissolves and disappears, add more water. At night a little heap of potash may be placed over the hole, and water enough poured on so that a supply of strong lye will flow into the pipe during the night.

Pipes that have been stopped for months may be cleaned out by this method, though it may call for three or four pounds of potash. The crudest kind, however, appears to act as well as the best. If the pipe is partially obstructed, a lump of crude potash should be placed where water will drip slowly upon it, and so reach the pipe. As water comes in contact with the potash, it becomes hot, thus aiding in dissolving the grease. Potash, in combination with grease, forms a "soft" or liquid soap, which easily flows away. It is also destructive to all animal and most mineral matters.

Some of the most dangerous gases come from wash-basin pipes, being, perhaps, the result of the decay of the soap and the animal matter washed from the skin.

When a pipe is once fairly cleaned out, the potash should be used from time to time, in order to dissolve the greasy deposits as they form, and carry them forward to the cesspool or sewer.--_Artisan_.

_What Came from a Neighbor's Cesspool_.--Keep watch not only of your own premises, but stand on guard against those of your neighbors. Dr. Carpenter cites a case wherein "four members of a certain household were attacked with typhoid fever, one of whom narrowly escaped with her life. The circumstances left no doubt in the mind of the attending physician that the malady originated in the opening of an old cesspool belonging to a neighboring house, then in course of demolition. The house in which the outbreak took place is large and airy, and stands by itself in a most salubrious situation. The most careful examination failed to disclose any defect either in its drainage or its water supply; there was no typhoid in the neighborhood; and the milk supply was unexceptional. But the neighboring house being old, and having been occupied by a school, its removal had been determined on to make way for a house of higher class; and as the offensive odor emanating from the uncovered cesspool was at once perceived in the next garden, and the outbreak of typhoid followed at the usual interval, the case seems one which admits of no reasonable question."

5. _The Cellar_.--_A Typical Bad Cellar_.--Did the reader ever, when a child, see the cellar afloat at some old home in the country? You creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water, boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life, drive you affrighted back to the kitchen....Now consider the case of one of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more. In it have been stored all the potatoes, turnips, cabbages, onions, and other vegetables for family food. The milk and cream, the pork and beef, and cider and vinegar, have all met with various accidents, and from time to time have had their juices, in various stages of decay, absorbed by the soil of the cellar bottom. The cats have slept there to fight the rats and the mice, who have had their little homes behind the walls for half a century; and the sink spouts have for the same term poured into the soil close by, their fragrant fluids. The water rushes upward and sideways into the cellar, forming, with the savory ingredients at which we have delicately hinted, a sort of broth, quite thin and watery at first, but growing thicker as the water slowly subsides and leaves its grosser parts pervading the surface of the earth, walls, and partitions. All this time the air rushes in at the openings of the cellar, and presses constantly upward, often lifting the carpets from the floors, and is breathed day and night by all who dwell in the house. Does it require learned doctors or boards of health to inform any rational person that these conditions are unfavorable to health?--MRS. PLUNKETT, _Women, Plumbers, and Doctors_.

_What Came from a Crack in a Cellar Wall_.--A few years ago a Boston gentleman inherited a house, situated on one of the most desirable streets of the city. Resolving to make a healthy as well as a beautiful home, he. spent a large sum, and gave personal supervision to all the details of an elaborate system of plumbing. He moved in. Imagine his grief and disappointment when member after member of his family succumbed to diphtheria, and an infant and a grown daughter died. Though so deeply smitten, he did not lose his belief in the connection between cause and effect. He ordered a minute investigation of the premises by experts. A slight crack, so small as to have escaped ordinary observation, was found in the cellar wall. Investigation of the premises next door--the inmates of which were also suffering from diphtheria--showed a choked-up drain, which ought to have connected with the sewer, but did not. The filthy ooze from this was pouring out, just where its effluvium and its disease germs could pass without any hindrance through the crack.

Now that it is shown that gases pass through bricks and many kinds of stone, it is easy to see that the sanitary welfare of one is the sanitary welfare of all.--MRS. PLUNKETT.

6. _The Bedroom_.--_The Bed a Night Garment_.--There is still one of our garments to be considered, which generally is not regarded as such. I mean the bed--that piece of clothing in which we spend such a great part of our time.

The bed is not only a place of rest; it is especially our sleeping garment, and has often to make up for privations endured during the day and the day's work, and to give us strength for to-morrow. Like our day garments, the bed covering must be airy and warm at the same time. We warm the bed by our body, just as we warm our clothes, and the bed warms the air which is continually flowing through it from below, upward. The regulating strata must be more powerful in their action than in our day clothes, because during rest and sleep the metamorphosis of our tissues and the resulting heat become less; and because in a horizontal position we lose more heat by an ascending current of air than in a vertical position, where the warm ascending current is in more complete and longer contact with our upright body.

The warmth of the bed sustains the circulation in our surface to a certain degree for the benefit of our internal organs at a time when our production of heat is at its lowest ebb. Hence the importance of the bed for our heat and blood economy. Several days without rest in a bed not only make us sensible of a deficiency in the recruiting of our strength, but very often produce quite noticeable perturbations in our bodily economy, from which the bed would have protected us.--DR. MAX VON PETTENKOFFER.

_Bed Ventilation_.--It often happens that the desire of the energetic housekeeper to have her work done at an early hour in the morning, causes her to leave one of the most important items of neatness undone. The most effectual purifying of bed and bedclothes can not take place, if the proper time is not allowed, for the free circulation of pure air, to remove all human impurities which have collected during the hours of slumber. At least two or three hours should be allowed for the complete removal of atoms of insensible perspiration which are absorbed by the bed. Every day the airing should be done; and, occasionally, bedding constantly used should be carried into the open air, and left exposed to the sun and wind for half a day.--_Home and Health_.

CIRCULATION.

THE PULSE (p. 116).--The pulse which is felt by the finger does not correspond precisely with the beat of the heart, but takes place a little after it, and the interval is longer, the greater the distance of the artery from the heart. The beat of the artery on the inner side of the ankle, for example, is a little later than the beat of the artery in the temple.--HUXLEY.

The pulse is increased by exertion, and thus is more rapid in a standing than in a sitting, and in a sitting than in a lying posture. It is quickened by meals, and while varying thus from time to time during the day, is on the whole quicker in the evening than in early morning. It is said to be quicker in summer than in winter. Even independently of muscular exertion, it seems to be quickened by great altitude. Its rate is also profoundly influenced by mental conditions.--FOSTER.

CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD IN THE BRAIN (p. l20).--Signer Mosso, who has been engaged on the subject for six years, has published some new observations on the different conditions of the circulation of the blood in the brain. He has had the privilege of observing three patients who had holes in their skulls, permitting the examination of the encephalic movements and circulation. No part of the body exhibits a pulsation so varied in its form as the brain. The pulsation may be described as tricuspid; that is, it consists of a strong beat, preceded and followed by lesser beats. It gathers strength when the brain is at work, corresponding with the more rapid flow of blood to the organ. The increase in the volume of the brain does not depend upon any change in the respiratory rhythm; for, if we take the pulse of the forearm simultaneously with that of the brain, we can not perceive that the cerebral labor exercises any influence upon the forearm, although the pulsation in the brain may be considerably modified. The emotions have a similar effect upon the circulation of the brain to that of cerebral labor. Signor Mosso has also observed and registered graphically the variations of the cerebral pulse during sleep. Generally the pulses of the wrist and the brain vary oppositely. At the moment of waking, the pulse of the wrist diminishes, while that of the brain increases. The cerebral pulsations diminish as sleep grows deeper, and at last become very weak. Outward excitations determine the same modifications during sleep as in the waking state, without waking the sleeper. A deep inspiration always produces a diminution in the volume of the brain, in consequence, probably, of the increased flow of blood into the veins of the thoracic cavity; the increase of volume in the brain, when it takes place, is, on the contrary, due to a more abundant flow of arterial blood to the encephalus.--_Popular Science Monthly, March, 1882_.

CATARRHAL COLDS (p. l30).--I maintain that it can be proved, with as absolute certainty as any physiological fact admits of being proved, that warm, vitiated indoor air is the cause, and cold outdoor air the best cure, of catarrh....Fresh cold air is a tonic that invigorates the respiratory organs when all other stimulants fail, and, combined with arm exercise and certain dietetic alternatives, it is the best remedy for all disorders of the lungs and upper air passages....A combination of the three specifics,--exercise, abstinence, and fresh air,--will cure the most obstinate cold....Frost is such a powerful disinfectant, that in very cold nights the lung-poisoning atmosphere of few houses can resist its purifying influence; in spite of padded doors, in spite of "weatherstrips" and double windows, it reduces the indoor temperature enough to paralyze the floating disease germs. The penetrative force of a polar night frost exercises that function with such resistless vigor that it defies the preventive measures of human skill; and all Arctic travelers agree that among the natives of Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador pulmonary diseases are actually unknown. Protracted cold weather thus prevents epidemic catarrhs, but during the first thaw Nature succumbs to art: smoldering stove fires add their fumes to the effluvia of the dormitory, tight- fitting doors and windows exclude the means of salvation; superstition triumphs; the lung poison operates, and the next morning a snuffling, coughing, and red-nosed family discuss the cause of their affliction....It is a mistake to suppose that "colds" can be propagated only by direct transmission or the breathing of recently Vitiated air. Catarrh germs, floating in the atmosphere of an ill-ventilated bedroom, may preserve their vitality for weeks after the house has been abandoned; and the next renter of such a place should not move in till wide-open windows and doors and a thorough draught of several days have removed every trace of a "musty" smell.--DR. FELIX L. OSWALD, _Remedies of Nature, Popular Science Monthly, March, 1884_.

CATCHING COLD.--The phrase "to catch cold," so often in the mouths of physicians and patients, is a curious solecism. It implies that the term "cold" denotes something positive--a sort of demon which does not catch, but is caught by the unfortunate victims....If most persons outside of the medical profession were to be asked what they consider as chiefly to be avoided in the management of sick people, the answer would probably be "catching cold." I suspect that this question would be answered in the same way by not a few physicians. Hence it is that sick rooms are poorly ventilated, and patients are oppressed by a superabundance of garments and bedclothes. The air which patients are made to breathe, having been already breathed and rebreathed, is loaded with pulmonary exhalations. Cutaneous emanations are allowed to remain in contact with the body, as well as to pervade the atmosphere. Patients not confined to the bed, especially those affected with pulmonary disease, are overloaded with clothing, which becomes saturated with perspiration, and is seldom changed, for fear of the dreaded "cold."...

A reform is greatly needed in respect to "catching cold." Few diseases are referable to the agency of cold, and even the affection commonly called a cold is generally caused by other agencies, or, perhaps, by a special agent, which may prove to be a microbe. Let the axiom, _A fever patient never catches cold_, be reiterated until it becomes a household phrase. Let the restorative influence of cool, fresh, pure atmosphere be inculcated. Let it be understood that in therapeutics, as in hygiene, the single word _comfort_ embodies the principles which should regulate coverings and clothing.--AUSTIN FLINT, M.D., _in a Lecture printed in The New York Medical Journal_.

DIGESTION AND FOOD.

THE WATER WE DRINK (p. l55).--_Qualities of Pure Water_.--"A good drinking water," says Dr. Simpson (in _The Water We Drink_), "should possess the following physical characters: it should be entirely free from color, taste, or odor; it should, moreover, be cool, well aerated, soft, bright, and entirely free from all deposit. But it should be remembered that a water having all these characteristics may yet be more or less polluted by organic matter, owing to the proximity of drains and sewers....Disease has frequently been traced to the use of perfectly bright and clear water, where there was no sediment, and where the animal organic matter was held in a state of solution."

In the case of diseases, such as typhoid, which attack the stomach, disease germs are removed along with the excreta; and if, as is often the case, the drainage of an infected town flows into a river, and that river is used in some after portion of its course as a water supply, there is great danger of such diseases being communicated. For, however well the water may be purified and filtered, we have no guarantee that it will not contain some of these disease germs, which are so small that they pass through the finest filters. It is in this way that almost all the great cholera and typhoid epidemics have spread.--_Chambers's Journal_.

_Well Water Often Dangerous_.--A densely crowded population soon impregnates the soil to some depth with filth, which drains into the water course below, especially if such water is near the surface. This surface water easily penetrates a loosely walled well. Every well, therefore, should not only be widely separated from barnyards, cesspools, pens, sinks, and similar places, but should be made water-tight with cement, so that nothing can reach its interior except water that has been filtered through dense beds of unpolluted ground below. If these precautions are neglected, the best and deepest well may become continually contaminated by infiltration from the surrounding surface. This impure water, even when not used for family drinking, is sometimes supplied to cows, or used for washing dairy pans, or employed in diluting milk for the market, and there are many known cases in which disease has thus been disseminated. Thus, an epidemic of typhoid fever in Cambridge, Mass., was definitely traced to a dairy which supplied the victims with milk. Upon investigation it was found that a short time before there had been a typhoid patient in the farmhouse, and that the well from which water was taken to wash the milk pans had become contaminated with the specific poison brought into it from the surrounding drainage.

All suspected water should be thoroughly boiled before using it to drink. Some physicians insist that the boiling should continue for one or two hours in order entirely to destroy the bacterial germs. The heaviness and insipidity incident to boiled water may be somewhat relieved by afterward filtering it. Filtering, of itself, however, will do little toward ridding the water of microbes, which are much too minute to be arrested by the ordinary apparatus.--When journeying, where one must often take a hasty meal at a railway station, drink hot water in preference to cold. A convenient portable filter may be arranged with a bottle of powdered charcoal, and a piece of filtering paper. A traveler by briskly stirring a tablespoonful of the charcoal into a pint of water, allowing it to stand five or ten minutes, and then filtering it through the paper, may venture to relieve his thirst in almost any part of the country.

_Water an Absorbent of Foul Gases_.--If a pitcher of water be left uncovered in an occupied apartment for only a few hours, it will become foul from the absorption of the respired and perspired gases in the room. The colder the water, the greater the capacity to contain these gases. Water kept in a room over night is therefore unfit for drinking, and should not be used even to brush the teeth or to gargle in the throat.

_Impure Ice, a Breeder of Disease_.--We generally take the purity of our ice for granted, and, like the alligator in the bayou, close our mouths and swallow it. In the country, I have seen during the ice- harvesting season, wagon after wagon passing me on the road, laden with ice that had been collected from canals, rivers, and streams receiving sewerage, and from ponds that are in the summer time reeking with slime, and often offensive from the quantity of decomposed vegetable and animal matter brought in by the washing from the meadow. These streams would be shunned as a source of water supply.

Should you interview a native regarding the slimy mud puddle before you, called Mr. So-and-so's private "ice pond," he would say that "in winter it is much better, and when frozen, you know, it makes fine ice," presenting that popular though ignorant belief that while in the act of crystallizing, water rids itself of all its injurious qualities, however offensive it may be in its liquid state. Unfortunately, there is enough truth in the current idea of the elimination of noxious and foreign matter during the process of freezing to give color to the popular belief, but not enough to make it a safe reliance; therefore all means should be used to enlighten the public regarding this subject. Experiment has shown that freezing produces little change or effect in overcoming the poisonous influences, and ice has often served as a vehicle to convey the germs of typhoid and other low forms of fever. Pure ice can be procured only from water free from impurities, and ice for domestic or surgical purposes should never be collected from ponds or streams which contain animal or vegetable refuse, or stagnant and muddy material.--_Journal of Reconstructives, Oct., 1887_.

THE GLANDULAR COAT OF THE STOMACH, AND HOW IT WEEPS (p. l62).--While the food is thus being continually moved about, it is at the same time subjected to the action of the chemical sac. This is, as we have said, a glandular sac. It is of some thickness, and is made of little glands bound up together with that stringy fibrous packing material which anatomists call _connective tissue_.

If we were to imagine many gross of small India-rubber vials all placed side by side, and bound together with hay or straw into a great mat, and the mat rolled up into a sac, with all the mouths of the vials turned inward, we should have a large and coarse, but tolerably fair image of the glandular coat of the stomach. Each vial would then represent one of the glands of this coat, one of the gastric or peptic glands, as they are called. Each gland, however, is not always a simple tube, but is often branched at the bottom end, and all of them are lined, except just at their mouths, with large rounded bodies, which not unfrequently almost choke up their cavity.

FIG. 72.

The rounded masses, or cells, as they are called, in the interior of each gland, form the really active part of the apparatus. Each cell is a little laboratory, which concocts out of the material brought to it or near it by the blood a certain potent, biting fluid, and is hence called a peptic or digestive cell. Each cell is born at the bottom of the tube, and in process of time travels upward toward the mouth. When it reaches the mouth, it bursts, and pours into the stomach the fluid it has elaborated, or perhaps may give it out without bursting, while it is still within its tube.

In those cases in which it has been possible to look in upon the stomach while at work (as in the famous case of Alexis St. Martin), and where the orifices of the tiny glands (for though we have compared them to bottles, they are exceedingly small) appear like little dots, tears were seen to start at the mouths of the glands, gather into drops, and finally trickle down into the lowest part of the stomach. The stomach, as it were, weeps, and indeed the weeping of tears is just such another effect of glandular activity--only ordinary tears form a mild and, chemically speaking, impotent fluid; while the fluid which the tears of the stomach weep--the _gastric juice_--is a sharp, piercing water of excessive chemical power.--Hinton.

POISONOUS MILK, CHEESE, AND ICE CREAM (p. l69).--In late years there have been many cases of poisoning by ice cream, cheese, and milk. The poisonous principle sometimes developed in these articles of food has been made a subject of special investigation, and it has been found to be due to natural causes. Dr. Vaughan, of Michigan, after spending several months in experimenting upon samples of twelve different cheeses, which had caused three hundred cases of poisoning, finally succeeded in isolating certain poison crystals, which he calls _Tyrotoxicon_. He says: "A few drops of an aqueous solution of these crystals placed upon the tongue produces all the symptoms observed in those who had been made sick by eating of the cheese. This was tried repeatedly upon myself, and upon some of my students who kindly offered themselves for experimentation." Dr. Vaughan afterward procured the poison crystals from milk which had stood some months in a closed bottle, and also from a sample of ice cream by which eighteen persons had been made ill. It was learned in the latter case that the custard, of which the ice cream was made, had been allowed to stand in a foul atmosphere for two hours before it was frozen. By placing small bits of this poisonous cream in good milk, and allowing it to stand twenty-four hours, the whole became vitiated. This proved that the poison is due to the growth of some ferment. In the autumn of 1886, many persons in different hotels at Long Branch were poisoned by milk obtained from a certain milkman. In this case it was found that the cows were milked at noon, the warm milk being immediately placed in cans and carted eight miles during the warmest part of the day, in a very hot month. In June, 1887, nineteen persons in New York city were similarly poisoned by milk which also came from one dairy. Many of these persons had narrow escapes from death. These, and many other like instances, teach us the importance of the greatest care in every detail of milk handling. A little dried milk formed along the seam of a tin pail, or any similar lodging place, may be the starting point of poison generation. A month after his first experiments with the ice cream mentioned above, Dr. Vaughan put small pieces of the dried custard in pans of milk, and afterward made custard from this milk. This yielded tyrotoxicon as before, showing the tenacious vitality of the poison, and also explaining the fact that the precise cause of poisoning is in many cases so difficult to trace.

FISH AS FOOD (p. 169).--It is not desirable that fish should be the sole kind of nitrogenous food eaten by any nation; and even if milk and eggs be added thereto, the vigor of such a people will not be equal to that of flesh-eating nations. At the same time, the value of fish as a part of a dietary is indicated by the larger proportion of phosphorus which it contains, and which renders it especially fitted for the use of those who perform much brain work, or who are the victims of much anxiety and distress.--EDWARD SMITH, _in "Foods_."

For the mentally exhausted, the worried, the "nervous," and the distressed in mind, fish is not simply a food; it acts as physic. The brain is nourished by it, the "nerves"--to use the term in its popular sense--are "quieted"; the mind grows stronger, the temper less irritable, and the whole being healthier and happier when fish is substituted for butcher's meat....I find persons who are greatly excited, even to the extent of seeking to do violence to themselves or to those around them, who can not sleep, and who are in an agony of irritability, become composed and contented when fed almost exclusively on fish. In such cases I have withdrawn butter, milk, eggs, and all the varieties of warm-blooded animal food; and, carefully noting the weight and strength, I find no diminution of either, while fish is supplied in such quantities as fully to satisfy the appetite.--J. MORTIMER GRANVILLE, M.D., "_Fish as Food and Physic_."

COFFEE AND TEA (p. 170).--Besides the alkaloid _Caffeine_ which coffee contains, it also develops, in roasting, a volatile oil called Caffeone, to which is due its characteristic aroma. The main effects of coffee are due to both the caffeine and the caffeone, which are antagonistic, though not contemporaneous, in action. The volatile oil reduces arterial tension, allows a brisker flow of blood, and so increases the rapidity of the heart's action. It also acts upon the brain, and intellectual faculties in general; keeps one awake, and his mind clear. Caffeine, on the other hand, like digitalis, produces a high arterial tension, and slows the heart beat. It exerts its chief effect upon the spinal cord, to which, like strychnia, it is an excitant. The shaking hand of the inveterate coffee drinker is caused by caffeine. Thus a cup of coffee produces on the drinker a double effect,--of the oil and the alkaloid; the former sooner and transient, the latter later and lasting....Coffee is not in itself nutritious to any marked degree; but it saves food, and also maintains life, by its exhilarating effect upon the nervous system. It is an excellent antidote to opium, producing the wakefulness that antagonizes the narcotic sleep of the drug; is now and then curative of sick headache, and is one of the standard remedies for certain forms of nausea.

To the chemist, _Tea_ is much the same thing as coffee. It contains considerably more tannin, a volatile oil, and an alkaloid (theine) indistinguishable from caffeine. That the injurious effects of overdoses are due as much to the volatile oil as to the alkaloid, is shown by the fact that tea packers are made ill by long breathing of air filled with it, and that tea tasters in China, who avoid swallowing the infusion, can endure their trade but a few years, and leave the country with shattered nerves.

Probably every one numbers among his friends women who are actual slaves of the tea habit, and who would find tea as hard to forsake as men find tobacco. It is not unlikely that the functional cardiac disorder, often spoken of as the "tobacco heart," due to nervous derangement, and accompanied by palpitation and pain in the cardiac region, is more often due to tea than tobacco. In fact, the disorders induced by excessive tea drinking have been grasped as a special disease, to which has been given the name of _Theism_. This includes a train of symptoms, usually progressive, loss of appetite, pain after meals, headache, constipation, palpitation, cardiac distress, hysterical manifestations, dizziness, and paresis.--DR. MAURICE D. CLARKE, _Popular Science News_.

Tea drinkers, as a rule, express doubts as regards the correctness of alleged poisonous properties of tea. Numerous instances of individuals of this class have been noticed who were themselves suffering from tea poisoning. Their nerves were in a deplorably abnormal condition, the heart and brain were functionally disturbed, and the sleep less in quantity and less refreshing than it should be....One's opinion of the physical disturbances which may be caused by rum, tobacco, or tea, are not worth much, when the opinion comes from a victim of the excessive use of these agents.

The tannin found in tea does not differ from that found in oak and other barks which the tanners use to convert the raw hides of animals into leather. It is a powerful astringent, which accounts for some of the peculiar physical evils to which confirmed tea drinkers are subject.

_Theine_ does not differ essentially from _Cocaine_ (see p. 223). They both produce exaltation of the nervous system and increased powers of physical endurance. The brain is largely influenced in its functions, and long periods of wakefulness are induced. Continued use of strong infusions of either coca or tea result in great disturbance of nervous centers and functional offices, and either will produce fatal results by persistent use of inordinate quantities.

A cup of tea as served at tea tables contains usually only a trace of the alkaloidal principle, but infinitesimal quantities are capable of exerting baneful effects upon some tea drinkers....Poisons act in a variety of ways, some slowly, and without producing pain; others act violently, and with speedy, fatal results. Inasmuch as we do not observe a very large number of clearly proved cases of acute poisoning by tea, we must conclude that it is characteristically a slow poison, and also that its influence is unlike in different individuals....Four or six cups of tea, however, taken during each twenty-four hours, will in time produce tea poisoning, and greater or less evil effects.

Tea is well enough, when its use is kept under absolute, intelligent control; but if it becomes master in any case, then it must be promptly abandoned, for danger attends the intemperate tea drinker every hour of his life. Those advanced in life crave its stimulating effects, and it is well for them to use it in moderation; but the young should abstain from it entirely.--_Abridged from "Tea Poisoning," by_ DR. NICHOLS, _in Popular Science News, December, 1887_.

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF INDIGESTION (p. l72).--When a light breakfast is eaten, a solid meal is requisite in the middle of the day. If the digestive organs are left too long unemployed, they secrete an excess of mucus, which greatly interferes with their normal functions. One meal has a direct influence on the next; and a poor breakfast leaves the stomach over-active for dinner. This is the secret of much excess in eating. The point to bear in mind is that not to eat a sufficiency at one meal makes you too hungry for the next; and that when you are too hungry, you are apt to overload the stomach, and to give the gastric juices more to do than they have the power to perform.

To eat too often, and to eat irregularly, are other sources of indigestion. People who dine at uncertain hours, and eat one meal too quickly on the last, must expect the stomach to retaliate in the long run. A very fruitful cause of dyspepsia is imperfect mastication. We remember one old gentleman who used always to warn young people on this point by saying: "Remember you have no teeth in your stomach." Nervous people nearly always eat fast, and as nearly always are the victims of nervous irritability, produced by dyspepsia....To sit much in a stooping posture interferes with the stomach's action. Well-marked dyspepsia has been traced to sitting immediately after dinner in a low armchair, so that the body was curved forward, and the stomach compressed....

The skin, core, and kernels of fruit should be avoided. Some people are not able to digest raw apples; and dyspepsia has been sometimes greatly aggravated by eating pears. The latter fruit, in its ripest state, contains an abundance of gritty material, which, as it can not be separated in the mouth, on being swallowed irritates the mucous membrane....

Of food itself, bear in mind that hot meat is more digestible than cold; the flesh of full-grown animals than that of young ones; that land birds are more digestible than waterfowl; wild animals than domestic ones; and that in game, newly killed birds are easier of digestion than those which have been kept a long time.--_Hints to Dyspeptics, Chambers's Journal_.

HOW FOOD DEVELOPS ENERGY (p. 173).--It may appear strange that the small amount of food we eat should suffice to carry our large and bulky bodies through all the varied movement of the day. But this difficulty disappears at once, when we recollect how large an amount of dormant energy can be laid by in a very small piece of matter. A lump of coal no bigger than one's fist, if judiciously employed, will suffice to keep a small toy engine at work for a considerable time. Now, our food is matter containing large amounts of dormant energy, and our bodies are engines so constructed as to utilize all the energy to the best advantage. A single gramme of beef fat if completely burned (that is, if every atom unites with oxygen), is capable of developing more than 9,000 heat units; and each heat unit, if employed to perform mechanical work, is capable of lifting a weight of one gramme to a height of 424 meters; or, what comes to the same thing, 424 grammes to a height of one meter. Accordingly, the energy contained in one gramme of beef, and the oxygen with which it unites, would be sufficient to raise the little bit of fat itself to a height of 3,816 kilometers, or almost as high as the distance from London to New York.-- GRANT ALLEN _in "Why do we Eat our Dinner_?"

_Danger of Too High Pressure_.--A prudent fire engineer, when his water hose is old and weak, would not try to force as much water as he could into it. No; to prevent a rupture he would work it at a low pressure. But men seldom think of carrying out the same simple mechanical principle when there is reason to believe that the vessels of the brain are getting weak and brittle. They eat and drink just as much as they feel inclined to, and sometimes a little more. With a good digestion, nearly all they consume is converted into blood, to the yet further distention of vessels already over-distended. This high-pressure style of living produces high-pressure results. Its effects were painfully illustrated by the death of Charles Dickens. The brain work he performed was immense; he lived generously, taking his wine as he did his meat, with a liberal hand. He disregarded the signs of structural decay, forcing his reluctant brain to do what it had once done with spontaneous ease, until all at once, under a greater tension than ordinary, a weak vessel gave way, flooding the brain with blood.--J. R. BLACK, M.D., _in "Apoplexy," Popular Science Monthly, April, 1875_.