of the vicinity following other occupations, over 90 per cent. suffered from malaria.

"Fougué says that the village of Zephyria, in Greece, has become depopulated, owing to the fever, which is very severe in that locality. The depopulation is said to have begun when the sulphur deposits ceased to be worked. A similar instance is reported in the district of Catania, in Sicily, where a village had to be abandoned owing to the prevalence of malaria. The only people who are able to reside there are a small colony of men who work the sulphur mines. These facts furnish valuable corroborative evidence of the use of sulphur as a prophylactic against malaria."

Query 84. I have met with a stumper in the word bacteriolysins. Will your editor of Notes and Queries enlighten me concerning the meaning of this term? G. L. T., Ky. Answer. Of making many words there is no end. Our correspondent is quite excusable for his lack of knowledge. The word has been coined by the germ hunters since Gould, Foster and the "Century" had passed their final revisions. The rapid advance being made in the study of germs and their products has necessitated the invention of new terms to name and describe the newly discovered micro-organisms, their media, laws of development, excreta, toxins and anti-toxins. This particular word is applied to certain complex substances containing a peptic ferment combined with a bacterial derivative. These substances seem to have the power of dissolving certain bacteria and also possess digestive activity, on account of the peptic ferment referred to. They are accredited with a specific action which is supposed to explain the destruction of microorganisms in the animal body, and by this means conferring a degree of bacterial immunity. time scientists will doubtless be able to clear up the yet unexplained reason why some persons are immune to certain infections while other equally robust individuals are quite susceptible and perhaps readily succumb to them. We are slowly making progress in this direction, but there is much for us to learn before we can speak with much confidence or authority.

In

Query 85. Do you consider hypnotism and hypnotic suggestion of very much value to the practising physician? F. R. H., Idaho.

Answer. Yes, it has always been of inestimable value to practitioners of medicine, and the most successful physicians are the ones who consciously or unconsciously use it most adroitly. Thousands of otherwise competent physicians fail because they lack hypnotic faculty.

This does not endorse all the rhodomontade that is now being paraded under the name of hypnotism. It is a case of nascitur non fit. Hypnotists as well as poets are chiefly born, not made

by mail! At the same time the faculty can be cultivated, and there is little in it to be afraid of, popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.

Query 86. What breakfast foods are now considered most wholesome and most reliable as to quality?

Do you consider mushes of any kind strictly proper in a well-regulated dietary?

Answer. We answered a similar question, in this Department some months since, (see Sept., 1900, issue of the GAZETTE), but will venture a little further discussion of the subject on the presumption that our querist is a new subscriber.

The list of breakfast foods now clamoring in the various advertising mediums for recognition as "the best" in the market is quite bewildering. In popularity, crushed oats heads the list. Of this product there are dozens of competing brands put up in packages, while immense quantities are sold in bulk. Among the package brands the range is from the original "A. B. C.," through the alphabet to-well, perhaps not quite all the letters have yet been appropriated!

Originally this "A. B. C." brand was all that could be desired. Latterly it seems to have fallen from grace. The "H. O." brand has had a great run, and there are several other brands that have become more or less popular, sometimes more by advertising enterprise than from real merit. We try them all from time to time, each new claimant as it appears, but we invariably fall back upon the brand called "Quaker Oats," as more uniformly maintaining its qualities and its cleanness from smut and other seeds.

Of wheat preparations there seems to be no end of new names. The uncooked crushed wheat is not as popular as it would be if it did not require so much cooking to make it satisfactory to delicate or weakened digestive organs.

This objection is also applicable to many brands of prepared oats. All these grains should be thoroughly steamed or roasted. This process accomplishes two purposes; it sterilizes, thus promoting the keeping qualities, and it insures a sufficient transformation of the starchy element. When this pre-cooking is well done it is impossible for the careless or ignorant cook to send the morning dish to the table in an entirely unpalatable and indigestible condition.

"Germea" for a time was the leading wheat preparation. Its success was so immediate and unprecedented that scores of rivals and imitators have crowded the field, and competition has had the usual effect of lowering the standard of quality. Every few weeks a new candidate is announced. Among them all "Parched Farinose" and "Granose Flakes" are far in advance of any others that have come to our knowledge. We are surprised that the parching idea has not been more generally adopted. It is better than steam

ing, because it gives the product a nutty flavor not otherwise attainable, and palatability is a paramount quality in all these breakfast cereals. If manufacturers would give us parched corn, oats, wheat, rye and barley, properly cleaned and granulated instead of being ground fine, there would be fewer dyspeptics and fewer complaints as to the indigestibility of these foods.

As to the second part of your question, it is partially answered in the foregoing. The objection to mushes in general comes chiefly from the fact that they are insufficiently cooked and are almost universally, since they need no mastication to render them easy of deglutition, swallowed without due insalivation. To obviate this objection, which is a serious one, they should be made of firm consistence, not gruels, and as a further precaution, bits of zwiebach, dry toast or "grape nuts" should be eaten with them.

Query 86. W. P. of Decatur, O.

Answer.-Your inquiry is rather too comprehensive as well as too technical for reply in this Department. See also remarks in April number of the GAZETTE concerning unsigned communications.

Query 87. I am deeply interested in Dr. Achorn's diet tables, and especially in his "Notes." (I can't quite understand why they should be banished from the body of the work and set up in smaller type.) The GAZETTE is to

be commended for providing its readers with this striking and instructive series, at once so comprehensive and so scientific. I do not feel competent to formally criticise any of Dr. Achorn's essential statements, but it seems to me that if he errs at all it is on the side of leniency and liberality. For example, the dietary prescribed in Bright's, in the April number, includes and permits almost every item that any one but the most exacting epicure and gourmand could desire.

In this respect does he not to some extent clash with the general tenor of the teachings with which you have all along been educating your readers? D. C. F., Washington.

Answer. To this and all similar queries that are coming to us we desire to reply comprehensively that it is only justice to our esteemed contributor that all criticisms of his positions should be passed over to him, so that at the close of his series of papers he can in his own way consider them in detail. Our readers are cordially invited to the freest and frankest expression of their views, whether approving, inquiring or dissenting. We shall be glad to publish all such brief inquiries and criticisms as shall reach us, if couched in courteous terms and actuated by the spirit so evident in the foregoing. In all cases when a paper is read and discussed before a medical body the author, both by custom and courtesy, has the last word.

This querist is referred to a short paper in this number of the GAZETTE, taken from The Hospital, of London, "Some Current Absurdities in Diet."

NEXT in importance are the sleeping rooms, a statement or admission that will be promptly and emphatically disputed by the sagacious sanitarian, since one-half our lives are spent in bed. Intelligent people are beginning to realize this fact, but too many otherwise sensible people, especially in large cities, where the masses live, that is, they exist, spend their lives in "flats" and "apartment" houses, and put up with little six-by-nine closets, that are I called bedrooms. These "cubby holes" are ventilated by a transom that merely opens into another room, or by a dismal window in a dark air-shaft. Even in the country there are too many sleeping rooms that are almost hermetically sealed, as far as regards the ingress and egress of fresh air. To this cause can be directly traced a large percentage of the admitted increase of the "Great White Plague," tuberculosis, and some other chronic diseases. So many people have an ingrained and instinctive horror of "drafts!" Coddling makes them susceptible, they "take cold," and at once try to recall some real or imaginary exposure to a "draft."

The bugaboo of the present generation is "taking cold." To this vague and misunder

stood accident it has become a chronic and almost universal habit to attribute more than half the ills, aches and pains that flesh is heir to. Our ancestors did not 'shudder at sight of their own shadows, nor did they swathe themselves in Jaeger woolens or Alaska sealskins.

were

They slept for the

most part in large open rooms that were not sealed with double-sash windows, rubber weather strips, and air-tight doors. Their chimneys and fireplaces as wide as a city "flat," and as roomy as the throat of a blast-furnace. These were their ventilators, and they did the work effectually. With a blazing fire and a good "draft" all the impurities and floating germs of the whole house were drawn into the chimney and cremated. They had no acquaintance with Wilton, Axminster or velvet carpets, but, barring a few removable rag rugs, lived on bare floors, that were regularly scrubbed with home-made soft soap and sharp white sand. Without knowing it they were antedating Lister and Tait, by practising both asepsis and antisepsis, with the result that epidemics of influenza, scarlatina, diphtheria, pneumonia and other fatal disorders were not half as prevalent or virulent as they are under our more

"civilized" theories and practice. Of course many of their habits were different from ours, but there is no kind of doubt that the foundation of their greater immunity and surpassing virility were chiefly due to the fact that they lived, moved, had their being and said their prayers, day and night, in a better atmosphere. Furthermore, they inured themselves to the ordinary vicissitudes of the climate about them, went out freely in all weathers, did not overburden themselves with an excess of fine and fluffy flannels, breathed with their cutaneous mouths as well as with their lungs; and, although they bathed occasionally, they did not keep their skins water-soaked and hypersensitive by too frequent hot bathing and superabundant clothing. It is said they ate more simply, and this is true in a sense; but often their dietary was crude in the extreme, and would have sorely tried a modern stomach. They not only endured but relished it with a zest to which we are strangers. Furthermore, they exercised more freely and breathed more deeply, thus securing a degree of oxidation not otherwise obtainable, and as a consequence digested what they

ate.

Until recently the doctor has been content with making the acquaintance of the sickroom, with occasional invitations to the parlor to consult with a brother physician, or to be confidentially catechised as to the invalid's actual instead of nominal progress and prospects. That time has gone by. His province has been broadened until now he must begin his inspection and inquisition in the kitchen and cookroom. He can no longer close his eyes to the fact that the success of his treatment can be seriously impeded and even radically overcome by bad living habits, by unhygienic housing, feeding, nursing, and general environment. It is a new dispensation that he is called upon to interpret. His Praxis has been merged into Prophylaxis. He must first of all forefend: mending only when it is too late to prevent. To do this he needs a more comprehensive education than under the old régime. He must look after the grounds, and when

every unsanitary feature of these has been corrected he must enter the Kitchen. The chef will have to don a fresh frock-not merely a clean apron to hide the dirt of a soiled working suit-must scrub his hands, arms, and finger-nails with a stiff scrubbing brush and antiseptic soap. He must "clare up" the cookroom, purge all the dark corners, dump out all the accumulated trash, disinfect the walls, sinks, and cupboards, and take a fresh course in culinary cleanliness, which now means much more than shining china and glassware and unwrinkled linen.

The doctor is no longer a mere pharmacist and dispenser of drugs. Henceforth the most advanced and intelligent practice will be based on Sanitation, Hygiene and Dietetics.

When he has made the Kitchen all that it should be and directed and properly regulated the daily menu, he must proceed to the living room, the library, and not pause until he has reconstructed the sleeping apart

ments.

In a sweeping and emphatic manner, but not a whit too emphatic, it may be laid down as a rule that no room that is not amply and efficiently ventilated every hour of the day and night, regardless of the season and of the weather, is fit for a well-bred dog, let alone a human being, to sleep in. Yet how many people imagine they are ventilating a room when they open a transom or set the door ajar into another apartment, itself equally as pent up and foul as the one they are in. The most dangerous "cold" one can take is the one of which he is wholly unconscious at the time. It does not come from a "draft," but chiefly from breathing impure air. It is then that we ingest too much and eliminate too little, and this regardless of our most rigorous attempts at abstemiousness. Fresh air and forced feeding are "curing" more cases of confirmed consumption than all other treatments combined. But forced feeding without fresh air to correspond is a fatal failure. The food must be brought into direct contact with its full requirement of oxygen or there

can be no appropriation or assimilation, and it will harm instead of help.

It is much easier to be forehanded by preventing tuberculosis and other devastating forms of chronic disease, than to overcome them after once established. It is a case in which an ounce of prevention, that is certainly available, is worth a ton of cure, that at best is uncertain.

WHAT TO PUT IN THE HIVE.

The furnishings of the home are very properly beginning to absorb more attention than ever before in the history of the race. Following the agitation of the last few years of the old century, in connection. with "sanitary plumbing," the impression is gaining headway that there is a certain degree of danger in unsanitary furniture, fittings, hangings and decorations. Every new fact adduced in connection with the identification and biologic history of microorganisms emphasizes the conviction that there can be no thorough immunity from germ infection until we cease to make our dwellings the convenient and congenial harbors of all forms of germ life. Granted that the human organism is naturally fortified, to a definite degree, against all ordinary morbific influences, the exigencies of human life are such that no one can predict when some member of the family, through carelessness or some unavoidable cause, will fall below the normal standard of health, and lose the power of resisting and repelling the initial approach of disease through infection.

Exposed to the light of modern sanitary science, many of the old-time fittings of our dwellings, of hotels, public conveyances, and, in a lesser degree, of public halls, school-buildings and churches, are either passively or positively bad.

Beginning our inspection at the foundation, the floor-coverings have almost universally been ready and constant accumulators of that most insidious and prolific source of disease, infectious dust. An old carpet becomes a veritable reservoir and

magazine of invisible, insinuating and incessantly moving filth. It is a saturated storehouse of impalpable, impermeating and yet invisible particles, largely composed of germs, spores and ethereal animal exhalations, that float at a touch and are inhaled at every breath. These insidious particles attach themselves to all the moist mucous surfaces with which they come in contact as they pass along the respiratory tract, and the great wonder is that human beings escape contamination as long as they do. Every footfall, every movement through the room, opening of doors-even the lifting of a chair, or movement of a curtain, starts invisible eddies and fills the room with countless millions of microscopic atoms, from which there is little hope of escape. What is wanted is dust annihilators. There are plenty of devices for the coarser "renovation" of rooms and fabrics, and plenty of corporations ready to guarantee the clearing of the premises of rats, mice, roaches and all other kinds of vermin; but the man who will devise an effective and universally applicable system of removing domestic dust will deserve to head the list of the canonized of all the ages. Such an invention would cut the current deathrate in two, within the first year of its general adoption.

Sweeping and, iconoclastic as the statement may sound, carpets are, in the eyes of the sanitarian, an unmitigated and inexcusable nuisance. Scrupulous care can mitigate the evil, but can not radically cure it. Carpet-sweepers take up the coarser accumulations, but they set the finer and most dangerous particles to whirling at will throughout the air, not to be deposited again for hours. If carpets were to be first sprinkled with wet sawdust, and this quickly removed, by the patented sweepers, and committed to the fire, it would prove a wonderful stroke of hygienic and preventive economy. But this suggestion will be deemed infeasible by an overwhelming majority of those who stand most in need of its benefits.

Movable rugs for room-centers, with the