fatal maladies, seeking whom they might infect, came forth at night in misty shapes and creeping out upon the waters, hunted them like specters until day"—that such a morass, such a cesspool of contagion ever existed in this boasted land of freedom, few are willing to admit. Notwithstanding his keen satire and profuse hyperbole, which many believe came from national prejudices, I am inclined to think that should some pilgrim, free from prejudice, have passed down the Ohio River fifty years ago from Rockport, Ind., to where Pigeon Creek empties, dividing Spencer and Warrick counties, and which includes a portion of the "Pocket," that his natural exclamation would have been "Eden!" I doubt not that he would have strained his eyes in his endeavor to catch a glimpse of the immortal Chollop, and the cabin where young Martin and Mark Tapley passed their first night.

But this dismal, gloomy picture has passed away; that swamp, wherein only vile things lived and grew, has been transformed into beautiful fields, made rich, beautiful and picturesque by the products of civilization; that swamp where lean, lank, sallow, ague-shattered Chollops lived, has been reclaimed, and health blossoms on the brow and energy looks forth from the eye of the new Edener.

Naturally we ask, "What wrought these changes?" How these swamps were made into rich and beautiful fields, and how a country once so infected with disease has become almost freed from its plagues. It is due to the fact that many of the former citizens were made of "sterner stuff" than Martin Chuzzlewit, and with ax and spade in one hand and a bottle of quinine in the other, they went to work clearing the lands and draining the swamps. True the undertaking was one that required courage and will, as it required a ditch for almost every tree, while a bottle of quinine went along with the two. Gradually the forests were cleared away, and ditch after ditch was dug by the citizens, who continued their work uncomplaining, believing that some day they would reap their reward. Perhaps many never lived to see the bread which they cast upon the waters return, or to behold the fruitful results of their labor. One of the largest ditches, known as the "Willow Pond Ditch," traverses the southwest corner of the county, being something over seven miles in length, the greater portion of which was constructed through a low flat marsh, which was covered with water all the year. While ditching the men were compelled to stand on plank to prevent sinking into the marsh, and a fence rail could be forced its full length into the ground by the efforts of one man.

The ditch drains into Pigeon Creek, and, together with its tributaries, some three or four in number, it drains between three and four thousand acres.

The portion of country which this ditch drains—once the home of the frogs, as well as the manufacturing establishment of intermittent and remittent fevers— is now some of the most valuable land in our county.

The Richland and Walter's drains, also in the same portion of the county, the former six and the latter four miles in length, drain considerable territory, while there are quite a number from one and a half to three miles in length. Last summer one of the largest ditches was begun, and completed a month or two ago. It is about seven miles in length, beginning about two miles below Rockport and running thence southwest parallel with the Ohio River, draining into the river. The land reclaimed by this drain, amounting to several hundred acres, will make first-class farming land out of country once so wet that it was of little use save to breed chills and fever.

Thus between 7,000 and 8,000 acres of land have been drained, and land which was once considered little better than a waste is now yielding bountiful crops. 13-BD. OF HEALTH.

Health makes wealth, and, that wealth may be secured, it is necessary that the iaws of health should be carefully observed, and that hygienic measures should be well and carefully considered. People have long since learned that little good can come of punishing or combating an effect while the cause which produces it remains, and perhaps none have learned it more thoroughly than those who lived in malarial districts, and who with quinine in hand fought the effects of malaria without trying to remove the cause. It is through experience that we are taught

the most valuable lessons in life.

The malarial resources have been almost entirely cut off, the cause removed, and the percentage of malarial fever has been reduced to insignificant proportions. A few years ago scarcely a man, woman or child escaped intermittent fevers in the vicinity of these ponds during the year, while now the disease is quite rare. As disease has decreased, wealth has increased.

Beautiful homes, around which cluster all the beauty and refining influences of civilization, are now to be seen in this "Eden" tract, dry land has taken the place of the wet land, health has supplanted disease, and wealth and affluence may now be seen where poverty and disease once walked hand in hand with desolation and despair.

VENTILATION WITH A WOOD-BURNING STOVE.

BY JOSEPH A. STILWELL, M. D., BROWNSTOWN, IND.

The latest improvement in ventilating has not yet reached the wood-burning box stove, so common in our wooded country. While it is doing more for the health and longevity of the human race than any other addition during the present century, it is in use only with coal. The object of this paper is to give some directions by which it can be adapted to the common wood-burning box stove. This can be done by making an outside shirt or cover of sheet iron for the stove. Any tinsmith can make and mould a cover around a stove of this kind, with reasonable permanency and unexceptional cheapness. Let the sheet commence just back of the forward legs at the bottom, and extend obliquely upward and backward to leave exposed the fuel door, and a hole on the top. Pass around the stove in this way and under the back feet and legs. Between the back feet let a hole be made through the sheet and floor, and connect with a fresh air tube extending to it from out doors. Let the cover continue around the smoke pipe nearly to where the pipe goes into the wall of the house. The accompanying diagram will aid in understanding this. The sheet iron will have to be left standing off from the walls of the stove a few inches. This will, when the stove is heated, fill the room with fresh warm air, very quickly.

In order to keep the room filling all the time it will be necessary to empty it just as fast and to keep it warm at the same time. This can be done by having a brick flue commence at the floor, or below, in the wall, in connection with the smoke flue, so that the smoke will warm it. Let an opening be made into it at the floor. This will draw the air from off the floor up through it as fast as needed to empty and make room for the fresh, warm air; will not allow a current in the room either. But after the air is used and cooled somewhat, will carry it away

as foul air, which it will be by this time. Fresh air warmed and carried into the room rapidly, presses down from the ceiling and forces the air out up the flue warmed by the smoke back into the open air at the top of the chimney.

This is a simple thing when studied a moment, and is being utilized very largely with coal stoves and furnaces. It has all that can be accomplished in the way of ventilating heated rooms, and is all that is needed. It furnishes all the

heat that a stove can furnish, and carries with it the fresh, pure air from outdoors, and at the same time carries away the air that is poisoned by the breath and exhalations from the body, making the changes very rapidly when great heat is required. It makes the temperature equal all over the room.

Any one can calculate in a few minutes the effect this will have on the life and vigor of those using it.

Of course these principles and admonitions have all been used and made time and again, but their superlative importance is sufficient excuse for giving them a place wherever opportunity can be made.

THE DRY CLOSET SYSTEM OF DISPOSING OF EXCREMENT.

BY JOSEPH A. STILWELL, M. D.; BROWNSTOWN, IND.

This is worked on the same principle as that by which mines and tunnels are ventilated.

The thing of primal necessity is a shaft or chimney that will conduct a column of air so high above us that its output will be beyond our breath supply.

This is necessary in order not only that the foul air may be placed beyond our reach but that it may be thrown out into a wide range of atmosphere, where the great law of the diffusion of gases will scatter and mix it in such a manner that its noxious properties are destroyed.

In mine ventilation the shaft is sunk into the earth until it reaches the mine at a place farthest from the shaft by which the mine is being worked. Then heat is made by fire at the bottom, which lifts the air to the top of the shaft above ground, and by the vacuum thus created fresh pure air is invited down the work shaft and carried through the mine to the ventilating shaft. A circulation of pure air is in this way supplied to the miners and the foul air carried off

The dry closet is made at the bottom of a stack shaft or chimney and heat applied at this point. The heat raises the air and carries with it the foul volatile matter of the excreta. Volatilization and evaporation are continued until only the dry residue is all that remains.

To accomplish this a shaft or chimney with a stove at the bottom, or a lamp may do all that is needed, with privy seats so arranged that a current of air will be conducted from the outside, under them, or through the holes, to supply the rarified space about the heated stove. So long as the heat is kept up this current and vaporization will continue, and the drying and neutralization will take place.

To make this better understood the diagram on the following page has been furnished.

Testimony that will establish the practical application can be furnished, of which the following is prominent :

Dr. T. Clark Miller, of Massilon, Ohio, then president of the State Board of Health of that State, has taken pains to examine and report on the efficiency of this system, says: "It is almost a new sun in the sanitary heavens." He had the firm of Isaac D. Smead & Co., who are putting in apparatus of this kind, employ Prof. Kirchmeier, of the N. W. Ohio Medical College, examine and make a report of the working of the closets of this firm. The Professor says that they are doing all that is needed, and far better than any system known.

Dr. Van Pelt, Health Officer of Toledo, Ohio, also reports: "I regard the Isaac D. Smead system of dry closets healthful in every way."

Mr. P. D. Bricker, of Jersey Shore, Pa., says: "The dry closets are efficacious, novel, and highly appreciated by us, as they work well."

A special committee of the Board of Education of Englewood, Ill., August 5, 1886, reports: "We inspected the building (a school building in Toledo, Ohio) very thoroughly. Each vault was about 24x3 feet and 20 feet long. These are connected with a ventilating shaft, which is 4x5 and 69 feet high. In the base of