hygiene and the sick-room is a fruitful field for cultivation. By reference to cuts, it may be seen that it is easy to be exposed in five seconds to a change of 40° Fahr., a circum- By reference to Fig. 4 it will be seen that when the first floor was as low as 48° and 50° Fahr., the second floor was 65° Fahr., and all the second floor room was of a more even temperature. This is owing, of course, to the cold under the first floor, and the heat 90° Fahr. under the second. It shows why the sick should be, if possible, in the second story, over a room that is heated, and why relapses occur when patients are permitted to come downstairs. The contrast is greater in many instances than shown in the figure, which represents a grade of houses better than the medium. Most of the foregoing experiments may be performed as follows: Take one and a half dozen thermometers (common Japanned tin cases), set them in water very cold, 33° Fahr., and well stirred; ascertain the difference in the register, if any, and note it by pasting a little slip of paper with the correction on it near the top. Then place the thermometers all in water at 120° Fahr., well stirred, and correct as before; then in water at 70° Fahr., and correct. These corrections will render them sufficiently accurate for practical purposes. Lay six of them across the floor, or, better, on blocks one half an inch high, in a row, equally distant one from the other, extending from wall to wall; then stretch a string or wire across the room in the same vertical plane as the row of thermometers, and hang another row on it right above the first; stretch another row across in same plane at ceiling. You will then have three horizontal rows and six vertical rows. Wait thirty minutes, then read off the temperatures, and record them on a piece of paper to represent the vertical section of room. Any number of such sections may be made in a room, and should be made to include windows and doors as a main feature. Temperature of windows can very easily be taken by placing or hanging thermometers on the sash. It is clear from what has been stated that to keep well or to treat diseases, especially of the respiratory organs, such as pneumonia, croup, pleurisy, bronchitis, coryza, etc., we should keep an even temperature of about 70° Fahr. The thermometer should be on a level with the patient's head and near by ; a good way is to hang it on the bedpost at the head of the bed, and the mercury should not be allowed to fall below 68° Fahr., or rise above 74° Fahr. If the floor is warm, the whole room can easily be kept so. A bed should not be against a cold wall. If it cannot be in the middle of the room, it should not be near a window or door, and should always be pulled out from the wall six inches or more, so that the cold air, which always descends along a wall, can have room to drop to the floor without flowing over the bed. A great many cases of rheumatism and neuralgia come from sitting near a window. I have often tried lecturing parents and nurses about the importance of keeping children away from windows, but it is very often impossible to have the instructions obeyed. Windows are very attractive to children, especially when the weather is too severe for them to play out. Any woman's mind would be dreadfully strained who has her housekeeping to attend to if she were compelled to keep her eyes constantly on a number of children, even if she could compel them to obey when detected. Some years ago I devised a contrivance to protect children from the death-dealing windows in cold weather, which has given me, as well as parents, much satisfaction. It is simply a fender of metal (also made of wood) about three feet high, and extending out from the window fifteen or twenty inches.* In some families where I have had these screens arranged to the windows for one or two years, I have reduced the medical attendance very greatly, as my books will show. In Canada many of the dwelling-houses have double sash, glass about four or five inches apart, a very good device, and one that diminishes the coal bill also. They are a little unhandy to keep clean. About two thousand cubic feet of fresh air is needed per hour for each individual in a room, and when no fresh-air registers are provided, can only be supplied through the keyholes and cracks around doors and windows, making necessarily strong and dangerous draughts. The only resource left the physician, therefore, is the making of strenuous efforts to have people keep away from the dangerous places. * At my request Mr. C. F. Hollingshead, of the Cooper's Point Iron Works, has prepared some very convenient and ornamental designs. Leaving bedroom doors ajar or windows slightly raised in cold weather is sometimes dangerous, on account of draughts, and though it may be occasionally necessary, it generally requires more knowledge of sanitary science than is possessed by the masses. On being called to see a case, I rarely find a thermometer in If the sick-room; its im- as that theomiter is any good; I've been a-watchin' it, and I had to use more coal to keep the room warm than afore I got it; I gist might as well a-throwed the money away." Still, I am in the habit of ordering a thermometer with the first prescription, though many would apparently pay five dollars for medicine more freely than twenty-five cents for a thermometer, that might save ten times that amount. No one can tell by his own feelings whether a room is warm or cold, for often you will see two persons contending in the same room, one that it is too warm, and the other that it is too cool. It is obvious that we cannot regulate for invalids or others by our feelings. The only unerring guide is the silent, sensitive little column of mercury. The more rooms that are kept heated in a house the less draughts will be found. Especially heat the halls; it will not take much more coal, and will avoid forcing your heaters or stoves, and enable you to keep easy fires; keep the cold air from under the house also. The artificial life of civilization causes greater susceptibility to colds at the same time that it exposes us to greater changes of temperature; but science enables us, on the other hand, to oppose with some success these pernicious influences. The study of this subject shows not only the varied principles that lie at the foundation of successful practice, but also the importance of the collateral sciences to medical education. And it is believed that even the few suggestions of this paper, if properly applied, would reduce the amount of sickness and death consequent upon the habitual neglect of easy precautions. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON HYGIENEMEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. HYGIENE OF THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. AT the recent meeting of the New York State Medical Society, February 2d, Dr. E. V. Stoddard, of Rochester, Chairman of the Committee on Hygiene, submitted the following report: To the Medical Society of the State of New York. GENTLEMEN: Your Committee on Hygiene respectfully report that, during the past year, the attention of this committee has been devoted to completing observations in the line of the sanitary condition of the State. The reports from the various counties, in response to the circular issued last year, have been so imperfect that much individual work on the part of the members of the committee has been necessary. It is believed that the failure to maintain a committee on hygiene in many of the county societies is a source of apathy on sanitary questions among the profession and the public in such counties; and we embrace the present occasion for urging the formation of an active committee on hygiene in every county society. The subjects of special inquiry have been: “The sanitary condition of the public institutions of this State: 1. The char |