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A Well Ventilated Home

But even with all these provisions, severe winds coming from the north would invariably make the north rooms colder, while winds from the west would leave the west rooms colder.

While I was wrestling with this problem an enterprise sprang up in the city called The Public Service Heating. This enterprise undertook to furnish to the homes of our section of the city hot water for heating purposes.

I very quickly saw the utility of this plan, and provided my house with hot water radiators. They were installed, and for a stated sum per year this hot water plant furnishes the radiators with sufficient pressure of hot water to keep the whole house at an even temperature of seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

Each room is guarded by a thermostat, which admits more or less water, according to the temperature maintained in the house. If it suddenly turns cold in the night the heat increases. And if the house is left alone for a day or two and cold weather comes on, the heat springs up automatically and requires the attention of no one.

Thus it is at last we have the house perfectly heated and perfectly ventilated. The open grates still in use, but only for ornamental purposes, and for ventilating purposes. Every room, all over the large house, is maintained at summer heat during the coldest of weather. Even during the summer time, if a cold spell comes on lowering the temperature much below seventy, the hot water is instantly supplied, requiring not the slightest attention on the part of the house owner.

It would seem as if this arrangement was beyond criticism. But one great defect still remained to be overcome. I do not believe in sleeping in a warm bedroom. I like to have the bedroom where I sleep as cold as the outside temperature will allow.

By special arrangement, two of the upper rooms were left without radiators. These are provided with single

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bedsteads, which constitute the household sleeping apartments. The windows in these rooms are open most of the time, night and day. Always open at night, sometimes nearly all day.

The other sleeping rooms are warm, like the rest of the house, for transient guests, of which we have a great many.

Thus we have the old-time arrangement reversed. People used to put their visitors away in a cold sleeping room on bitter wintry nights, while the host occupied a warm room. Our guests have warm rooms, while the hosts sleep in cold rooms.

Of course the cold rooms could

easily be made warm by closing the windows and opening the door. And the warm rooms could be easily made cool by opening the windows. So that every one can have his sleeping apartment at the temperature best suited to his own taste.

The bath room, which is provided. with all modern facilities and is the most frequently used room in the house, is warm night and day. Full of fresh, warm air.

It is certainly a luxury to step out of a cold bedroom in the night and into warm adjacent rooms, finding nowhere a chilly apartment, nowhere a draft, nowhere any unventilated nook. All over the house the floors are warm. One can safely lie down on the floor and go to sleep without fear of drafts, and yet in the rooms where we actually sleep our drinking water is frequently frozen, and it is no novelty to find snow on the floor.

By the way, speaking of floors, every room is provided with rugs. We have no carpets in the house. Movable rugs, frequently beaten, floors frequently scrubbed, preserves us entirely from the old barbarism and filthiness of a nailed-down carpet, taken up once a year in house-cleaning time.

Some one might ask, "But what if something should happen to the hot water plant, and for a day or two the supply of hot water would be cut off?"

Then I should fall back upon my gas heating, the furnace and open grates.

"But what if the gas supply should also fail, as well as the hot water plant?"

Then I should fall back upon running the furnace with coal, a goodly supply of which stands ready and has stood there for the last ten years, and never once have we been obliged to make use of it.

A perfectly heated and perfectly ventilated home is no small accomplishment. Thanks to modern facilities, I have been privileged for several years to live in such a home. With moderate means at my command, with very ordinary surroundings as to furniture and decorations, I have been able to provide a luxury for my home that fifty years ago no money could have bought. Neither

gold nor silver could have purchased then the fresh, warm air with which we are abundantly supplied.

It is a pleasure to see the little ones crawling about on a warm floor, with no fear of croup or pneumonia as the result. We never have colds in our house. Nor any climatic affection directly due to unequal temperature and bad ventilation.

I enter many homes during the course of the year. In very few of them indeed do I find the one luxury which we prize above all earthly luxuries-warm air, rich with oxygen.

I sincerely wish that every home in the land could be similarly provided. I feel sure that half the ills of life are due to badly heated and badly ventilated homes.

There has been a great advance. made already, but mostly in cities. Some day the problem of heating country homes will be taken up, and the abominable stove, upon which country people chiefly rely for heat, will be banished from the land.

The old-fashioned, open log fire was a great improvement on much of the present-day heating. But even that had its objections. The amount of air necessary to sustain such a huge fire

must be drawn from the outside. It was usually drawn under the doors, through the chinks of windows, creating drafts. When one sat before such a fire his face would be warm while his back would be chilly.

With a heat that pervades the whole room equally, so that a thermometer can be moved from place to place in the room, registering no difference in temperature, and at the same time a constant influx of fresh air and an outflow of air that has been breathed, this is the luxury of luxuries. No preventive to disease invented by medical science can equal it. No artificial immunity against contagion can be compared to it.

Next month I will tell you something about the way in which our home is lighted.

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Another Smallpox Scare.

By DR. W. B. CLARKE, Indianapolis, Indiana. N PAGE 62 of the January issue of The Columbus Medical Journal is an account of the confusion of chickenpox and smallpox last November at Brattleboro, Vermont, resulting in closing the schools for about one thousand pupils.

I append brief particulars of a later and similar occurrence, taking the facts from the New York Press of

Thursday, December 17th, the account beginning:

"The millionaire colony in Oakdale, Long Island, has been in the throes of a smallpox scare since last Saturday, when Louise, daughter of Jacob Ockers, the biggest oyster shipper in America, returned to her home from Barnard College, in this city, and complained of feeling ill. plained of feeling ill. Dr. Van Deinse, of Sayville, was called and said the symptoms indicated smallpox. He reported to Drs. Baker and Overton, health officers, and Dr. Perry, who examined the young lady on Monday and agreed with Dr. Van Deinse.

"They thereupon quarantined the house, and over the protests of the father who declared that his daughter did not have smallpox.

Dr. Hulett Defends Osteopathy

"Mr. Ockers submitted to the quarartine, and then demanded an investigation by the State Board of Health. Two experts were rushed to the scene and went to the house with the other four doctors. 'All she has is chickenpox,' said one expert, and the other coincided, and the patient almost the patient almost jumped out of bed in her delight. The four local physicians, however, did not take the verdict with such good grace. 'The quarantine on this house is raised,' the leader of the state visitors continued, and then it was that Jacob Ockers smiled broadly."

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Diseases Classified.

LL diseases or derangements of the human body are divisible as to cause into two classes; i. e., Ist, Those that are caused by external forces or environment. 2d, Those caused by internal forces or mental habits.

The first kind are mechanical and belong to the domain of drugs and surgery as remedies. The second kind are physical and can only be treated by remedies that appeal directly to the soul life or mind. The mechanical man can be fixed by surgery or regulated by drugs, but the spiritual man can only be healed by spiritual forces.

A sick soul soon produces a sick body,

and the cure should be directed to the

soul rather than the body. A sick body soon produces a sick soul, and the remedy should be directed toward the body. He only is a good doctor who is able to use remedies that appeal to the soul as well as remedies that apply to the body.

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Beware the Tree Trimmer.

O BE avoided is the work of the professional tree trimmer; a fellow who comes around occasionally with an assortment of saws, and offers to put your orchard in shape. He is generally some floater who has failed to keep his own orchard in shape. His real knowledge of trees is ex tempore, and his sawing is sure to continue as long as you will pay his wages.

Large limbs are cut off at random, but suckers are left. The chances are that your orchard will be ruined.

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There is really but one salvation from this wholesale sacrilege; you must study Nature-work yourself; get acquainted with the trees so intimately that no roving jack-at-all-trades can deceive you. No one who neglects to familiarize himself with the laws of growth has any right to a country home.

The orchardist, first of all, is a man who can make of his trees and plants companions. When they urged the Roman emperor to go back and resume the crown he had resigned, he simply said: "Come and see my cabbage." The real countryman feels that nothing in this world is quite as pleasurable and satisfactory as his orchard and garden. He learns every year more and more to be intimate with all forms of life around him. From The Outing Magazine for November.

That's what I call the religion of the orchard and is very good stuff to read.

Osteopathy Defended.

By M. F. HULETT, Osteopath, 8 E. Broad St., Columbus, Ohio.

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IN THE February issue of The Columbus Medical Journal is an article under the above title, by Dr. Geo. P. Sprague, taken from the Cincinnati Lancet Clinique. About the time the article was first

published I noted that the writer stated that the law in Kentucky (endorsed by Osteopaths) provided that they (Osteopaths) might "practice as physicians with the proviso that on their particular branches they should be examined by Osteopaths, but that they should also pass all the essential branches in regular medicine. They accepted that very willingly, but it had the effect of keeping out all new men [italics mine] since the law went into effect,” etc.

This statement seemed to me so at variance with conditions elsewhere that there was raised in my mind a doubt as to its accuracy. To satisfy myself, I wrote to a member of the board in that state. He reports results which show that, during a given period, while one-third of the Osteopaths failed (in a previous period only two-ninths), eighteen-forty-thirds of

the regular medical applicants were deficient, thus demonstrating that a larger per cent. of Osteopaths than M. D. applicants were successful.

Dr Sprague is therefore misinformed, or he is an eligible candidate for the "Ananias Club."

As to his charge that we are "ignorant, and often illiterate, and certainly ignorant of what they are claiming," etc., if there need be any answer other than the marvelous growth of the science in popular favor, in favorable legislation in over two-thirds of the states, and in the actual results which are manifested on every hand, the above citation as to the Kentucky situation is certainly sufficient. But if any one in this locality is still in doubt, let him consult the records in the office of the secretary of the Medical Board, State House, Columbus, where he will find a condition similar to that cited in Kentucky. Further evidence may be had by a personal acquaintance with the individuals who make up the general membership of the Osteopathic profession, now located in all cities and towns of any prominence.

In the February issue of The Columbus Medical Journal I note a short article under the caption "Chiropractic,"

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by Dr. J. A. Hunter. In explaining what the term means the writer says:

"A strain or twist or even a relaxed condition of the body may allow the spinal vertebræ to slip slightly out of the normal position, thus causing the pinch (pinching of nerves, as explained in the preceding paragraph). A skillfully trained man can replace the slipped vertebra, thus giving the nerves free action again. *** This method is called Chiropràctic."

Pray why this change of name-this effort to steal the legitimate credit of the discovery of the principle of a science by another name? Osteopathy has been developing for thirty-five years and more-long before the term Chiropractic was coined. It is based upon the theory that disease is the result of disturbed function-perverted structure producing or maintaining perverted function-a general principle applicable to all structure. What. therefore, Dr. Hunter chooses to call "chiropractic" is nothing more than what might be classed as the "first three weeks" (of the twenty-seven months-three years of nine months each) of an Osteopathic college course, or a very minute part of this school of practice.

THE GERM THEORY.

By STEPHEN BENJAMIN MUNN, M. D., Waterbury, Conn.

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UT since the germ theory, which died and was buried in the eighteenth century, has been disinterred and resuscitated, a vast amount of endeavor has been put forth to compel the acceptance of the notion. that microscopic creatures abound everywhere to disseminate maladies. life abounds everywhere, we may believe; else it would be impossible for Us to be sustained. But that living things exist to produce disease, each disease having an individuality of its own and its characteristic parent germ, is a libel on Nature itself. It assumes that diseases in distinct generic types are a part of the order of the universe; whereas, disease is only a disrup

tion of that order. If the theory were true, human life would have perished from the earth ages ago. But in fact whatever of living micro-organisms exists in living things, is there to sustain them and fit them for their use.

The creatures found in dead or diseased tissue, so far as they have peculiar office, are there to change its nature and fit it for some other good purpose. The hysteric craze about micro-organism has been assiduously cultivated, and even extended to some of the simplest occurrences of daily life. The slightest contact is made the opportunity for the alarmist. The changing of pencils, for instance, is a frequent occurrence between pupils at school. I venture the as

Liberal Medicine in Minnesota

sertion that no one has ever known of a death occasioned by it, or even disease in any form.

The practice of a company drinking from the same cup, or other vessel, is very general. It may be a refinement of etiquette to supply each person with a cup for himself, and some religious congregations have fallen into the fad of supplying a cup to each participant at the Communion; but as a means of disseminating disease, the subject is not worthy of any consideration.

In the matter of comb and brush, I prefer to use my own exclusively; but other persons using them would derive nothing worse than what they might get in their heads,-a change of breeds possibly.

The same absurd whim is proposed to be extended to the books of a library. The legitimate conclusion of this would be, that we have no public libraries, and that books in private libraries be handled only by individuals in the family, and only after a very careful disinfection.

When we come to what is said about kissing, the climax of absurdity will seem to have been reached. Everybody worth thinking of is more or less addicted to the practice, and it helps to make life worth living. I will ask how long a time it will take to convince lovers that they should refrain from the action, or mothers that they must not kiss their babies?

The idea that people can contract tuberculosis from sputum on the street is without foundation in fact; for when it is sufficiently dried to float in the air, it has become thoroughly disinfected by oxygen and is perfectly harmless.

There is, however, one circulating medium that seems to carry with its circulation no fear; it is sought for by the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the happy, the wretched, the bond, the free, crimes are committed for it, and lives and happiness are sold for it; and yet no fear comes when we receive it, no deadly germs lurk in its glitter or rustle in its paper. Whoever knew a physician to refuse it from whatever hand proffered,

or

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under whatever circumstances?— "Money."

The Columbus Medical Journal advocates cleanliness in all things. But the "germ theory" sort of cleanliness is certainly "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel." The above article hits the nail on the head just exactly.

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Hypnotic Therapeutics.

YPNOTIC therapeutics applied to actual practice with numerous illustrations of treatment by suggestion, is a late book, 332 pages, by John Duncan Quackenbos, A. M. M. D. Dr. Quackenbos is the author of several books on allied subjects and is undoubtedly as qualified to write a book on the therapeutics of hypnotism as any living man. The book is intended as a guide to the practitioner and gets right down. to business from the first page.

It is certainly a gratifying sign of progress that such men are taking up this subject and trying to clear away the rubbish of superstition that has long surrounded it, and to place it where it belongs; side by side with other healing agencies. It is what I have been hoping and striving for lo, these many years.

Liberal Legislation.

By J. R. BENNETT, Secretary Minnesota College of Physiological Therapeutics, Minneapolis, Minn.

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WISH to briefly describe to your readers an act to regulate the practice of physiological and mental therapeutics which we are endeavoring to get through the Legislature of the State of Minnesota. I will not give the act in full, but briefly summarize it. The act provides that: "The State shall establish and maintain an Examining Board of (5) five members to examine practicians and students desiring to engage in the practice of Physiological and Mental Therapeutics or any other method of Drugless Healing. Said board is to be appointed by the Governor and hold office for a term of two years.

"The subject matter of the examination shall be divided into two general divisions. Each member of the Board shall prepare a set of ten questions for

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