Let us look into one of these vaults, in a public school, we will say, twentyfour hours after it has been used by, perhaps, 500 children. Will we be sickened by the odor and disgusted by the sight of a reeking mass of moist filth, such as would present itself to view did we penetrate the mysteries of a sewer? On the contrary, we will find a mass of thoroughly dry, odorless, mummified organic matter, similar to the cow manure of the field that has been subjected to the forces of nature; we will find a mass of matter that we can handle, if we choose, with impunity, over which we can pour some coal oil, touch a match thereto, and in an hour or two that which has been the refuse of 500 children will present to us but a small mass of ashes that one could swallow, if he so willed, without fear of injury. Can the mind of man conjure up a more natural or a more beautiful picture? We plead guilty to having fallen a complete and unqualified captive to this system. We started out to briefly describe the features of this system, but our enthusiasm has run away with our pen until we fear that we have run away with the patience of our readers. It is not our wish or intention to make this editorial an advertisement for any man's business, hence we have purposely refrained from saying anything that would unfold the identity of this system to any of our readers save those who may be already familiar with it. But, in conclusion we would say that if our pen picture presents a scene of nature to any of our readers that, as it was with ourselves, they can have no conception of the perfection of the system until they have seen it working. It is the system, and not its inventor, that we are advocating, and while, therefore, we fail to reveal its identity in our pages, we will be only too glad to personally say to any of our readers where they may see it in operation, hoping, as we believe, that anyone who once sees the system in operation will become as ardent an admirer thereof as we ourselves now are.

A Just Retribution.

It is related of a doctor "down East" that although several eminent physicians, as well as the health authorities, had pronounced a disease that was prevalent in the town to be scarlet fever, he persisted in denying this fact and even went so far as to tear down the flags of warning that had been displayed upon infected houses by the authorities. For this latter act he was arrested and will probably be a wiser and sadder man before he gets through with his trouble. But for the retribution; denying the nature of the disease and, consequently, neglecting to observe the simplest precautions, he carries the disease into his own home and infects his own children. The moral of this true story is that whenever there is a doubt as to whether a given disease is contagious or infectious or not, the benefit should be given to the side of contagion. The precautions to prevent spreading that will then be in order cannot do any harm. under any circumstances, while if the disease is contagious, their neglect may prove fearfully and fatally retributive.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Onions for Insomnia.

A writer in a daily paper recommends eating raw onions before bedtime as a remedy for insomnia. Evidently he sleeps alone (says the Medical Record) and by an open window.

The Absent-Minded Doctor.

An absent-minded doctor recently took unto himself a wife. During the marriage ceremony when she held out her hand for the ring, he felt her pulse and requested to see her tongue.

A Small Baby.

Dr. C. G. Hubburd, of Hornellsville, N. Y., reports in the New York Medica' Journal the birth of a living child which weighed one pound and two ounces and measured ten inches in length. It lived eight hours.

To Remove Fruit Stains.

Pour boiling water on chloride of lime, in the proportion of 1 gallon to

pound; bottle it, cork it well, and in using be careful not to stir it. Lay the

stain in this for a moment, then apply white vinegar and boil the table linen.

Fish as an Invalid Diet.

It is remarked by a contributor to the London Lancet, that many medical men may be unaware of the fact, simple as it is, that boiled fish, fried fish, and almost any other kind of cooked fish, are all inferior in digestibility to steamed fish.

Ozone for Bedrooms.

A simple plan for obtaining ozone in small quantities is to mix very gradually three parts of strong sulphuric acid with two parts of permanganate of potash in a jam-pot, and place the vessel under the bed. Ozone will be given off from the mixture for some weeks.-N. Y. Medical Times.

How to Bathe the Eyes.

To bathe the eyes properly take a large basin of cold water, bend the head close over it, and with both hands throw the water with some force on the gently closed lids. This has something of the same effect as a shower bath, and has

a toning-up influence which water applied in any other way has not.

A Cure for Snoring.

It has been recommended that when a person can breathe readily through the nose, if they will tie a band or handkerchief over the mouth it will cure the habit of snoring. We have had no experience with this procedure, hence cannot endorse it; but, as it is simple and harmless, it is worthy of trial.

An Album for Pasteur.

The Semaine Médicale reports that a committee, composed of British and American notabilities, has been formed to offer an album to M. Pasteur. The first page of this album bears, in French, under the signature of the Princess of Wales, the following inscription: "To the Great Monsieur Pasteur, the Benefactor of the human race."

Use of the Kola-Nut in Armies.

During the manoeuvres of the German Army last Autumn, numerous experiments were made to determine the practical utility of the kola-nut in enabling men to endure severe and prolonged physical labor. So satisfactory were the results obtained that the authorities are said to have ordered thirty tons of the drug for use of the army.

Mary-said the sick man, feebly-those yowling cats annoy me terribly. Can't they be reached by a shot-gun or something of that kind?

No-replied his wife-they are on the flat roof of the adjoining house. Mary-exclaimed the invalid again, after a pause, and his face grew hard and pitiless-throw some of these medicines up on the roof.

Gelatine as a Food.

We are glad to find Dr. F. P. Henry, of this city, calling attention to the fact that the merits of gelatine, as a food, are not sufficiently recognized. Jelly is a favorite dish for the invalid, but the man in health seldom thinks to eat it. We are satisfied that gelatine is a most nutritious and healthy food, and we would bespeak for it a larger degree of popular favor than it now enjoys.

Persistent Headache.

It will be well for those of our readers who may suffer from persistent headache for which they cannot assign satisfactory cause, to know that such a condition is, not infrequently, due to some eye trouble. If, therefore, any one is troubled in this way, often thinking it to be neuralgia, it will be wise to consult a good oculist and see if relief cannot be procured by attention to the eyes.

Keep on Your Hat at the Grave.

A society of clergymen of Topeka, Kan., has passed resolutions opposing the custom, on the part of pallbearers and friends, of uncovering the head at the commitment of bodies to the grave, and has requested the local medical society for their opinion on the matter. The society has unanimously endorsed the ministers' views, and so do we also; most emphatically.

For Indigestion.

For indigestion, the external application of something warm to the stomach, a piece of flannel, or anything to keep the stomach warm and promote a supply of blood, is sometimes of great benefit. In taking hot water internally, it is best to sip it by spoonfuls, waiting a moment after each for an eructation of the gas disengaged by the hot water from the fermenting contents of the stomach.

Connecticut Tobacco.

An item, in the paper, recently caught our eye, to the effect that the value of Connecticut tobacco has depreciated fully 50 per cent. because the proper kind of manure is not supplied to the growing plant. If, we thought, improper food (for manure is the food of vegetable life) will depreciate the value of a vegetable growth 50 per cent., is it unreasonable to claim that improper food will depreciate the value of a human being equally as much?

No Time for Health.

People are too hurried to think of health—are under too much pressure to pause for physiology. They bolt their meals, race for the train, jump for the boat. Those who live fast do not live well. The steady, moderate, methodical man does more work and better than one who tries to do in a day the work of a week. The racer gives out sooner than the plodding draught horse. there is nothing that shortens life like laziness.—Monthly Bulletin.

The Eiffel Tower as a Mother's Mark.

Yet

The Paris correspondent of the Medical Press is responsible for the story that a woman from St. Quentin visited (being at the time about four months' pregnant) the late Paris Exhibition. One of the sights which seemed to strike her the most and to have an extraordinary influence on her nervous system was the celebrated Eiffel tower. Small blame to the poor woman! Recently she was confined, and the child bears on its chest a well-defined reproduction of the monument.

The Abolition of Capital Punishment.

There has perambulated down the ages a legend to the effect that the doctor takes life easily," and it might be inferred that he would regard the taking of life by society without any sentimental protest at least. We believe it is true that the physician looks at the question of capital punishment very objectively, and passes judgment upon it mainly as he would upon a question of therapeutics-for this is what it is. If society can better preserve and protect itself against criminals by their strangulation or electrothanatosis, why, then, these measures should be employed. No question of first principles or inherent rights or sentiment is involved. The public mind is being exercised upon this matter just now, and we hope with fruitful results. It appears as if the death penalty were a necessity in the early stages of social organization, but that as civilization advances it becomes useless and unwise.—Medical Record.

Glass Water and Sewer Pipes.

We have always felt that if glass could be used for water and sewer pipes, it would be a great step forward. Not only would lead contamination of water be then impossible; not only would corrosion by sewage and occlusion of the pipe be unheard of, but if placed in view (as all pipes always should be), it would be always possible for us to see and know just what was going on inside of our pipes. Hence do we record with extreme gratification that a glass pipe for water service has been placed upon the market by a firm in Dresden.

Married at 90.

It must have been a pleasant sight to one who admires longevity to have witnessed the marriage ceremony that recently took place in West Virginia, wherein the groom was 90 years of age. This old man walked twenty miles to grect his bride, then six miles more to get a license, and was then married. There is no earthly reason why in time, by a process of physical regeneration, the result of a universal observance of the teachings of hygiene, all of us might not, at 90 years of age, be as vigorous and as interested in the affairs of this world as was this ardent and athletic lover.

Bismarck's Retirement Not an Unmixed Evil.

One result of Prince Bismarck's retirement will, says the British Medical Journal, perhaps, be a notable improvement in the eyesight of his countrymen. German oculists almost unanimously attribute the extraordinary prevalence of myopia and other defects of vision in the Fatherland to the use of the national black-letter type in school-books. Prince Bismarck has always resolutely stood upon the ancient ways in this matter, and has opposed the substitution of the Roman for the Gothic character in German books. The party of typographical reform is now hopeful of succeeding in its object.

How Smallpox Epidemics Originate.

The following account of the origin of a recent epidemic of smallpox in Meriden, Conn., as furnished by Dr. C. A. Lindsley, the secretary of the Connecticut State Board of Health, is very instructive, in so far as it clearly shows how one suppressed case was the cause of communicating the disease to twenty-six persons and causing the sacrifice of ten lives :

A man boarding with a saloon-keeper in Meriden visited Windsor Locks during the prevalence of the disease in that place. After his return he was ill and had an eruption, which was thought so suspicious that he was kept out of view in his rooms until it had disappeared, and advised to say nothing about it. In due time the little daughter of the saloon-keeper was also taken sick and had an eruption; and her physician reported it to the City Health Committee as varioloid. A consultation with other physicians was held upon the case, and the majority being of the opinion that it was chicken pox and not varioloid, the Health Committee took no precautions about it. The case was not even kept under observation for the brief time necessary to settle the doubt concerning it.

The experience of Meriden will afford a notable illustration of the importance of immediate notification of every infectious disease, and of the danger of neglecting any cases about which there is reasonable uncertainty of the diagnosis.