VOL. XXIV.

No. 3.

Progress in the Study

The

We publish elsewhere in this number an article on Dr. Koch and his work, of Disease. from the pen of Dr. Hermann Biggs, of New York, himself an international authority as a bacteriologist. Professor Koch, of Berlin, who was the discoverer of the tuberculosis germ, which is now universally acknowledged to be the cause of consumption, was the most conspicuous figure in the recent Tuberculosis Congress held in London. On this occasion, Dr. Koch took the ground that it is not true, as had been supposed, that tuberculosis can be readily conveyed to human beings by milk or butter from cows afflicted with what is known as bovine tuberculosis, nor from the use of the meat of tubercular cattle. Dr. Koch had reached this view after much laborious study and experiment. Other authorities in the congress did not agree with him, however, notably Professor Macfadyen, of the Royal Veterinary College, who held that human and bovine tuberculosis are essentially the same disease. congress was one of great interest and value, and was fraught with more importance, by far, to the human race than most of the recent action and discussion of the parliaments and congresses that are supposed to shape the destiny of nations. It is, indeed, highly significant to note the great progress that the world is making through voluntary association, free discussion, and coöperative effort, quite outside the sphere of politics and government. Thus, the united efforts of devoted and self-sacrificing specialists, as focussed occasionally in a gathering like this congress on tuberculosis, are certain to result in the very near future in the saving of hundreds of thousands, or even of millions, of lives every year from the ravages of a single disease. Professor Brouardel, of Paris, by the way, in his paper on the prevention of consumption, dwelt upon the importance of dry, well-lighted houses and generally wholesome conditions of life, and placed especial emphasis upon the danger of drink in relation to tubercular diseases. He is quoted as saying that

"alcoholism is the most potent factor in propagating tuberculosis; the strongest man who has once taken to drink is powerless against it." Another eminent French specialist, Dr. Daremberg, has now made an alarming report on the prevalence and steady growth of consumption in France, where one-third of all deaths is now due to that disease. He attributes its recent frightful progress to the manner in which the French nation has of late taken to alcoholic drinks. It is high time that the double fight against poisonous beverages and tubercular infection should be waged by the united efforts of science and government.

The War

An article written for this REVIEW Against last month by Dr. Howard, the GovMosquitoes. ernment's entomological authority at Washington, summed up in a most complete way the investigations by experts of various nationalities which have worked out to a complete demonstration the remarkable and invaluable discovery that mosquitoes are the principal and probably the sole transmitters of malaria and yellow fever, if not of other diseases. The whole world is brighter and more hopeful for this notable demonstration. Practical measures are being employed this summer on the New Jersey coast, and in various other parts of the United States, to get rid of mosquitoes by recourse to drainage, the filling in of stagnant pools, the more complete use of mosquito nettings, and the use of petroleum to destroy the mosquito larvæ on ponds and pools. In the West Indies, in Italy, on the coasts of Africa and elsewhere, the war of offense and defense against mosquitoes is going on, and it is by all odds the best and most hopeful war of the present year. In Havana, as we noted last month, no deaths are reported from yellow fever, this being the first summer in considerably more than a century when yellow fever has not been prevalent and to some extent fatal. The mosquito transmission of the yellow-fever

germ is absolutely demonstrated. A new serum cure for yellow fever, discovered by a Brazilian physician, Dr. Caldas, has been undergoing a searching test, in which the United States Government has participated.

Other Notes on

So

The bubonic plague seems to be still the Season's on its travels, and medical men Health. throughout the world are studying that disease with anxious devotion to human welfare, and with methods that enable each to benefit by the efforts of all. Unquestionably, the antitoxin treatment for diphtheria, which has come into common use in all civilized countries, has greatly decreased the mortality from that dread disease. Smallpox, which ought to have been extinct by this time, has been more in evidence this year than usual in New York, and in some other parts of the United States. Almost without exception, the doctors and the boards of health have been urging universal vaccination as the only safeguard. In the memory of men still middle-aged, great epidemics scourged at least some of our American cities every year. The Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus or typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and diphtheria were the more common of the diseases that were wont to acquire epidemic proportions. far as we are aware, the present summer of 1901 has passed without the slightest trace of any serious epidemic visitation in any large American community. Taking things as they average, life has never been so comfortable, or co free from peril, distress, and apprehension among the people of the United States, as in this opening year of the new century. It is true that the summer has been one of extreme heat and drought for great portions of the country; but these climatic extremes have been well borne. No cry of distress or call for relief has come from any of the States where the crops are known to have been injured, and the population of town and country have borne the discomfort of hot days and weeks with remarkable optimism and good temper. For one thing, our city water-supplies ale far more abundant and pure than in former years; and this is a matter of great importance in hot and dry seasons. Furthermore, the use of ice in summer has become very prevalent indeed; and it is a mark of the improvement in the general standard of living that all working people regularly employed are almost as habitual users of ice in summer as of fuel in winter.

Will

This

who wished work to be employed at as good an average rate of pay as people in this country have ever known. When the ordinary life of the country is not disturbed by great wars, pestilences, or famines; when agriculture is gener ally productive, and when all the people are employed at fair wages, the producers have the means to pay for food, shelter, clothes, and some luxuries, and thus consumption keeps pace with production. It would seem as if this balance ought never, in ordinary times, to be seriously disturbed. Yet, even in a period of general prosperity like the present, men are instinctively apprehensive because of past experiences. Good times have heretofore quite invariably led to overspeculation, to the sinking of capital in unproductive enterprises, and to much borrowing and lending of money. Sooner or later something happens at a given point to shock the confidence of the lenders, and they suddenly refuse to give further credit in certain quarters. loss of confidence becomes contagious, and in the sharp reaction that follows, many fortunes are lost, and many workmen and their families suffer through the paralysis of industry that ensues. Then comes the tedious period of recovery. It has been thought in many quarGood Times ters that the extraordinary period of trust forming, company-promoting. and general business expansion through which we have been passing for several years must end in a crash of proportions suited to the unprecedented magnitude of the new financial and industrial operations. This, of course, does not necessarily follow. As we have remarked in previous discussions of the business outlook, the amalgamation of capital and industry may prove to give greater steadiness to the general movement of business. There must, of course, be local speculative collapses, as, for example, in the oil-land craze of the Southwest, and in the premature overdevelopment of some forms of industry. Thus, although the progress in the manufacture of various kinds of self-propelling vehicles has been amazing, and their use is becoming quite common, it is possible that the further march of invention may prove disastrous to a portion of the large aggregate of capital that has already gone into automobile manufacture. It may be well at this point to call attention to a very valuable illustrated article that we present in this number on the making of automobiles in the United States. Generally speaking, the business of the country seems to be upon a firm basis. and the continuance of such industrial activity as may afford employment to all able-bodied workers seems to be fairly assured.

Continue ?

Advance in

In a period less prosperous and less Conditions of contented, the great strike of the American Life. iron and steel workers would have been fraught with consequences far more serious than any that had presented themselves at the end of the month that came under our review. More people than ever before have managed to take a summer vacation of some kind. City people have gone to the seashore, the mountains, or the farmlands, while many people from the country districts have inspected the exposition at Buffalo or otherwise enlarged their sphere of knowledge and experience by travel. More stores, shops, factories, and business places than ever before have allowed their employees Saturday half-holidays or otherwise managed to diminish the weekly number of hours of labor. The general tendency, indeed, toward shorter hours of work is to be observed in all trades and callings. This, to be sure, is largely due to the systematic efforts of labor organizations, further aided by legislation; but it is also due in considerable part to the fact that employers are becoming convinced that long hours are of no real advantage. The American business man has himself been learning to get some pleasure away from his store or office, and this change in his own habits and point of view has helped him to see a little more clearly the case of his employees. Wholesome sports were never so popular before in America as they have been this summer, and no previous generation of Americans has been so stalwart and so well trained in body and in mind as the one now coming on.

A Congress

The Tuberculosis Congress is only one Against of this season's European gatherings Seasickness. of specialists for the consideration of some malady or ill against which it is hoped that scientific men, through study and coöperative effort, may be able to provide a remedy. This last month there was held at Ostend, under the patronage of the municipal administration, and under the high protection of the King of the Belgians, a special exposition of all the methods that have been devised or proposed to prevent or mitigate seasickness, and also a congress to discuss that much-joked-about but very serious and troublesome form of illness. As travel by water becomes more and more general and inviting, the one drawback that spoils it all for myriads of voyagers is the liability to seasickness. The plans of the exposition provided for six departments or sections, one of which belonged to naval architecture and had to do with means to diminish the effect of the movement of ships. Another section was devoted to means for improved ventilation of vessels, the removal of

odors, and the abundant supply of oxygen. Other sections had to do with the use of various hygienic or other means of prevention or remedy by the individual traveler, and a final section was devoted to a collection of the very considerable literature in all languages relating to the subject. Doubtless, results of some consequence will have followed from these efforts of that useful French society known as the Ligue contre le mal-de-mer.”

The Progress

Science.

Not only are the scientific men of of Agricultural Europe giving zealous concern to the diseases that directly afflict the human kind, but they are also studying with great care the diseases that affect the animals and plants that are important as sources of food supply, or for other economic ends; and they are also investigating the laws and methods of nature as related to weather and climate, and to the processes of agriculture. Thus, there will be held at Lyons, in France, this autumn, two international congresses of particular importance to farming interests. One of these, which will be under the presidency of the French minister of agriculture, is to consider means of protection against damage from hailstorms. Another, which is to be under the presidency of the inspector-general of viticulture, is to deal with all questions relating to the hybridization of the vine,—a subject, obviously, of great practical moment in the wineproducing countries of the Continent. French experimenters in agricultural science have been making what are announced as successful tests in the inoculation of various trees and plants against certain diseases of a bacterial and parasitical nature; and one of the French agricultural institutes announces a remedy for a new disease of the sugar beet that had begun to worry producers of that staple European crop. Just as the treatment of human maladies is being revolutionized under the discoveries of medical science, so the ancient art of agriculture bids fair to be wholly reëstablished on a new basis through the wonderful discoveries of the experts in the practical application to agriculture of modern methods of research in chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, and other sciences. Through the efforts of our own agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the farmers of the West are beginning to reap the benefits of some of the discoveries of the new agricultural science. Thus, their improved outlook is well reflected in the extremely interesting article that we present this month from the pen of Professor Blackmar, of the University of Kansas, who writes concerning conditions in that part of the country after the great drought of the past summer.

Some

Among European expositions of a European practical character may be mentioned Expositions. the one at Lodi, in Italy, which is to be held in the present month of September under the united management of the Italian chambers of commerce. It is international in its scope. and its principal exhibits will be of agricultural machines, and of machinery for making butter and cheese, together with the dairy products themselves; and there will also be a department devoted to automobiles. A still more important automobile exposition is to be held this fall in Germany, at the Crystal Palace of Leipsic.

is to be hoped that American inventors and manufacturers may be suitably represented. An exposition and congress relating to means for the extinguishment of fire was held at Berlin. earlier in the season, and various exhibitions of a practical nature were held in Paris: Looking ahead a little, it may be noted that six months hence, at St. Petersburg, Russia, there is to be opened a universal international exposition of fisheries, which is to have nine departments and be very elaborate, and which is to be attended by an international congress on various questions relating to fisheries. Expositions of the fine arts, or of art as related to decoration and industry, have been almost countless in European countries during the past summer. The most important, probably, of these art expositions has been the one at Munich. One of the small art exhibitions of Germany was interestingly described in our issue of last month by a prominent American artist. An interesting exhibition at Brussels is of a purely historical character, and includes only objects that pertain to the primitive history of Belgium. At Rouen, in France, from July to September, there was held an exposition of the arts applied to the decoration of textile fabrics. On the 1st of November there will be opened at Nîmes, in France, an exposition of decorative and industrial art. It is announced that a con

gress of archæology will be held in the near fu ture at Athens. This, of course, must have an important bearing upon the progress, methods, and results of recent archæological explorations, and will doubtless involve the exhibition of ob

THE STATUE AT ASNIERES.

jects recently unearthed that illustrate ancient life and art. The city of Riga, one of the most important ports of Russia and a great naval and shipping center in the Gulf of Riga, which opens from the Baltic, has been festive this summer in hon. or of the sevenhundredth anniversary of the founding of the town, and has held an exposition as a part of the general plan

of celebration. Riga has had a good growth of recent years, and now boasts about 300,000 inhabitants, a third of whom are of German origin.

Fetes, Monu

Exhibitions.

Many French The French pecple have always been ments, and the leaders in the art of creating expositions, and almost all of the provincial towns of France have recently held, or will hold, exhibitions of their own, either of a special or general nature, the majority of them being strongest on the side of art. In connec tion with local fêtes, celebrations, or expositions.

there have also of late been

a remarkable number of public monuments and statues erected and dedicated in French towns. Most of these monuments are of high artistic merit. Among them we may cite a monument recently erected at Asnières in memory of the youths of that place who once bore arms in defense of France. It is a striking piece of work, as may be inferred from the small illustration presented herewith. To