new field for study. In a paper on "The Purification of Water in America," read before the Engineering Congress in St. Louis, in 1904, Mr. Allen Hazen stated that when public water supplies are purified, we not only prevent some typhoid deaths, but two or three times as many deaths from other diseases. In a preliminary note in Science (Aug. 14, 1908) Sedgwick and MacNutt have stated that the law is practically universal, and that following a purification of water, there is a reduction of the death rate from even tuberculosis and pneumonia, and of course the infant mortality is greatly reduced. The cause of this phenomenon is not known, but it is suggested that with pure water we avoid the loss of resistance due to constant slight infections not followed. by marked illness. Perhaps also there is enhanced vitality from the purity of the water. At any rate, the advantage of pure water is not exactly the avoidance of special infections, but it is thus proved to be as necessary as pure food. Hazen's law is one of the most momentous discoveries of modern times and is bound to inject new life into the constantly increasing movement for sanitary decency-particularly in water supplies for large cities.

The vicious anti-vivisection crusade is being renewed with a view to the passage of one of the several quixotic bills designed to prevent abuses which do not exist. We have shown that the proposed laws will not only be useless for their professed purposes but will really interfere with medical discoveries. The only medical journal which has favored the bills, as far as we have been informed, is the Medical Times of New York, and it has done

so on the ground that "comparatively little further advance will be made along such lines," a confession that the laws will check this kind of investigation. Since that opinion was published, it has been shown that vivisection experiments have made typhoid inoculations practicable, and will be the means of saving untold thousands of lives, which would be sacrificed if the fanatics could have succeeded. Thousands of investigators are at work on similar problems and always will be, for we will never come to the end of knowledge. The anti-vivisection movement is practically the same as it was fifty years ago, and we may confidently predict that fifty years hence the same discussions will be yearly rehashed, so that public safety demands constant vigilance on the part of the profession to check these illogical people. The present year is no more and no less critical than every other, and it behooves all physicians to do their share to prevent the passage of the bills now before the legislature. We commend to every physician's attention the resolutions of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Scientific treatment of vagrancy is not to be expected in the immediate future, but a good beginning has been made. It is now suggested that laws be passed by the New York Legislature whereby tramps, drunkards and idlers without means of support, be confined in farm colonies. Unfortunately the underlying idea is that these human wrecks are able to work for their keep and should be forced to labor. As a matter of fact they are sick men, some of them chronically starved and incurably neurasthenic. That is the reason they are idlers-not from choice.

Denmark has solved the problem scientifically in self-supporting institutions. The beggar or tramp is arrested, and taken to the settlement where he becomes really a patient who receives careful study, is appropriately treated and given only such work as he is able to do. Quite a percentage recover and are released after positions are found for them. Some prefer to remain and their earnings accumulate; the incurables must remain.

The system has ended mendicancy and vagabondage and must be adopted here not only to restore wrecks to usefulness, but as a matter of economy. The railroads alone lose $25,000,000 yearly yearly through stealing or accidents due to tramps. Counting the crimes committed and the other losses, it would be cheaper to spend a hundred millions a year confining and curing idlers, than to allow the present orgie of crime to continue, though as a matter of fact the colonies would become self-supporting. Nothing can be done as long as public opinion holds to the delusion that idlers are simply vicious men needing punishment,. a delusion as false as the medieval theory that the insane must be scourged and loaded with chains.

The bread lines in the city merely keep the patients alive and the system is as vicious as the imposition of hard labor on an anaemic, frail man with a weak heart and an exhausted nervous system which utterly prevents application. Though alcohol invariably complicates the picture, it is not the cause, but the result of a blind effort to get temporary relief

from intolerable misery. Let the bread lines be abolished and the men confined where they can be treated by physicians, and not given hard work which only makes them worse. The present plan to give them hard farm labor is brutal in the extreme, for it would kill many a well man. The Danish institutions have every conceivable industry-the farm being merely an incident. Our charity is still far from scientific, even though it is already highly "organized" with the view of restoring to self-supporting efficiency rather than relief of present distress.

The contradictions of the phthisio-therapeutists are becoming painful reading. Dr. Clarence L. Wheaton (J. A. M. A., Jan. 2, 1908) states that most men recognize the ideal climate as one with the greatest possible amount of sunshine, but Bullock in such a place (New Mexico) states that the light is bad for consumptives (N. Y. Med. Jour., Sept. 12, 1908). It is interesting to note that Bullock's opinion is based on modern observations but Wheaton quotes experiments published in 1876-7-a third of a century behind the times, and some years before Koch found the bacillus. Wheaton claims that elevation is necessary, as there are fewer "infusoria" and the breathing is deeper and more vigorous, while Dr. S. A. Knopf states that "for tuberculosis of the bones and joints and scrofulous affections of childhood, the seacoast climate in our temperate zones comes nearest to deserving the term specific than anything else," on account of "the aseptic and ozonic quality of the air and the iodide and other salts suspended therein" (N. Y. Med. Jour. Sept. 12), but Carling of New York by

actual experience found that these little ones did better inland than on the coast. Wheaton cries out for a dry atmosphere, Knopf for one with "relatively little humidity," but physicians in rainy climates claim as good results as anybody else, and foggy London has a far less mortality than sunny Milan. Wheaton wants variability of air temperatures and Knopf objects to great extremes, some advise the equable temperatures of Southern California and others the extremes of the Adirondacks.

Evidence is needed for generalizations. Wheaton pines for a "porous soil," though a porous plaster might be just as efficacious as far as any evidence presented. Knopf must have "much sunshine" and conditions permitting "patients to live comfortably out of doors," though much sunshine is decidedly uncomfortable and often drives patients indoors. In selecting cold or warm climates or the seashore, he is guided by the patient's feelings! Wheaton speaks of Colorado as ideal and that "the untoward effects of sunshine have not as yet been reported," whereas White of Colorado Springs had reported them long ago and so had Burton-Fanning. Knopf advises sun baths indoors to the naked body though he presents no evidence that they do any good, and some physicians give them out doors to patients heavily clothed, and the tuberculosis exhibit in New York city has dozens of pictures of patients taking these dark "light baths." It would be just as sensible to put on rubber garments before we get into the bath tub. There is the utmost need for more explanation of these seeming paradoxes of the phthisio-therapists, or the lay public will begin to suspect us of having

opinions not based on observed facts. The layman is now wondering why we killed consumptives indoors for forty years after it was observed that they could be saved out doors. He may hint that when we contradict each other one side is likely to be wrong and until he finds out which, he may ignore both. So let us have the proofs of all the above generalizations or the layman may side with the few physicians who are so bold as to state that tuberculosis is cured everywhere and there is no ideal climate. This would be a disaster, for it is well known that there is an ideal climate for each type or race-that to which it is physically adjusted.

For delightful naivete commend us the recent utterances of a learned physician when he wrote the following:

"I have not the slightest doubt that sodium benzoate (and especially the commercial article of synthetic sodium benzoate) taken in foods more or less continuously, will derange digestion and set up irritation and degenerative changes in the gastroenteric mucosa. Similarly, I have no doubt that copper salts will cause chronic nephritis and it is possible that pathologic changes in the blood and in the nerves may also be originated in this manner."

And this is science! Truly what crimes are committed in its name! One expects such weak, indefinite statements from the pseudo-scientist, but coming from a man of recognized ability, a physician who has made more than one valuable contribution to medicine, it is a sad commentary on the times. We wonder if the author of the above statement thought he was adding one jot or tittle to the discussion of food preservatives, or was aiding in the slightest the determination of the truth concerning

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sodium benzoate. We cannot believe that he did, for he is blessed with more than ordinary common sense and acumen. No, it is only one more illustration of the unconquerable desire that possesses so many of our leading physicians to take part in the discussion of popular questions, whether they can add anything to the knowledge of the subject or not.

Such incidents are a reproach to the science of medicine, and doubly so when perpetrated by men to whom we look for something better. The gentleman in question has abundant resources and opportunities for studying the effect of sodium benzoate, or any other food preservative. His ability and standing would endow any statements of fact with particular interest. But when he essays to go on record and add his influence to either side of a controversial matter, he owes it to himself and the colleagues who hitherto have listened to him with respect, to offer something better than mere negative opinions. There have been too many "I suppose," "I believe," "I think" and "I have no doubt" contributions in medicine, and if the profession deserves reproach for any one failing more than another, it is just this particular one. It is about time we outgrew such weaknesses, and held our pens, as well as our tongues, until we had something to write or say worth while.

The demonstration of tubercle bacilli in the blood is not new, but this does not make any less important the far-reaching investigations of Rosenberger of Philadelphia. In the current issue of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences he makes what is probably one of the most valuable of recent contributions to the

study of tuberculosis. He shows quite conclusively that a bacteriemia is a fairly constant and early phenomenon of all tuberculous processes, and points out the very probable diagnostic value that this fact must ultimately have. If Rosenberger's work is confirmed, as it unquestionably will be, one does not have to be unduly sanguine to anticipate very substantial progress in the struggle with tuberculosis. As a practical technic is evolved, a much earlier diagnosis in many cases will be possible. This naturally means earlier and, of course, more effective treatment. But given a known and demonstrable bacteriemia, there appears another point for therapeutic attack, and it is pretty safe to predict that Rosenberger's studies will materially stimulate the search for a safe yet reliable systemic antiseptic. The blood has been looked upon as a comparatively sterile fluid, and it has been credited with extraordinary antiseptic powers. The accumulation of hematologic research is dissipating these views, and as a logical consequence, we may confidently look for the development of an artificial hemo-antiseptic that possibly will form the one weapon needed to combat successfully not only tuberculosis but other infectious diseases as well. Dr. Rosenberger deserves the most hearty commendation for his intelligent and painstaking investigations. It is in such work that one finds the strongest and most effective response to the altogether too frequent criticism of the medical profession.

The twin sins of the of the Twentieth Century are dogmatism and intolerance. Civilized man has always been guilty of over positiveness--that is why he has made

so many mistakes and has had to retrace his steps so many, many times. Of late the spirit "I am right, you must be wrong," has so possessed the American people that it bids fair to seriously interfere with our progress in every branch of human activity. "Believe with me, or be damned," so characterizes the popular attitude on every controversial matter that we are fast losing our capacity for mental growth. All this is bad enough, but the worst feature of the whole situation comes from the hatreds and ill-feelings that are being engendered and allowed to fill so large a part of our lives.

The vaunted "brotherhood of man" is becoming almost a myth, if we are to judge from what we read; and yet, "it is the age of reform" we hear on every side. But is it? Can reforms and improvements in any line of endeavor possibly be accomplished, if they are undertaken in a spirit of vindictive animosity? We doubt it and the great problems of the day must be approached in a much broader and kindlier frame of mind, or we shall only substitute greater for lesser evils. Proudly we claim to be living in a Christian era, but how long before even these claims will be characterized as exaggerated or misleading?

Vituperation and malicious Attacks are poisoned darts which invariably do infinitely more harm to those who discharge them, than to those against whom they are discharged. No man who hopes to add ever so little to the sum total of human happiness or progress can afford to let the fires of hatred master him. A man can fight like a demon for his honor, home or reputation, or for his principles and belief. But when he stoops to malediction,

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villification, and foul insult, he is lowering himself and sacrificing the very cornerstone of society, the respect of his fellows. The price one pays, therefore, for the last word in a warfare of invective is not only too high, but there are no discounts. The transaction, moreover, always shows a debit on life's profit and loss account.

Opinions opposed to the popular view on any subject are dangerous to express nowadays, for it is the age of intolerance and if one voices a conservative note, particularly in regard to foods, railroads, insurance, politics, proprietary remedies, or what not, he is pretty sure to be accused of standing in with crooked interests. At the risk however of bringing down upon our heads the slings and accusations of those who may differ from us, we are going to make a few comments on the food preservative question. We have no axes to grind, we are not striving to aid any one or any industry, and we ask no one to accept our views only so far as they appeal to common sense, and good judgment. The truth is what we are seeking, and we are not afraid of it, no matter in what form nor from what source it comes. This ought to be the mental attitude that every man should take in approaching any undecided question. Unfortunately, snap judgments, individual prejudices and other influences too often lead to a different state of mind. Still the good old world goes on, and in spite of bigotry, mistakes and ignorance, every day, every month and every year find the "children of men" a little nearer the ultimate truth.

The Referee Board who have been investigating benzoate of soda issued a report