Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/396

382 insanity, rickets, tubercles, struma, or debasing constitutional condition of any kind.

Vehicles of Infection.—A number of cases of the transmission of contagious diseases by means of clothing, articles of furniture, and other objects that had been in contact with persons stricken by such diseases, are brought together by a writer in Chambers's Journal, in order to show the great importance of thoroughly disinfecting such vehicles of infection, before making use of them again. The author, Mr, William Chambers, in the first place quotes Sir James Simpson's remedy for hospital-infection, namely, building such establishments of cast-iron, and casting them anew when contaminated. A servant-girl in Morayshire died of scarlet fever. Her clothing was sent back to her parents, but en route the box lay over for a few days at a railway-station. On reaching its destination, the contents of the box were dispersed among friends and neighbors. The children of the station-master, who had played around the box, and every recipient of the infected clothing, were stricken with the fever. Again, the clothing of a soldier who had died of cholera was sent home to his friends. While the garments were "in the wash," a man was employed on the roof of the cottage, repairing the thatch. He inhaled the poisonous fumes of the washing, and died of cholera. Scarlet fever of a malignant type appeared in a family at Carlisle, and two of the children died. In this case, the carrier of the infection was a retriever-pup, which had been reared in a house where scarlatina was present. It is stated in a pamphlet by Dr. McCall Anderson, of Glasgow, that a peculiar disease was introduced into a family in that town under the following circumstances: Some mice, caught in a trap, were seen to have on the head and front legs crusts of a sombre yellow tint, of circular form, and more or less elevated above the level of the neighboring healthy parts. A depression was noticed in the centre of each crust, and the parts where these had fallen off were ulcerated, and the skin appeared to be destroyed throughout the whole thickness. These mice were given to a cat, which soon exhibited, above the eye, a crust similar to those on the mice. Later still, two young children of the family who played with the cat were successively affected with the same disease, yellow crusts making their appearance on several parts of the body, on the shoulder, face, and thigh. Other instances are cited by Dr. Anderson, where mice, affected in the same way, had transmitted the disease to the human subject, both indirectly through cats, and directly through the mice themselves having been handled by children.

Practical Education.—A correspondent of the Moniteur Industriel Belge communicates to that journal a description of a school of practical instruction, situated in one of the suburbs of Paris. The writer exhibits to us a system of education in which the future occupations of the pupils are kept steadily in view, and where every step of progress in study marks an advance in real knowledge. A few instances will best show the method of instruction. Suppose a lesson in botany is to be given, and that the special subject is some textile plant. The pupil sees, in the botanic garden attached to the school, a few stalks of hemp growing. The botanic characters of the plant are explained to him; he is told how it grows, and what are the conditions favorable to its growth; then he is shown how it is treated in order to obtain the fibre, how the latter is spun, woven, etc. In giving instruction on minerals, a like course is followed. For instance, the subject is iron-ore: various kinds of ore are exhibited; the processes are explained, by means of models and designs, of the reduction of iron and its manufacture. So in mechanics: models of machinery are shown and explained; better still, the pupil is taken to the workshops where he sees various kinds of machines in operation. His understanding of things is tested by questions, and by being required to draw the objects he has been looking at, and to explain their working. Topography and geography are taught in the same commonsense way, the pupil being led to map out an ever-widening area. He begins with the plan of the school, then gives its relative position in the commune, in the canton, in the arrondissement, and so on. The great