health commissioner, and collect your due. But the commissioner holds his office by virtue of his usefulness to the political party to which he belongs; Dr. X- holds his under Civil Service rules, subject to such limitations as the department may see fit to fix. Dr. X's salary is not much, but considerably more important to him than his fee in this case. Besides, his dismissal from office, which would be certain to follow any act of his calling in question the conduct of a member of the department, would destroy his advantage for his future by remaining in good standing under the Civil Service rules, which would be annulled. Our advice is: Wait. Your bill will hold good probably longer than Dr. Q's commission.

THE MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE IGNORED.

At the recent meeting of the American Public Health Association, Medical Director A. L. Gihon, U. S. Navy, in complimenting the National Departments of Health of Canada and Mexico, took occasion to state, in substance, that the United States was wholly devoid of any national health service. It is not complimentary to Dr. Gihon's knowledge of the work of the Marine Hospital Service, to suppose that his prejudice against it has so affected him with purblindness as to preclude knowledge of the effective aid of the Marine Hospital Service to the several States in the suppression of smallpox; of its efficacy in preventing the introduction of yellow fever, where it has had control, and in stamping it out in the Gulf States, under different conditions; of its service in preventing the introduction and spread of the plague; of its excellent laboratory work in Washington, with reference to the water supply there and elsewhere, and of its recently instituted measures for the study of yellow fever and its possible relation to fomites and quarantine.

What Dr. Stephen Smith said of the original purpose of the Marine Hospital Service a hundred years ago is familiar to all students of sanitation in this country, as should be also the progress that service has made during recent years as an authorized national sanitary service, by act of Congress, for co-operation with every State sanitary organization in the country, whenever and wherever its services are required.

THE NEW YORK WATER SUPPLY.

The Merchants' Association's urgency for municipal ownership is in accord with Mr. Guernsey's article on "Taxation of Water

and What Municipal Ownership Has Done and What It Should Do," in the October number of THE SANITARIAN. It is the most thoroughly comprehensive consideration of the subject hitherto published, and merits the consideration of all municipal authorities.

"SIN WILL PLUCK ON SIN."

A writer in "The Spectator" recently, in attempting to account for the recent acceptance of "Christian Science" by a considerable number of well-to-do and nominally intelligent men and women of England, says that before the craze passes, as it is sure speedily to do, note should be taken of how symptomatic it is of two presentday feelings "the intense wish for a new creed and the intense intolerance of bodily suffering." His remarks on the second of these points are interesting and suggestive. "There must be," he says, "some new horror of sickness creeping into the world, stimulating the energies, no doubt, of sanitary inspectors, but also debilitating the old patience and fortitude which lie at the very root of human strength. We believe this to be a marked feature of our day, and can, we think, dimly perceive its cause. As in modern civilization other dangers are vanishing, and men-and more especially women-lead protected, not to say padded, lives, their minds. fasten on the one danger, sickness, which still threatens all; they exaggerate its horrors, and at last come to the idea which we seem to see running through the whole structure of Christian Scientism, that sickness must in some way be sin, or, at all events, a product of sin." We have called this interesting and suggestive, but reflection hardly sustains the theory that the desire for health is any stronger now than it was in the past. The new repugnance for the infliction of pain on men and animals has, indeed, been ascribed in part to a new sensitiveness, not less physical than mental, but healing miracles hold an important place in many, if not all, systems 1 ligion, and not less frequently in those of remote than in those of comparatively recent origin. Human nature seems to be now much the same as it always was, or at least as it has been since it began to leave records of its emotions. There is nothing new in "Christian Science," and its success is not a bit more remarkable than that of the closely allied "green goods game."

MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY REPORTS AND

REVIEWS.

MORTALITY STATISTICS-CENSUS REPORT FOR 1900.

The statistics show that death from all the principal diseases shows a decrease since 1890, the most notable being in consumption, which decreased 54.9 per 1,000.

W. A. King, chief of the Vital Statistics Division, says:

"The most important feature of the results presented is found in the decrease in the general death rate in the registration rate of 1.8 per 1,000 population, a decrease of nearly 10 per cent., and the decrease in the rates from the particular diseases to which the general decrease is due.

"The effect of the advances made in medical science and sanitation, and in the preventive and restrictive measures enforced by the health authorities, is still more strikingly shown in the comparative rate for the registration, cities of the country taken together.

"In 1890 the death rate in 271 registration cities of 5,000 or more population was 21 per 1,000; in 1900 the rate was 18.8 per 1,000; in 341 cities of 8,oco population and upward, a reduction of 2.4 per 1,000. The gross population of the cities comprehended was 14,958,254 in 1890, and 21,660,031 in 1900.

"The entire significance of these figures can be properly weighed cnly when the rates for the individual cities are considered in connection with known conditions of local improvement in sanitation and health regulations-factors which are not of a statistical nature, and which were not developed by the schedules.

"The decrease in the general death rate and in the rates due to diseases most frequent in the early years of life, on one hand, and the increase in the rates due to those diseases occurring generally at advanced ages, on the other hand, mean also increased longevity. "The average age at death in 1890 was 31.1 years; in 1900 it was 35.2 years.

"The total number of deaths reported in 1900 was 1,039,049; in 1890 it was 841,419. The increase was therefore 197,675, or 23.5 per cent. As the percentage of increase in the population was but 20.7, this indicates a more complete return of deaths than in 1890. "The record of deaths upon which these statistics are based was obtained from two different sources, namely, the return by the enumerators of deaths reported to them at the decennial enumera

tion, and the registration record of deaths recorded under local laws and ordinances."

The registration area includes Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, with the cities therein, and many cities in other States.

In the registration area the death rate is given in figures showing percentages, but such figures are not given for States which make no official registration of deaths. Here are the percentages for some of the registration States for 1900 and 1890, respectively:

Among the cities with a population above 100,000, these death

rates for 1900 and 1890, respectively, are shown:

Portland, Ore., with a death rate of 9.5 per thousand, shows the lowest mortality, and Shreveport, La., with 45.5, the highest.

The decrease of mortality in other exceptionally prevalent diseases besides consumption, as above stated, 54.9 per cent.; debility and atrophy, 43.1; diphtheria, 34.7; cholera infantum, 31.9; bronchitis, 26.1; convulsions, 23.2; diarrhoeal diseases, 19; croup, 17.8; typhoid fever, 12.5; diseases of the brain, 12.3; malarial fever, 10.4.

Increase: Pneumonia, 5; premature birth, 8.5; old age, 9.1; cancer, 12.1; heart disease, 12.2; apoplexy, 17.6; influenza, 17.7; kidney diseases, 24.0 per cent.

In the registration are the 15 principal causes of death, with the. rate per 100,000, as follows: Pneumonia, 191.9; consumption, 190.5; heart disease, 134.0; diarrhoeal diseases, 85.1; kidney diseases, 83.7; apoplexy, 66.6; cancer, 60; old age, 54; bronchitis, 48.3; cholera infantum, 47.8; debility, 45.5; inflammation of brain and meningitis, 41.8; diphtheria, 34.4; typhoid, 33.8; and premature birth, 33.7.

NEW YORK.-Bulletin of State Department of Health reports for August: Population, 7,268,000; total deaths, 10,999; death rate, 17.7; deaths under five years, 4,339; percentage of deaths under five years to total deaths, 40.0; from zymotic diseases per thousand, from all causes, 285; from cerebro-spinal meningitis, 43; typhoid fever, 168; malarial diseases, 36; smallpox, 40; scarlet fever, 49; measles, 40; erysipelas, 9; whooping cough, 80; croup and diphtheria, 142; diarrhoeal diseases, 2,555; acute respiratory diseases, 509; consumption, 1,078; puerperal diseases, 81; diseases of digestive system (not diarrhoeal), 693; urinary system, 629; circulatory system, 831; nervous system, 993; cancer, 411; accident and violence, 683; old age, 361; unclassified, 1,568.

City of New York, 3,526,517: Total deaths, 6,269; death rate,