it might be lowered for repairs if any were necessary. I first tested a tube one-half the height required, and then added a second tube, by telescoping a second section into the first. Having the matter now under control, and confident of the changes it would bring about, I began observing its effects. A tube twelve inches in diameter, and raised to a height of forty feet, attached to a one story building, caused a difference, at mid-day, of 7° Fahr. That is, in two adjoining rooms, similarly situated, one ventilated in the usual way by doors and windows, and the other only by means of the tube, showed a difference in favor of the latter of seven degrees. Besides the improvement in temperature, the room ventilated by the tube was freed of all dust, insects, such as flies, gnats, etc., etc. This enabled us to dispense with the use of screens, and to close our doors and feel secure against burglars. Myself and family enjoyed a comparatively cool atmosphere in midsummer during the day, while at night our sleep was uninterrupted and refreshing. During the illness of President Garfield, when his attendants were casting about for means to supply his apartments with pure air, free from malaria, I ventured to draw their attention to the device I have described, and to urge a trial of it for his comfort and safety.

"Soon after this, I discovered that air traveling under ground was much cooler in summer, and much warmer in winter. The temperature of the earth, six or eight feet below its surface, is 48 to 52 degrees. Air conveyed through tubes impervious to moisture, at this depth is, if the distance be only a few feet, cooled greatly in summer, and in the extreme cold weather warmed correspondingly. The ventilator thus becomes an economizer of fuel in winter."

After watching closely the practical workings of his ventilator for months, Mr. Moore says that he finds air can be forced by it through a tube, of the size he has named, in the earth, any given distance without detracting from its good qualities, and be discharged into a building at a uniform temperature of 46 degrees above freezing point.

During December 1883, since the above notes were made, Mr. Moore has improved and enlarged the invention. He has built near his house in Thorntown, a wooden tower about forty feet high, much like a wind-wheel frame, except that it is boarded up, and on the top of this he has placed the cap or cowl already described. The air forced into the top of this tower enters five or six feet below its base, an underground passage of brick and cement which is about seventy feet in length. In this way he furnishes air to his dwelling. This air did not, during the extremest cold weather, when the thermometer outside showed 28 degrees below zero, reach freezing point, showing an actual difference of 64 degrees.

Mr. Moore is the owner of at least two patents on his invention.

This somewhat scanty description of Mr. W. E. Moore's plan for obtaining pure air in public and private buildings, hardly does justice to so much honest work; but it is, I hope sufficient to convey a tolerably clear idea to the reader of the principles on which it is based. The system, although incomplete and defective, possesses much merit; and while it is without any doubt original with Mr. Moore, it closely resembles, in some of its features at least, the plan proposed by Sylvester,* in England, fifty or sixty years ago. This plan is described as follows: "A large cowl turning towards the wind was placed in a convenient spot near the building to be ventilated, a little above the ground if in the country, or at some height if in town. The wind blowing down the cowl passed through an underground channel to the basement of the house, and entered a chamber in which a so-called cockle

*Parke's Hygiene, p. 153.

store or calorifere of metal plates, or water or steam pipes, by which the air was warmed. It then ascended into the rooms above by means of tubes, and passed out by a tube or tubes in the roof, which tubes were covered by cowls turning from the wind. So that the aspiratory power of the air was also used.

The author of the Moore Ventilator makes use of the term ventilation, it seems, in a very comprehensive sense, and in his system for the conveyance of pure air to inhabited rooms he works to this idea. But his work is, according to my understanding of it, limited to that branch of his subject which concerns itself with furnishing pure air to inhabited buildings. He wisely concludes that one can not enjoy too much air of a good quality, but so far has not, I think, taken any steps to measure the velocity of the air passing down through his tube and into his dwelling, so as to provide against currents; nor has he furnished any tests as to whether the air furnished is uniformly properly pure, excepting the test of smell.

Mr.

Inseparable with ventilation is the art of warming rooms, and in this climate this is no small undertaking. Any plan of ventilation which does not include and comprehend the furnishing of heat to rooms in cold weather is incomplete. Moore undertakes in his plan, according to my study of it, to force pure air into a house and expects it to find its way out of the building by the outlet tube-its exit being hastened in winter by the heat of stoves and grates. (See diagram). This plan has, he writes, worked satisfactorily in his own dwelling during the past severe winter. This testimony, as well as his patient work, is entitled to attentive consideration.

But this plan of ventilation is too young to have been tested sufficiently to admit of an estimate of its effects or applications. The inventer expects to further test it, and will probably improve it. In its present state it seems to be applicable to the ventilation of hospitals, public halls, factories, school houses, and in houses heat d by furnaces. The vertical tube and cap might be rendered very useful in summer ventilation. If the lower end of the tube was connected with the channel necessary to these furnaces, pure cold air could, I think, be forced into all parts of the dwelling, which would, according to Mr. Moore's experience, insure pure air much reduced in temperature.

CHOLERA.

The serious outbreak of Asiatic cholera in Egypt early in the summer, its rapid spread, and appearance in London in July, occasioned apprehensions that it would, as heretofore, cross the Atlantic in some vessel from an infected part, and again secure a footing in America, and add another to those desolating marches which had caused such horror in 1832 to 1834, 1841 to 1850, 1847 to 1854, 1864 to 1867, and which authorities on that malady, greatly feared would again reach us from 1883 to 1885.

A special meeting of the Board was called July 26, 1883, and after a full and careful consultation, the following circular letter was sent to all the Health Officers in the State:

OFFICE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH,
No. 21 MASONIC TEMPLE,

To County and City Health Officers :

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., July 26, 1883.

In view of the usual prevalence of malarial diseases at this season of the year, and of the possible visitation of cholera to the United States during the present summer months, the State Board of Health deems it a duty to place the several cities and towns in the best possible sanitary condition in order to prevent, if possible, the invasion and spread of this scourge. Disinfectants and cleanliness the Board recognizes as the best measure to prevent the invasion, as well as the best remedies to prevent the spread of the disease. Therefore, Health Officers of the several counties of the State, and the Health Boards of all cities and towns are hereby directed to take immediate action for the removal of accumulations of filth, such as decaying animal and vegetable matter from the streets, alleys and lots of their respective municipalities. It is important that the gutters and drains be flushed frequently, and kept clean. All privy vaults, sinks and cess-pools should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, as provided in Rules 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Rules and Regulations of the State Board of Health. All rank vegetation near occupied dwellings should be cut and promptly removed and destroyed, and not be left to rot under the influence of rains and the hot sun of the summer. Hog pens, foul stables, unwholesome cellars, and all other places suspected of being or becoming injurious to public health should be promptly cleaned and kept clean.

If any resistance should be made to the execution of this order, the Health Officer in the city, town or county is directed to take immediate steps for the pun

ishment of the offenders, as provided in the Revised Statutes of 1881 for the punishment of "offenses against public health." (See sections 2065 to 2075, inclusive.)

In the event of the appearance. of cholera in any county, city or town, the Health Officer should at once cause the isolation of cases, and attend at once to the use of disinfectants, by burning of coal tar, and the free application of lime or copperas on the streets, alleys and gutters, and on or about infected premises.. Especial care should be taken to disinfect and destroy discharges from the bodies of the persons sick of this disease. Too much attention can not be given to the source of water supply in order to prevent it from becoming contaminated by imperfect drainage and surface water. All suspicious wells should be closed up at once. (See Rules and Regulations of State Board of Health for specific instructions.)

Health Officers of all incorporated cities and towns throughout the State are instructed to cause frequent and thorough inspections (as directed in Rule 12 of State Board of Health) of all vegetables and other articles offered for sale as food; such vegetables in a state of fermentation or decay are a common source of diseases of this class.

By Order of the Board,

E. R. HAWN, Secretary.

Happily for America, the extraordinary efforts made by the health authorities in London to "stamp" out the disease were successful, and for a time at least we are spared from its ravages. In view of the fact, however, that it still lingers in Egypt, and the exceedingly infectious character of its poison,. the many opportunities to transmit it to Europe and America, it may be well to add a few remarks upon the disease and its prevention.

This disease is justly denominated the greatest pestilential curse of both ancient and modern history. From the time of Hippocrates, 460 to 370 years before the Christian era, down to the present, an unbroken chain of accounts of its peculiar pathological manifestations, and of its fearful ravages, exists. Millions of human beings have fallen victims to it, and the very last cases observed in Egypt were none the less violent than those described by Hippocrates or Celsus. Its origin is unknown, but it is known that the disease is at home among filth and unhygienic surroundings in all climates and zones. Under the tropical suns and in the moist atmosphere of India, where the grossest hygienic faults exist, where superstition, mythology, idolatry, squalor, wretchedness, starvation and all other abominations prevail, cholera has domiciled itself for the last 2,000 years, and upon occasions of those vast pilgrimages which so often take place in that land, cholera numbers its victims by hundreds of thousands, and attaches its infective poison to the.

bodies and effects of those that are spared, and is carried along the highways of commerce and travel to all parts of the world. At any point where it may be carried, if favorable surroundings are found, it plants its germs, and new centers of infection rapidly propagate the poison, to be disseminated as widely as human intercourse extends. Since 1854 very much has been learned regarding this disease, and for the first time in history sanitarians feel confident of being able to restrict it, and under favorable conditions to stamp it out.

The following propositions embrace a synopsis of what is agreed upon among those observers who have had the greatest opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the malady, and were approved and submitted to the United States Congress in the "Report of the Cholera Epidemic of 1883 in the United States," by a special committee, under the auspices of the United States Marine Hospital Service.

Proposition I.-"That Asiatic cholera is an infectious disease, resulting from an organic poison, which, gaining entrance into the alimentary canal, acts primarily upon and destroys the intestinal epithelium."

Proposition II.-"That the active agents in the distribution of the cholera poison are, the dejections of persons suffering from the disease in any of its stages; that, in these dejections there exists an organic matter, which, at a certain stage of decomposition is capable of reproducing the disease in the human organism to which it has gained access.”

Proposition III.-"That cholera dejecta coming in contact with, and drying upon any object, such as articles of clothing, bedding, and furniture, will retain indefinitely their power of infection. That in this manner a sure transmissibility of the cholera infection is effected, and that a distinct outbreak of the disease may occur by such means at great distances from the seat of original infection."

Proposition IV.-"That the specific poison which produces the disease known as cholera, originates alone in India, and that by virtue of its transmissibility through the persons of infected individuals, or in the meshes of infected fabrics, the disease is carried into all quarters of the world. That cholera has never yet appeared in the western hemisphere until after its route of pestilential march has been commenced in the 8-BD. HEALTH.