year on the epidemics which prevail in the departments convinces one that "la contagion de la fièvre typhoïde est un fait acquis désormais à la science."'

That enteric fever may be treated with safety to other patients in the general wards of a hospital is true, but this does not in the least show that it is not contagious, but only that in certain circumstances it is not so. In particular, where the ventilation is good, the cubic space abundant, and the general sanitary precautions complete, it does not spread any great distance; but that under such circumstances it does not spread far is no evidence that it does not spread at all. By due attention to the conditions just mentioned, typhus, enteric, and scarlet fevers might be treated together with impunity; and when one thinks that the infective matter of the enteric fever parient is for the most part contained in his stools; that these are passed into vessels which are immediately removed from the ward and emptied into the drains, there remains nothing to infect the non-enteric patients in a general ward, and consequently there is nothing surprising in the fact that such patients do not contract enteric fever. It is quite otherwise with the nurses. These are in close contact with the patients, have to remove their excreta, empty and clean the bed-pans, collect and remove their soiled linen, feed them, clean them, and move them about in bed. Their position, therefore, in relation to the patients is entirely different from that of the other patients in a general ward, and the difference is shown by the fact that they do frequently take the fever; how they do so may not be quite so clear. It should, moreover, be remembered that enteric fever is a disease of childhood and youth, and that as a consequence a large number of nurses are protected by a previous attack.

MESSRS. ROBERT BOYLE & SON's Patent Self-acting Air Pump Ventilators have just been applied by the Admiralty to the whole of the drainage system at Sheerness Dockyard. Messrs. Boyle have also recently applied their system of ventilation to the General Post Office, Liverpool; General Post Office, Leeds; Grand Hôtel de Grasse, Alpes Maritimes; Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter; Brixton Town Hall; Rochdale Free Library, Rochdale; New Public Baths, Forest Hill; and the Convent of the Good Shepherd, Hammersmith.

EARLY SANITARIANS.-In the course of the discussion which followed Dr. Corfield's paper on 'The Spread of Infectious Diseases,' read at the International Health Exhibition on June 14, Dr. Walford remarked that 'There was nothing new in sanitation; the earliest medical officer of health, and perhaps the best, was Moses. The principles laid down by him were of the very best, though, unfortunately, they were better fitted for dwellers in tents than for residents in large towns. (This aspect of the saritary question was fully dealt with by Mr. Ernest Hart an his lecture on Mosaic Sanitation, delivered some years

to the Jewish Working-men's Club.) Dr. Walford also pointed out that Cyrus fully understood the value of Fure water, only drinking the produce of one particular river, and that boiled.'

A RECENT Parliamentary paper gives the number of human corpses found in the river Lea in the years 1882 and 1883. In all, eighty-five bodies were found in this river during these two years, and the result of the coroners' inquests held upon them was a verdict in thirty-five cases of accidental death, in one of wilful murder, and in eight of suicide; while in forty-one cases no opinion was expressed by the jury as to the cause of death.

DRAIN-TESTING.

By HENRY MASTERS.

SOME few years since a letter appeared in a contemporary drawing attention to the importance of house-draining being free from leakage, and advising every one who had a drain in their house, to procure a certain quantity of ether and pour it down a sink or closet, and then, if any defect existed, the ether would escape and the defect be discovered. This amateur system of drain-testing took immensely with the public, and, I dare say, there was a run upon the ether market for a time, and even now I meet with people who have just tested with ether. The letter did good, for it taught the public that it was important that their house-drains should be sound and free from leakage. There are in England and Wales about 4,000,000 houses, and I should not be astonished that, if these were tested, at least 3,000,000 would be found defective.

Drain-testing by strong scents is not a new thing, for in my early days (nigh fifty years ago) I have a vivid recollection that if water in which cabbage had been boiled was discharged into the kitchen sink, its odour invariably escaped into the cellar, up the staircase, and, I dare say, the air of the reception rooms and bedrooms did not escape being highly charged with this vegetable test; but then in those days everybody considered it the right thing, if able, to have drains under their houses. As a matter of course, such drains must emit a bad odour, or how should a stranger be able to discover the locality of that useful appendage to a house-the watercloset. Follow your nose,' was the order of the day, and your nose seldom played you false. In these latter days we are more alive to defects in drains, and drain-testing has become quite a business, and consequently we have all our fads in this direction; one is strong for chemicals, another for smoke, another for filling with water, and another trusts to the sense of smell to detect the natural drain odour, and the latter class of testers are legion, and they are generally of opinion strong,' for, say they, if you cannot detect any drain odour the drains must be perfect. As I have for many years practised in each and every of these testings, I will give my experience, and in doing so I trust that I shall throw some light upon the question of drain-testing, for I find that some of those who ought to know are not all so wellinformed as they should be.

6

I take rather a broad view of this drain-testing, for I do not believe that either of the systems enumerated above are applicable in all cases. Take, for instance, the case of an old house; you want to know if the drains are free from leakage, and your client will not hear of breaking ground, as he feels sure all is right, for he has constantly had traps put in. Now these traps are the rub. There is a trap at the closet and at the foot of the soil-pipe; another at the end of the passage, another under the cellar, another just out of the house, and another close to the common sewer, or cesspool. So here we have the drain divided into six sections, or pockets, and it is found that water passes freely from the watercloset to the cesspool, for you can hear it enter that receptacle by applying your ear to the bung-hole of the man-hole stone, or cesspool ventilator. To apply a smoke test in a case like this would be absurd, for the most you could do would be to try one or two sections through a sink or bung-hole, but if you put

carefully a strong peppermint oil, ether, aniseed oil, or nitro-benzole, and plenty of hot water to follow, the chances are you may fairly test the drain from end to end, and may find if this test has been effective by applying your nose to the bung-hole or ventilating pipe, and so discover if the test has gone from end to end. The advantage of the chemical test in such a case as I have described is that no trap in the line of the drain will interfere with its free action, for wherever the drainage flows the test will also flow, leaving particles upon the sides of the drain; so you have a long line of scent from closet to cesspool, and, if proper precautions are taken, you will be able to discover about the locality of the fault, if any.

If we have laid down new drains, and know where the traps are, there is no better test than smoke by the fan, and the machine made by Messrs. John

Watts & Co., engineers, of Bristol (who also supply test-paper), I believe to be the best in the market; at any rate I find it handy and effective, and, if packed in a box, is not a heavy package to travel with.

Water-testing has its limits, for seldom will a system of drains stand water pressure. Take a case; a small house has a 6" drain from back to front, is trapped at the sewer, has a scullery and a yard sink. The trap and sinks are plugged securely, and you let on the first-floor water-closet service pipe, until the basin is nearly full; all at once the water sinks, for something has given way; probably an underground pipe burst. You inquire into this, and find that the drains have been submitted to a pressure of about 12 lbs. per square inch. This upon the 6-inch pipe is more than 200 lbs. per inch run. To my mind this is a pressure that no drain should be submitted to, for drains are not made to carry high pressure water. It may be said that should a stoppage take place in the underground drain, everything should be strong enough to resist the water rising in the soil-pipe; but this can seldom, if ever, take place, for an escape at the scullery or yard-sink would at once draw attention to the stoppage. Water-testing is very well for a ware drain that has 3 or 4 feet rise, but nothing above that height should be filled with water, except the drain is of iron. There is this advantage in a water test-you fill the pipes and watch the effect; if it falls but slightly it shows that there is a leak somewhere; if they are tested before being covered up you can detect the spot; but if the drain is covered the whole must be opened and examined, for the leaking water will travel under the pipes for many yards and possibly be absorbed by the soil. Water-testing should only be tried upon new open drains, and after the cement-jointing is

well set. Some consider that a soil-pipe is best tested by water-if the pipes are strong, well and good; but I have a lively recollection of a lead soil-pipe being so tested, and the lower end of the pipe gradually assuming a leeklike shape. In draintesting by water it is well to be provided with turned plugs of several sizes, about three inches long, covered with India-rubber. Some prefer leather cups, with plugs of cork inside them. Upon applying the smoke test it is necessary to take some precautions. All outlets (such as airopenings) should be plugged, and also the outlet of the drain should be cut off; for I have known cases when a strong current set in the direction of the main sewer, in which circumstances the smoke would be found to pass from the house instead of to it. You must also regulate the quantity of smoky material according to the capacity of the drains and pipes to be tested, for a mansion will require more smoke than a cottage; and if you can cut a small hole into the drain at several places, and cork all but one up, an examination of cork after cork will assure you that smoke is present at certain points, and disclose if the drain-pipes have been laid without pockets or accidental cesspools, caused by the pipe layer allowing the pipe here and there to sink. In some cases you will find a difficulty in getting at the pipe to make a hole into it. In such cases attack a gully or trap outside the house, or even the kitchen sink, extract all the water from the trap with a sponge, and insert the smoke-pipe, bound round with a duster or house-cloth, or a flexible tube may be passed through the trap water, and the water in the tube expelled by your breath. The great advantage of smoke-testing is that you can see, as well as smell, the exact locality of the leak, or at any rate you can follow the smoke to the defective parts, for it is of a strong flavour, flavouring the earth round a defect. In some cases I have known it leave a sort of tint upon the earth. With the smoke test you do not require to be so careful of handling the apparatus as in chemicals, for touching a peppermint cork will scent your fingers or dress, and will occasionally give a false scent; therefore too much care cannot be taken in chemical testing.

The sketch herewith shows a suitable bag for carrying your chemical apparatus; it is in two parts, the upper a Gladstone or other approved leather receptacle, and should contain a set of tools, viz., a square-faced and pointed backed geological hammer, useful for cutting a small hole in a ware pipe, and also as a centre punch; an

result was that she was thrown some distance from the seat of operation, and her servant, who had the candle, ran for her life, and some light woodwork near took fire.

Nitro-benzole is a powerful test and retains its smell about as long as peppermint; it has a strong almond scent-dose, six ounces. Oil of aniseed is

THE HOUSING OF THE POOR IN BIRMINGHAM AND THE

BLACK COUNTRY.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
[Sixth Article.]

THE newly incorporated municipal borough of

In chemical testing great care must be taken not to be deceived by a false scent. If your assistant passes through the house after opening a testbottle he may leave a trail behind him, which may be mistaken for an escape from the drain. A lady amateur informed me that she had tested her drains, and found them in a dreadful state. She poured a bottle of peppermint into an inside water-closet, and she traced the scent up her staircase and into every room of the house. The test of course passed through the closet door into the warmer atmosphere of the house, and so deceived her. A test properly applied in this case discovered no defect whatever.

In the upper bag I have suggested bottles with a little sulphuric acid in them. These are for taking samples of water from the pump, tap, or underground rain-water tank; and although I do not advise the readers of this paper to turn amateur chemists, I think they should have sufficient knowledge to be able to tell the difference between good and bad water, or to test in a simple manner the water they may find in use in a house they are called upon to inspect. If you get a sample of fairly good water, and put it into a test-tube with a drop of permanganate of potash, it will colour it a very light pink, and it should remain this colour for a day at least; but if you treat a sample of foul water in a similar manner it will immediately assume a yellowish colour, showing that it is not pure; and if such water as this be found in a house, the sooner an analytical chemist's opinion upon it is taken the better.

DISINFECTION OF RAGS. -The Treasury Department of the United States has given the following directions for disinfecting rags imported into the United States from Egypt. They have been pr pared after consultation with the Boards of Health of New York, Boston, and New Haven. 1. Boiling in water for two hours under a pressure of fifty pounds per square inch. 2. Boiling in water for four hours without pressure. 3. Subjection to the action of confined sulphurous-acid gas for six hours, burning one and-a-half to two pounds of roll brimstone in each 1,000 cubic feet of space, with rags well scattered upon racks.

DOMESTIC POISONS.-In a lecture recently delivered at the Health Exhibition, Mr. Henry Carr dealt with the dangers arising from the presence of arsenic in wall papers and domestic fabrics, to prevent which a Bill had been drafted, the provisions of which were not more stringent than those already in force in Germany, Sweden, and other countries. Owing to the investigations which had been made there had been already a great diminution in the use of arsenic colours, but the public needed to be reminded of the fact that green was not the only colour in which arsenic was to be feared. Several specimens of paper-hangings were exhibited in pairs representing arsenical and non-arsenical colours of very nearly the same shade. The two principal methods of testing for arsenic were next described in detail, and Reinsch's recommended for general use as being more easily carried out and suffi ciently accurate for all practical purposes.

healthily situated towns in the Black Country district. In some respects it has advantages which are not possessed by any other of the numerous parishes between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Its altitude is high, it being in occupation of some of the highest table land in England. And although on the west and north it is subject to noisome fumes from chemical works and the black sulphurous clouds which belch from the throats of numberless forge and foundry chimneys, together with the choice atmosphere wafted from a couple of extensive gasworks, on the cast the eye wanders over many a mile of pasture and woodland only limited in one direction by hills which bound the horizon, and in the other extending on the one hand to the metropolis of the Midlands, and on the other to the borough of Walsall. Over this wide expanse the population is very sparse; factories, foundries, and forges are unknown, and the atmosphere is as clear and pure as the landscape is full of natural beauty. Nothing more astonishes a stranger to the locality than to emerge from the lower parts of the town and behold stretched before him so extensive and beautiful a vision. Upon the slope of the town overlooking this scene lies a park of fifty-six acres, given to the inhabitants by the Earl of Dartmouth, the Lord of Sandwell, of which estate it previously formed a part. In respect to the advantages we have herein mentioned, the inhabitants of West Bromwich are in a position to be envied by the many thousands of their less fortunately situated neighbours. West Bromwich is also fortunate in its High Streetone of the finest in England-and in its public buildings, all of which are ornaments to the town. and however well its claims to be a prosperous and It is not so fortunate in its sanitary administration, progressive town may be maintained in its commercial and general municipal relations, the claim to distinction fails when submitted to the test of sanitary science and sanitary advancement. Like most of the other towns in the district, it has been aroused to a sense of its shortcomings in matters appertaining to sewage disposal and purification through fear of the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act of 1876, with the penal enactments of which it has been threatened by its big neighbour Birmingham, on account of its pollution of the river Tame. Like most of the other towns in the district, also, it has turned its attention to the remedying of this evil, and has in hand a drainage and sewage purification scheme, which may, or may not, be in operation at the end of six or seven years. Like the other towns in the district, it has suffered from epidemic incursions of infectious diseases, and at the present time is under the sway of an outbreak of smallpox, which has maintained a more or less strong hold upon the place for more than a year and a half. All the neighbouring towns-Tipton, Darlaston, and Wednesbury especially-have been subjected to this dread scourge, and West Bromwich was about the last town in the district which succumbed. For some months it was