in length. They serve to convey two and a half to three pounds of used-up molecules of matter, in the shape of insensible perspiration, to pass from the system daily. If from any cause they cannot perform properly this function, or if being filled or closed at the outer extremity with floating matter from the atmosphere there results an obstruction and consequent revulsive action; the kidneys and urethra are compelled to perform double duty. Hence they soon become demoralized and must fail to remove from the body their own proper share, besides this additional accumulation which should have been eliminated through this great tubular system of the skin called emunctories. It remains to poison and produce disease. The results are that the patient is indisposed more or less. Disease being a condition of the functions, is thus contracted from this obstruction on the surface, and must continue till those functions are again restored to the condition which we call health. The conclusions deduced from this are that to preserve health we should cleanse the body by frequent ablutions, and study to discover and preserve that happy combination of circumstances calculated to keep all the functions of the body free from interruption.

Modern nations have borrowed from ancient Romans almost everything worth borrowing, except their magnificent system of public baths. A distinguished writer calls attention specially to the fact that such a thing as a public bath erected at the public expense and free to all or for a charge so low that the poor are not prohibited, is almost unknown with us in this country. We do much to cure disease when contracted; we erect large hospitals and infirmaries; but in all that pertains to the prevention of disease we are singularly deficient. The Romans thought it as important to have a public bath as a public market or temple. Even the little provincial towns throughout Italy had their public baths. The Roman baths were open to all, as Cicero informs us, in one of his Orations; for a quadrans, the smallest piece of money coined in his time, and which was little more than one-fourth of a cent, was the price of a bath. Seneca and Horace also bear testimony to the low price of the baths. A Roman citizen could bathe

four times in a warm bath of Rome for a trifle more than one cent, and children below a certain age were admitted free; and from an inscription found at Rome we learn that strangers also, and foreigners, had free access to the baths.

The habit of bathing prevailed among Romans at a very early period. The bath among them was regarded as one of the necessaries of life, although at first, however, they were used only by the wealthy. It is certain that baths were erected for the public long before Christ. "Doubtless," says a writer, "a desire for public baths was in the first instance excited by a custom which prevailed among the rich competitors for public offices; who, seeking the public patronage gave the people a day's bathing in their splendid baths free of charge." It would seem that the Roman Plebeians at length fell so much in love with these delightful means of cleansing their bodies, that it became universal among them and continued for many long ages. Even now relics of these magnificent baths are to be found in and around Rome, that are over a mile in circumference. They were constructed in the most gorgeous and attractive manner among the rich. The plebeians or common people had access to them. The laws of the empire also compelled the erection of baths accessible to all. Besides the silent eloquence of these remains and the copious accounts by various writers, the excavations at Pompeii have supplied a vast amount of information on this interesting subject. The pavements in that city were mosaic; the ceilings vaulted, richly gilded and painted; and the walls were coated with the rarest marble. They were ornamented with the finest Greek sculpture, and uniting the beautiful with the useful and necessary, they served to adorn the Roman cities, while they added to the health and comfort of the people. The pantheon, a work of great magnificence, still existing at Rome, served originally as a vestibule to a portion of the public baths. It was ranked by Pliny as one of the wonders of the world. Agrippa, the son-in-law of Octavius, considered it too magnificent for a vestibule to the baths. He is said to have made some additions to it, converting it into a temple, which he dedicated to all the gods.

The baths were of two kinds, the balnea, and the thermi. The former consisted merely of the warm and cold baths; the latter combined all the appurtenances of the Greek gymnasium, with baths, warm and cold, and possessed all the conveniences for gymnastic exercises and sports; with libraries for the learned and porticoes and vestibules for the idle; rooms for the philosophers, who usually made it a resort for conversation, debate, delivering lectures, etc. Since our people, especially our Old-School friends, are somewhat addicted to venerating and immortalizing the ancients, it is somewhat surprising that they have so entirely neglected to make the necessary efforts to introduce the bathing system of Rome and Greece into our own country. Can what was found to be so conducive to health two thousand years ago be less so now? It certainly becomes every individual who regards his own health, to devise means for himself to prevent disease; but there are many who are not in circumstances, as the present arrangements exist, that they can procure a bath, especially in towns and cities. It seems to us that proper regard for the general health should inspire effort, and induce an investment sufficient to erect commodious baths for all classes at the public expense.

Bathing has been declared to be a law imposed by nature on all transpirable creatures. Even the Canary bird must obey the law or suffer the consequence of ill-health. Dr. Combe, writing of England, some years ago, said: "We are far behind our Continental neighbors in regard to bathing. They justly consider it a necessity; we still regard it a luxury." Says another writer: "I believe that in one hospital in Paris, a greater number of baths have been administered to the poor during the last year, than to the whole working population of Great Britain for the last ten years." Within a very few years London and Liverpool and some other large cities of England, have awakened to the importance of this subject; and as a consequence, baths are to be found in hundreds of places where they were not known ten or fifteen years ago. Says an English traveller in America:

"I have found it more difficult to get a supply of water at all times, day and night, in my bed-chamber, than to obtain any other necessity."

We may well ask why our people should deprive themselves of such admirable appliances on the score of health and comfort, whereas all classes in many foreign countries and even in opposite climates have the facilities for ready recourse to them. In Russia, bathing is general fromt he Emperor to the poorest individual. Through all Finland, Lapland, Sweden and Norway, no hut is 'so destitute as not to have a bath for family use. Equally general is the bath in Turkey, Egypt and Persia among all classes from the Pasha down to the camel-driver. All seem to be impressed with the necessity and importance of maintaining the baths, while in our own boasted America, with some few exceptions, we are not supplied with them, even at high prices. What few baths we have, the price the proprietors are charging is more than it is possible for the poorer classes to pay; and they must depend entirely upon their own private means for their ablutions, which, from appearances, we find fearfully neglected in a large majority of the poorer classes. From these sources very often, the principal epidemic diseases spring up, infect whole towns and cities, and suspend business operations, besides resulting in a fearful mortality, especially of those who are situated in contiguity with them. If this condition of things be true, and the importance of cleanliness is so great for the public welfare, should it not awaken a greater interest, both among physicians and the people? Should not those in authority be importuned earnestly to proceed to erect such baths at public expense, as would accommodate all classes and conditions of our citizens ?

I ask my medical brethren to give this matter careful consideration, and if found correct, to use their influence toward its final consummation.

INFLUENCE OF INEBRIETY ON VITAL AND CRIMINAL STATISTICS.

By H. S. MCMASTER, M. D.. Dowagiac, Mich.

The want of statistical records, carefully collected, in relation to the malign influences of undue indulgence in alcoholic beverages, has long been a subject of just complaint. In their absence, some have have been induced to underestimate the importance of the matter, while others overrate it from the same cause. Even in the public institutions where it would seem to be of the utmost importance that the facts shall be scrupulously gathered and preserved, the matter is almost entirely neglected. Congress, likewise, though petitioned many times and by large numbers of excellent citizens, has always turned a deaf ear and refused utterly to comply with the request so proper to make.

We have no right, however, to be surprised at these things, when we recall to mind how many, even among medical writers, declare that the moderate use of alcoholic stimulants is not only uninjurious, but actually beneficial; that they both aid digestion and are themselves food, supplying heat to body and aiding the physical system to withstand sudden changes and other vicissitudes of climate; that they serve the purpose of food in the matter of producing tissue and at the same time retard the process of waste, thus rendering less food or less other food, necessary. These writers also insist that these beverages used in some forms highly diluted, as in light wines and beer, tend very greatly to lessen inebriety and so actually promote temperance.

These sentiments appear to be very generally entertained, as is indicated by the thorough manner in which the precepts of these writers are followed by many thousands in this country, and nearly every other on the globe. Hence, little has been attempted in the way of securing any effectual reform, or preventing the woeful consequences of even the worst forms of inebriety. Those who advocate these sentiments will not; and the common lecturer on the temperance rostrum, is too often discredited and sneered at as a fanatic. Under