fitted with a light flap valve or an equivalent easily opened or closed; fitted, moreover, with a stop arm, and counterbalanced so as to act automatically. The valve would open with the smallest amount of upward draught, and close when either that draught ceased or with the smallest back-draught. Mr. Buchan has devised several different sections of this automatically discharging valve arrangements, and some of them are fitted to an expanding discharge orifice.

Induced-Current Fixed Ventilators.-Whilst describing Mr. Buchan's ventilating contrivances I will now explain his patent Self-acting Induced-Current Fixed Ventilators, and describe those of Mr. Boyle and others afterwards. These ventilators act upon the principle of the induced current. The wind or horizontal air current, in rushing through between the outside vertical bars and past the body of the ventilator, draws out with it the air contained in the body of the ventilator by communicating its own motion to it, and so causes or accelerates an up current in the ventilating shaft, upon which the ventilator is placed. The formation of the ventilator also tends to prevent down-draughts.

Mr. Buchan has devised two patterns of this kind, the simpler one being for use upon the tops of soil-pipes and smaller ventilating upcast shafts. This simpler pattern can also be adapted so as to sit upon a square wooden base when this is found necessary.

The No. 2 Ventilator of Mr. Buchan, constructed upon this principle, is suited for very large shafts, and its working can be seen in the cross section. The system of fixing it upon its wooden base can also be observed in the drawing. The horizontal cross section is taken on the line JJ of the elevation, a space for the passage of the wind being left between each pillar and the bar next to it. The proportion of the body of these ventilators to the diameter of the ventilating pipe may be from about one-third to nearly one-half, depending altogether upon

Plan, section, and elevation of Buchan's Selfacting Induced-Current Fixed Ventilator for top of soil-pipes, etc.

Plan-section of seating and elevation of Buchan's Larger Self-acting Induced-Current Ventila

tor.

Mr. Buchan is of opinion

meter of his upcast shaft. that these ventilators may be made equally effective if the body were made either three times or twice the

D

diameter of the shaft. This, of course, makes a very important difference in the question of cost, as a 24-inch ventilator with a 12inch pipe can be made at half the price of a 36-inch ventilator with a 12-inch pipe.

There is another pattern of ventilator produced by Mr. Buchan which appears to be an improvement upon the present horizontal louvre system, and that is a wooden ventilator with vertical louvres. I would be very well adapted for stables and such like places, where Horizontal cross section there would be the very minimum of and vertical section of Buchan's Improved Ven- tendency to down-draughts caused by fires.

tilator.

It

The last ventilator introduced by Mr. Buchan which I will at present describe is one for fixing at the ridge of a building. This ventilator simply provides an open space above the ridge covered

Buchan's Ridge Ventilator.

with perforated sheet zinc supported by iron parallel rods or wooden bars about every 18 inches or so apart, the zinc being also nailed to the wood along each edge. The perforations are about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

(To be continued.)

Evacuations from a man coming into the district with
typhoid fever thrown on a dirt-heap, near to an adit
feeding a reservoir which supplied the town. Porous
soil, steep gradient, and heavy rainfall, doubtless
caused specific infection to be communicated to water
in adit.

Village stands on fissured oolite, into the fissures of
which are discharged excremental matters, so that
the privies very rarely require emptying. Into the
same rock are sunk the wells, which have been for a
long time polluted by the cesspits.
Immense rainfall flooded the privies and middens, and
washed their contents into the wells and streams
affording the water-supply of the population.
Pollution by the river into which the Lewes sewage is
poured of a tributary stream occasionally used for the
water-supply of the town.

No drainage; well water very bad; many persons resorted to springs polluted by sewage from privies.

Brook water used by villagers for drinking purposes.
The evacuations from an imported case of enteric
fever found their way into the brook.

Pollution of water conduit (supplying Darwen) with
enteric fever poison from drain which ran over
conduit, and which, imperfect itself, allowed filtration
into conduit through the imperfectly secured joints of
the latter.
Pollution of the deep wells of the Caterham Water
Company with the specific infection of enteric fever,
imparted to it by the evacuations of a workman
suffering from that disease, who was engaged in one
of the adits of the wells.

486

700

Epidemic spread through the medium of infected privies,
but the principal agents were waters of wells and of (Estim.)
the springs' polluted with the infection of enteric
fever.

Epidemic attacked water drinkers more especially.
When unpolluted water was brought into the village
in carts, epidemic ceased.
Epidemic was sudden, and well nigh universal, affecting
people living in all parts of the town, and variously
circumstanced as to the local conditions of filth.

town water.

The whole village became infected, and quite a panic ensued. Children and women suffered most. [The place was in a most degraded and unwholesome condition.]

Of the 16 cases, 10, including all the earlier ones, took
water from this main. The pollution of the air from
the communication of sink-stone pipes with an
arched-in sewer, doubtless contributed to the epi-
demic.

Incidence of epidemic fell almost exclusively (42) on
persons using the parish well, or, occasionally, the
brook.

37

76

2,035

104

Notes and Queries.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

X. X. X.-The very smallest supply of water that should be given in a rural district per head per day is two and a-half gallons. Mr. Easton, the eminent water engineer, whose great practical experience makes his opinion of particular value, stated last year, in his evidence before the Select Committee on the Public Health Act Amendment Bill, that he was satisfied that this quantity was sufficient. Col. Cox, of the Local Government Board, put the quantity at three gallons a day. This amount is only given as the minimum that can for sanitary reasons possibly be allowed. Of course more should be given if it is at all feasible. In the sixth report of the Rivers Pollution Commissioners an instance is given of four cottages provided with a tank in which the rain water was collected from the roofs, one of the inhabitants being a laundress, who used a large quantity of water, and another feeding a number of pigs. The size of this tank was barely sufficient to give ten gallons a day to each cottage, yet it is stated that it had never failed to maintain a sufficient supply.

CAMBRIA.-I. The model form of report for medical officers of health will be issued next week. 2. The Parkes Museum of Hygiene will be opened to the public on and after July 1. 3. The Local Government Board's model by-laws can, we believe, be obtained from Knight & Co., Fleet Street, London.

BRIEF NOTES ON EPIDEMICS.

[WE propose to give from time to time, under this heading, such facts as we can glean from reports of health officers and from other sources as to the etiology and spread of infectious diseases as observed by local investigators. It is highly important to codify these local experiences, but the task has never yet been attempted. We would venture to express a hope that this column may eventually be found of considerable assistance in this regard, and we earnestly invite all medical officers of health to favour us with their experiences. We shall, moreover, be glad to give space under this heading to discussions on the causation of epidemics, especially of those diseases the origin of which is still obscure.-ED.]

HOW SCARLET FEVER IS SPREAD.

IN pursuance of the above suggestion we extract the following remarks with regard to the manner in which this destructive disease is ignorantly spread from the last annual reports of the medical officer of health for Bradford and South Shields. The observations of both these gentlemen are well worth careful thought, as the state of things which they describe is by no means limited to the districts on which they happen to be reporting.

Mr. Butterfield, commenting on the distressing mortality from scarlatina in Bradford last year, says cases of this disease are never entirely absent from the town. Like small-pox, a very mild case may and often does cause fatal results when communicated to another person. But, unlike small-pox, there is nothing analogous to vacci nation to confer immunity from the disease. It will be impossible to effectually deal with scarlet fever so as to limit its ravages until it is made compulsory on the householders to report each case so soon as his medical attendant certifies to him the nature of the disease. When compulsory registration of disease is the law of the land it will not only enable the sanitary authority to avert epidemics by the adoption of timely measures, but it will have the salutary effect of impressing on the public the fact that infection is a thing to be prevented by every possible means, rather than a circumstance which, as it cannot be averted, must be positively endured.

That gross ignorance on the part of the public with respect to preventive measures does prevail, the following instances among many which have come under my notice will suffice to show. Children have been nursed through scarlet fever in the very room where sweetmeats, fruit, and cakes have been displayed for sale to other children This is by no means a rare occurrence, and seldom attracts the attention of the medical man in attendance; or if it does, nothing is done to prevent the flow of business. In order that the mother might go to work, a child was put to bed with two children in a neighbour's house. These children were recovering from what I was assured by the parents on the doctor's authority was only the scarlatina.' The result was that the little one had scarlet fever and died within a week.

As a rule it is rare to find a case of scarlet fever adequately isolated. In houses the arrangements are such as to suggest that the many object is rather to encourage the spread of disease than to check its progress. The precautions' consist in placing two or three saucersful of chloride of lime about the sick-room, and occasionally sprinkling a little carbolic acid. In the meantime the window is kept carefully closed, the carpets, curtains, and hangings are unremoved, neighbours and friends are encouraged to visit the patient, and the inmates of the house go to business or school in clothes which have been in contact with the infected person, or after having passed the night in his chamber.

Mr. Spear, in his report on South Shields, also refers to the futility in many cases of the so-called disinfection, and proceeds :with the spread of infectious diseases have been lyinagain, fq dealing "The statutory powers possessed by the authority, again, for referred last year, at length, to the spread of infection through the agency of day schools, and then there is the practice so common, I may say so universal, amongst the lower orders here in the north, of visiting at infected houses, and of holding social gatherings-tea parties, wakes, funeral parties, etc., in such houses-a practice to which, probably of all others of the kind, is to be attributed the greatest mischief, and yet one against which the law provides no sort of defence. At present, if a person suffering from an infectious

disease expose himself, or expose a child so suffering, in a public place, he subjects himself to a penalty; but he may remain in a close and ill-ventilated private room and receive any number of visitors, each one of whom, carrying away with him the seeds of disease, may become a danger to the public safety, and yet the law does not allow us to interfere. The practice referred to comes under our notice almost daily; I have found in rooms where fever-stricken patients are retained any number of visitors up to forty-the women very generally with children in their arms; and it has not infrequently happened that, after expostulating with the inmates, I have again visited the house, only to find a fresh relay of visitors there. Provisions intended to supply a remedy for this state of things were inserted in a Bill which it was the intention of the corporation to promote in the next Session of Parliament, but of which nothing further need be said, since the corporation have abandoned that intention: except that opposition to the clauses in question, as might be expected, came from certain quarters. The corporation were petitioned against on the ground that, in the opinion of the petitioners, "the powers already possessed for preventing the spread of infection were sufficient; "it apparently never having occurred to the petitioners that, for the forming of such an opinion, a knowledge of the powers we do possess, and a knowledge of those necessary for the object named, were at any rate essential'

APPOINTMENTS OF HEALTH OFFICERS, INSPECTORS OF NUISANCES, ETC.

BERRY, John, M. R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond., has been reappointed Medical Officer of Health for the Leyland Urban Sanitary District, Lancashire, at 157. for one year.

BONING, Mr. Jonathan, has been appointed Inspector of Nuisances for the Royston Rural Sanitary District, Herts, at 8ol. for one year (in addition to fees as Vaccination Officer), vice Bickley, resigned.

BOYCOTT, Mr. John Burton, Solicitor, has been appointed Clerk to the Chapel-en-le-Frith Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, Derbyshire, at 60l. per ann. as Clerk to the Guardians, and such additional remuneration as Clerk to the Rural Sanitary Authority, the Assessment Committee, and School Attendance Committee, as may be fixed, vice Bennett, deceased.

HILLS, Rowland, M.R.C.S. Eng., L.F.P.L. Glasg., and L.M., L.S. A. Lond., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the district of Conisborough.

SQUIRES, Mr. Robert, has been reappointed Surveyor to the Ottery St. Mary Local Board and Urban Sanitary Authority, Devonshire, at 35. per ann.

Woop, Mr. Isaac, has been appointed Surveyor and Inspector of Nuisances to the Horsforth Local Board and Urban Sanitary Authority, Yorkshire, at 80l. per ann., vice Kaye, resigned.

VACANCIES.

ACTON LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY. Surveyor 215. per ann. Application, June 9, to Alexander Hemsley, Clerk.

BATH, CORPORATION AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY OF. Surveyor: Salary not to exceed 1507. per ann. Application, 30th instant, to T. H. Moger, Town Clerk.

BUDLEIGH-SALTERTON URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Devonshire. Medical Officer of Health: 20. for one year. Appointment, early in June. Application to Charles T. K. Roberts, Clerk to the Authority. CHESTERFIELD RURAL SANITARY AUTHORITY. Surveyor and Inspector of Nuisances: 2007. per ann. Application, 30th instant, to George Haslehurst, Clerk. DORCHESTER, CORPORATION AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY OF. Surveyor. Application to G. Symonds, Town Clerk. EASTBOURNE URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT. Inspector of Nuisances. LEYLAND LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY, Lancashire. Surveyor.

OYSTERMOUTH URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Glamorganshire.
Medical Officer of Health: 157. per ann.

SOWERBY-BRIDGE LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHO-
RITY, Yorkshire. Collector. Application, stating salary re-
quired, June 4, to Charles Barstow, Clerk.
STOURBRIDGE GUARDIANS AND RURAL SANITARY AUTHORITY.
Clerk.
WALLINGFORD, CORPORATION AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY
OF. Surveyor and Inspector of Nuisances: 527. per ann. (in
addition to 157. per ann. as Surveyor of the Municipal property).
Application, 30th instant, to Charles Hedges, Town Clerk.
WELLS URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Somersetshire. Inspector of
Nuisances. Application, 30th instant, to Reginald L. Foster,
Town Clerk.

NOTICE.

THE SANITARY RECORD is published every Friday morning,
and may be ordered direct from the Publishers. Annual
Subscription, 175. 4d.; free by post, 195. 6d.
Reading Covers to hold 12 numbers of THE Sanitary Re-
CORD have been prepared, and may be had direct from the
Publishers or through any Bookseller, price 35.

Original Paper.

HEALTH STATISTICS OF SANITARY DISTRICTS.

ONE of the main objects of vital and mortal statistics is to afford the means for estimating and comparing the sanitary condition of the populations to which they relate. For this purpose it is essentially necessary that such statistics should be sufficiently uniform to allow of easy comparison, and that they should relate to districts having welldefined boundaries. Since the Public Health Act of 1872 came into operation the whole of England and Wales has been divided into sanitary districts, urban and rural. It is daily becoming increasingly important that the sanitary district, whether urban or rural, should be accepted as the unit in all statistics bearing upon the public health. In the present incongruous condition of public health organisation the Registrar-General's department is the only source of official vital and mortal statistics. England and Wales, for registration purposes, is divided into 11 divisions, containing 631 superintendent registrars' districts, which are subdivided into 2,184 registration sub-districts. The statistics published by the Registrar-General in his Quarterly and Annual Reports, valuable as they are, and important as has been their effect in stimulating sanitary progress, take little account of sanitary districts, and deal with the arbitrary boundaries of registration sub-districts as the statistical unit. It is true that with regard to twenty of the largest English towns the Registrar-General publishes in his weekly, quarterly, and annual reports statistics relating to the precise municipal boundaries of the several boroughs and urban sanitary districts. With this exception, however, the Registrar-General's statistics deal only with registration_districts, or with groups of entire sub-districts. For instance, the statistics for 'fifty other large town districts' in the Registrar-General's last Quarterly Return only purport to relate to the districts and sub-districts taken as approximately representing the several towns.' The mortality statistics for these towns are corrected by the exclusion of a proportional number of deaths occurring in hospitals and lunatic asylums situated within the districts or sub-districts taken to represent the several towns; and by the exclusion or addition of a proportion of the deaths in union workhouses in cases where only a portion of the union is included within the area taken, or where the workhouse is situated outside that area. The published statistics for these fifty town districts, therefore, are correct and trustworthy so far as they relate to the area taken, but are somewhat misleading if assumed to be the correct statistics for the several boroughs and urban sanitary districts. Let us take Chester and South Shields as examples of the wide variations between the correct area and population of sanitary districts, and those areas and populations adopted by the Registrar-General in his fifty-town table. According to the census report for 1871 the area of the city of Chester is 3,037 acres, whereas the two registration sub-districts taken by the Registrar-General to represent the town have an area of 41,084 acres ; the Registrar-General estimates the population of these two sub-districts in the middle of 1878 at 50,609 persons, while the medical officer of health estimates

6

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the poplation of the city at but 39,124. The municipal borough of South Shields has an area of but 1,839 acres, while the registration district taken to represent the town includes 15,775 acres; the estimated population in 1878 of the district dealt with by the Registrar-General was 108,755 persons, whereas the medical officer of health estimates the population of the borough at only 61,000 in the middle of that year. The areas and the populations dealt with by the Registrar-General can therefore scarcely be said even approximately to represent Chester and South Shields. In the absence of statistics for the correct areas and populations of sanitary districts the value of the Registrar-General's figures, as affording a trustworthy indication of the sanitary condition of the several towns, cannot be denied ; and, in point of fact, it can easily be proved that the inclusion of such extra-municipal areas with their populations does not materially affect the true value of these statistics for comparative purposes. obvious objections, however, to the RegistrarGeneral's figures for Districts and sub-districts approximately representing towns' detract much from their usefulness and ready acceptance.

The

It has more than once been suggested that the SANITARY RECORD might be made to serve as a useful medium for publishing uniform statistical abstracts of the periodical reports on the sanitary condition of sanitary districts, made and presented to their sanitary authorities by medical officers of health. Comparatively few of these reports are printed, and, even when printed, they are seldom readily available; neither do they often possess sufficient uniformity in the arrangement of their statistics to allow of easy comparison. As the publication of such uniform statistical abstracts would possess undoubted public value, and would also be useful to medical officers of health, it has been thought desirable to ascertain how far medical officers of health would be able and willing to co-operate by supplying the necessary figures for publication in the SANITARY RECORD. With a view to obtain information on this point, circulars were recently addressed to the medical officers of health of each of the fifty large towns included in the Registrar-General's list, and also to the medical officers of health of 132 urban and rural sanitary districts of Lancashire. This circular, besides asking whether the medical officer of health addressed would be able and willing to contribute such periodical statistical abstracts, requested also certain statistics relating to his sanitary district for the year 1878. Answers up to the present time have been received from 55 of the 165 medical officers of health communicated with; in 45 cases the requested facts for 1878 were more or less completely furnished, and will be found in the three accompanying tables. In the first of the tables will be found the vital statistics relating to the correct municipal boundaries of 24 of the 50 large towns dealt with by the RegistrarGeneral. With regard to the 109 urban sanitary districts of Lancashire (exclusive of those among the 50 large towns), to the medical officers of which circulars were addressed, information sufficiently complete for publication has at present only been received from 15.

Of the 25 circulars addressed to the medical officers of health of the rural sanitary districts of Lancashire only 6 were successful in obtaining the requested statistics for 1878 in such a form as to render publication desirable. As might have been expected, the medical officers of health