School Furniture. better able to endure the school regimen than it can be at four, or even at six years old. Hitherto the literally vital questions involved in school work have been almost wholly ignored by school authorities, but these questions are now forcing themselves into notice and they will not be settled until the school-room shall become the place where the progressive development of the child in the physical, the intellectual and the moral aspects of its being shall be advanced by all possible means, and when the truth that "Health is the unit that gives value to all the zeros of life" shall be constantly present in the minds of those who rule. "Education itself is but a zero unless health gives the ability to use it for the profit of the individual and the race." In the school-rooms of to-day are the men and women to whose hands the whole of the vast material and other interests of the world will be committed within the next score of years, and in these rooms preventive medicine will yet find a field of operations promising greater and more enduring results than any to which the attention of the sanitarian has yet been turned. Some earnest of what is to be accomplished in this direction may be seen in the city of Brussels, where for the past twelve years all schools supported wholly or partly from the public purse have been. under regular and systematic sanitary inspection by the health authorities, five skilled sanitarians giving their whole time and attention to the oversight of upwards of thirty schools. It does not appear probable that any such extensive and thorough supervision will ever be given to the public schools of Wisconsin as is practiced in Brussels, and in some respects it is not desirable that it should be; the example there set will not be lost however, and it is certain that more will be done in this direction in perhaps the near future than has been done in the past, and that the benefits resulting will be proportionate to the extent of the School Furniture. work. When that time comes the instruments of distortion and torment which are now to be found in many a schoolroom in the guise of seats and desks, will have been consigned to the wood-pile, save here and there a specimen preserved in some museum. It will probably be long before our schools and school houses will even approximate in all respects to an ideal sanitary condition, but none the less is it incumbent on all who love their fellow men, who realize that the world will speedily be given over to the hands of those who are now children, and that the work of the world will be well or ill done in that quickly coming time as the children of to-day are well or ill-trained to endure its stress and strain, to set up a high standard, and to labor with all their strength for its general acceptance. Heredity. HEREDITY. By G. F. WITTER, M. D., of Grand Rapids, Wis. On a reference to the 10th census of the United States, we are confronted by startling statistics which show us that in 1870 there were 37,422 insane persons, and 24,527 idiots, while in 1880 there were 91,997 of the former and 76,895 of the latter, showing the number of insane more than doubled, and the number of idiots more than trebled in the short space of ten years. These statements serve to give a summary notion of the urgent need for inquiry into causes leading to these rapid race deteriorations, and the importance of this inquiry is the more marked when we realize the fact that these figures represent burdens to be borne-drains upon the vitality of the community and the nation. It is startling indeed to know that nearly one per cent. of the entire population of the United States is among the dependant portion thereof. We cannot begin too soon or prosecute too vigorously an inquiry into the cause of the prevalence of these evils, which are like a canker at the heart of all our prosperity, nor can we seek with too much assiduity the means of arresting: their rapid growth. The subject is obscure, but in the study of it we may almost be said to have our finger upon the pulse of the nation. There is an ingrafted tendency in all living organizations to reproduce themselves. "Like begets like." From this it must follow, as the relation between cause and effect, that the subjects of unsound organism and feeble vital forces Heredity. cannot propagate healthy descendants. The same thing occurs, but less obviously to common observation, in the mental and moral world. An unsound condition either of body or mind is very likely, nay, almost certain to be perpetuated in the offspring of such parents. If it be true that healthy parents bring forth healthy children, it appears to follow that an unhealthy progeny argues a vitiated stock. Moreover, there is no reason why peculiarities of individual structure should not descend from generation to generation, as well as peculiarities of individual organs; indeed, peculiarity of an entire organ presupposes peculiarity of its individual parts. The hereditary diathesis may undoubtedly be transmitted from parent to child, and yet remain in a quiescent state perhaps for several generations, the circumstances and conditions which would tend to develop it into active disease not occurring; and diseases regarded as hereditary may be acquired in the absence of any predisposition to them, the conditions which develop an hereditary disease originating it, and when so originated a momentum is acquired which is transmitted by inheritance. There is not an organ or part of the body in which peculiarities of function or tissue are not frequently traceable in the ascending or descending line. It is generally admitted, I think, that the mental as well as the bodily conditions caused by the good or ill conduct of individuals may be handed down to their offspring, thus influencing them for good or ill, and as children may inherit from great-grandparents, it is impossible to say where the end may be. Every child inherits something from its ancestors: it may not always be observable in childhood but may develop in youth, or be drawn out by the vicissitudes and discipline of life. These are well-known and admitted facts and have been for years. Why then are they not Heredity. more acted upon and counteracted as mechanical laws are, and thus made useful? People believe in physical resemblances to parents because they see them. Next is needed a belief in the hereditability of morals, virtues, and vices. This influence was recognized by Aristotle, and yet to this day little is generally known about it, still less is it acted upon or applied to the daily life of mankind; its laws are less observed and followed than those which result from other scientific studies. σε Hippocrates evidently entertained strong opinions as to the importance of hereditary influences. In his essay on the "Sacred Disease," or what we call Epilepsy, he says: "Its origin is hereditary like that of other diseases. For if a phlegmatic be born of a phlegmatic, and a phthisical of a phthisical, and one having spleen disease of one other having disease of the spleen, what is to hinder it from happening that when the father and mother are subject to this disease, certain of their offspring should be so affected also?" The question presents itself to us under two aspects which we will consider as direct and indirect hereditaments. The former implies the conveyance of a definite morbid taint from one generation to another. Under the latter we understand the production of constitutional peculiarities not traceable to actual disease, but due to accidental circumstances, affecting the embryonic condition of the individual, and influencing his future development. Hereditary influence is admitted by all writers on the subject, both American and foreign; and it is asserted that it is especially to be observed among those classes of the community who usually intermarry in their own fraternity, as for instance among the Jews and Quakers. It also appears that the hereditary taint is more frequently met with in the higher than in the lower classes: Esquirol, for instance, met |