Sanitary

The sanitary convention at Aim Ar bor was on Tuesday favored with an address from Dr. C. J. Lundy, of th Michigan College of Medicine, on Hy giene, in its relation to the eye. Af te deacribing that organ and the law which control its muscular movements the lecturer ahowed why it is not pos sible to use the eyes indeflnitely with out fatigue. If a school girl can no walk one hour without becoming fatigued should she expect to use he: eyes 10 or 12 hours without fatigue Most of the eyes are in some way de fective in shape; and if perfect eyes suffer from diseast, how Should not the imperfect? Reading on railroad cars is a misuse. Poor light, in quantity or quality, is a source of eye trouble. Natural light is the most desirable and agreeable. In school rooms the window surface should be equal to onefourth the floor surface. One of the Detroit school buildings, in which the gas is sometimes lighted at noonday, had furnished the lecturer many pupils. In using artificial light the lamp should be placed at the lef tof the reader, slightly in front, so that the angle of incident shall differ from the angle formed by the book and the eye. The lecturer referred to the electric light, which may give us something better than we have, but will require improved apparatus, for the beneflt of our eyes. At present ils unsteadmess, or marked variations, are the great objection. The use of alcoholic liquors and tobáceo is often injurious to the eyes. The lecturer closed with the following SUGGESTIONS. 1. Avoid reading and study bv poor light. 2. Light skould come f rom the side, and not from the back or from the front. 3. Do not read or study while suffering great bodily fatigue or during recovery from illness. 4. Do not read while lying down. 5. Do not use the eyes too long at a time for near work, but give them occasional periods for rest. 6. Reading and study should be done systematically. 7. During study avoid the stoopiug position, or whatever tends to produce congestión of the head and face. 8. Select well printed books. 9. Correct errors of refraction with proper glasses. 10. Avoid bad hygienic conditions and the use of alcohol and tobáceo. 11. Take suffleient exercise in the open air. 12. Let the physical keep pace with the mental culture, for asthenopia is most usually observed in those who are lacking in physical development. Justice Cooley's address before the sanitary convention was on the question: "What pan the Law do for the Health of the People ?" He considered the causes which render the interposition of the state necessary to the health of people. Individual care is often inadequate, and especially when diseases prevail over a large field. Then organized action, and even the employment of force, may be necessary. So, also, when individual imprudence threatens more than individual injury. All eountries adopt and enforce quarantine laws, and the tendency to increase them grows as nations advance in civilization. Had there been stringent pólice regulations, properly enforced, the plague and the cholera might have been long ago arrested without lea ving their long track of desolation. The same is true c#the yellow fever, which made such havoc at Memphis. New demanda for quarantine laws will arise, and it may be wise to bring within their scope beasts as well as persons. Cattle affected with pleuro-pneumonia suggests that nothing but the unhesitating destruction of the animal affected will check the disease, and there should be a rigid prohibitiou of exportation from the infected región. Not only where large districts are affected, but in the case of particular neighborhoods and households may sanitary regulations apply. The power of government is just as complete here as in the enactment of quarantine laws, the object in botli cases being the same, and there is no interference with a man's rightful pursuit of happiness in either case. Judge Cooley ref erred to the disaster at Vienna, as showing the duty and right of the state to inquire into the condition of public buildings, but this right extends also to the daty of inquiring into the safety of tenament buildings and their sanitary condition. He considered the complaints against government interference in such cases, and said: It is a trite saying, that the abuse of a power is no argument against its existence, and the instances will probably be very rare in which the regulations established by the public authorities are not better than none at all. It will, besides, be the business of the sanitary force to give more attention to the causes of disease and the methods of obviating them than can be given by persons absorbed in private business. Boards of Health have large powers, but for some causes of disease they can do but little. They come more properly under the jurisdiction of those to whom is committed the administration of criminal law. The sphere of sanitary inspection and regulation should be much larger, as occasions for interference are more numerous. Should extend to causes which exposé the moral as well as the physical health - to slaughter houses in populous neighborhoods brutalizing to children; to the evils of prostitution; to the poisoned air of our homes and of public halls and to the slaves of alcohol and opium. What shall be the limit of the state's interference is a matter of policy ratber than of law. Judicial decisions favor the power of the state to do what it thinks best for the general good. Dr. Lyster's paper on "the Ambulance Hospital for Small-pox" attributed our comparitive exemption from that disease to the fact that Michigan people generally appreciate and practice vaccination. While diphtheria and scarlet fever have been formidable, small-pox has not prevailed to great extent. To be prepared for it, cottage hospitals should be built and maintained, as in England. There are economical reasons for preferring this to the permament pest house. He defended the effleacy of vaccination - thoughtunfavorably of the aggregation of the sick in large numbers under one roof, as in the field hospitals of the rebellion, and thought tents in this climate eould be made comf ortable f or the sick. They are favorable to fresh air, easily heated and ventilated, or made to admit and exclude light, and the Franco-Prussian war experience with the ambulance tent shoved that in small-pox eruption was quicker, and matter matured more rapidly and convalescence surer than under any other conditions. At the "Wednesday evening Session W. L. Eaton, of the Kalamazoo Telegraph, read a paper, the subject of which was: "Utilizing the Press for Samtary Objects," Prof. J. W. Langley of the University, a paper on "Ventilation," and Prof.M. W. Harrington, also of the University, on "Some Meteorological Conditions Affectintr Ventilation." The convention adjourned af ter resolutions of thanks to the officers and ecturers of the session, and of appreciation of the courtesy of President Angelí in inviting its members to visit ;he University, and in accompanying ;hem through its various departments.