been aware of the effects of vitiated atmospheres on the constitution and general strength, and of the means of ventilation, the practicable gain of money from the gain of labour by that sanitary measure could not have been less in one large shop, employing 200 men, than £100,000. Independently of subscriptions of the whole trade, it would, during their working period of life, have been sufficient, with the enjoyment of greater health and comfort by every workman during the time of work, to have purchased him an annuity of £1 per week for comfortable and respectable self-support during a period of superannuation, commencing soon after fifty years of age.

If we thus find the crowding of unventilated places of work injurious-in which persons rarely pass more than twelve out of the twenty-four hours, being free during the remaining time to breathe what air they please-how much worse should we expect the consequences to be of the same fault in workhouses, hospitals, schools, and prisons, in which individuals often pass both day and night in the same apartments, or if in different apartments, still in the same crowd. Accordingly, since the attention of medical men has been sufficiently directed to the subject, the explanation has become complete of many deplorable cases of general ill health and mortality in such places, attributed at first to deficiency or bad quality of food, or to any cause but the true onewant of ventilation.* A striking illustration of this was afforded in the case of a large school for children during the years 1836 and 1837, as recorded in the second volume of the Poor Law Reports. Such general failure of health and such mortality had occurred among the children as to attract public notice, and the animadversions of many medical men and others who visited the schools; but by most the evil was attributed chiefly to faulty nourishment; and it was only after the more complete examination made by direction of the board, and of which the report is published, as above stated, that the diet was found to be unusually good, but the ventilation very imperfect. Suitable changes were then made; and now, in the same space where 700 children were, by illness, awakening extensive sympathy, 1100 now enjoy excellent health. The defective state of information on the subject of ventilation is frequently shown in reports, which assume that apartments containing given cubic feet of space are all that is requisite for life and health, whereas if a spacious drawing-room be completely closed against the admission of air, an inhabitant confined to it would in time be stifled, whilst by active ventilation or change of air, men working in connexion with diving-machines live in the space of a helmet, which merely confines the head.

"In the space of four years, ending in 1784, in a badly-ventilated house, the Lying-in Hospital in Dublin, there died 2944 children out of 7650; but after freer ventilation, the deaths in the same period of time, and in a like number of children, amounted only to 279."-Gen. Rep. p. 107.

In the majority of instances of the defective ventilation of schools, the pallid countenance and delicate health of the schoolboy, commonly laid to the account of over-application to his book, are due simply to the defective construction of the schoolroom. In the dame schools, and the schools for the labouring classes, the defective ventilation is the most frequent and mischievous."

From this, as well as all other testimony on the subject, it is clear that society is daily suffering to an indescribable extent by atmospheric impurity. Great loss of life, occasional or lingering bad health, poverty from inability to labour, mental depression, crime, and intemperance, are the well-observed results of this discreditable state of things.

To assuage as far as possible this enormous evil, very extensive improvements would be required in the construction of towns and dwellings generally, and perhaps these may in time be effected, including more plentiful supplies of water. Meanwhile, the evil may be materially lessened by employers and public bodies adopting means for ventilating work-rooms, churches, and other edifices. This may be done in two ways: The first consists of leading tubes from the unventilated apartments to a large fire or furnace, the natural demand for air by the fire drawing off the vitiated atmosphere, while fresh air is left to enter by numerous small openings or crevices; such being, in fact, the plan pursued for ventilating the houses of parliament. The second process of ventilation may consist in propelling fresh air into buildings (or into ships) by a small and cheaply-constructed apparatus, lately invented by the benevolent Dr Neil Arnott; the vitiated air in this case being expelled by the intrusion of what is fresh. A power equal to that of a man or boy can work the apparatus.*

In workshops, schools, and public rooms, open fire-grates are preferable to stoves, as they require a continual current of air towards them—thus drawing off all impure air, as well as noxious vapours and dusty particles. Where an open fire is used, a very equable ventilation may be kept up by a few apertures in the walls, slanting from the outside upward to the ceiling. The only thing to be attended to in all cases of artificial ventilation, is for parties not to sit in the currents so created, the results of which inadvertence are too frequently colds, rheumatism, and the like.

With respect to the ventilation of private houses, we offer the following admonitory hints:

:

1. If at all possible, never have more than one bed in a room; and let the window of that room be thrown open whenever the weather will permit.

* Those desirous of applying this ingenious apparatus should communicate with Dr Arnott. His address is Bedford Square, London.

2. Let each bed be as open and airy as possible; that is, have plenty of room for the air to play over it and about it. Closing up the front of the bed, so as to leave only a small open space, as is the case in many cottages in the country, is a plan greatly to be condemned.

3. The bed should be as open and airy during the day as the night, for during the night it absorbs impurities which should have liberty to escape after the persons rise from it.

4. On rising in the morning, open wide the curtains or doors of the bed, throw down the bed-clothes, or, what is better, hang them on screens during the day, and open the window and door, so that the air may blow freely through the house, and carry off all impurities in the atmosphere. Such precautions are especially necessary in the case of newly-built houses, where moisture and other injurious exhalations are apt to arise from the walls, the painting, and wood-work. Indeed, no recent erection ought to be inhabited till all the apartments have been wellseasoned by fires and thorough atmospheric exposure.

5. A good housewife will also take care to allow nothing to remain within doors which may cause a bad smell. All bycorners and closets should be regularly swept out, washed, and ventilated.

6. If the house consist of only one apartment, and be inhabited by several individuals, it should be limed or whitewashed once a-year, and every part of the floor and entrance passages washed weekly. All such cleansings should be in the morning, in order that the house may be quite dry before night.

7. Allow no impurities of any kind to accumulate about the door or outside of the dwelling: the odours rising from stag nant gutters and open drains are a fertile source of fever.

It may be asked, how is it to be known when a house is overheated or ill-ventilated. If, on going from an apartment to the external air, you feel a sudden chill, depend upon it the difference between the internal and external temperature is too great, and the former ought to be lowered by gradually admitting more of the external air. If, again, on coming from the open air, you are sensible of a stifling musty odour in any apartment, at once throw open the door or windows, and see for the future that a continual current be admitted, to prevent such a want of ventilation. Many people, instead of admitting the fresh air, endeavour to dissipate bad odours by artificial scents, but this is a mere temporary and injurious expedient. The evil still remains, and in a few hours it is found that such a practice has been only to substitute one offensive smell for another.

By attention to these simple but necessarily brief directions, as regards cleanliness and ventilation, much disease and suffering, loss of time through ill health, moral deterioration, and other obvious evils, might be avoided, and a vast amount of comfort and enjoyment secured.

LL knowledge is received through the medium of the senses, usually reckoned five in number-seeing, hearing, taste, smell, and touch or feeling; such, in fact, being the agents by which the mind is excited to receive or communicate ideas. A deprivation of one or more of the senses, as is well known, ordinarily leads to increased activity of the others, in consequence of the greater reliance placed upon them; nevertheless, it seems evident that any such deprivation must, less or more, cause a deficiency in the intellectual conceptions. A person who has been blind from earliest infancy can, by no process of feeling, hearing, or smelling, be made to have even moderately correct ideas of light or colours; neither does it appear to us that any one who has been always deaf can attain to anything like a proper understanding of sound. Deprivation of hearing from birth may be considered a double calamity, for it is naturally attended with deprivation of speech; and hence the deaf-mute, whatever be his acquirements, always excites our warmest compassion.

Which of the senses could be most conveniently spared, has probably been with most persons a subject of occasional consideration, and it is only when the merits of each are compared that we have a thorough notion of their value. Had we never possessed eyes, then should we never have beheld the glories of sun, moon, and stars; the beauteous earth we tread, fields, flowers, colours, the magnificent ocean, or the face of those we love. Had we been deaf from birth, then should we never have heard sounds, music, language, nor have been able to hold com

the

munication by speech; of the tones of affection we should never have been conscious. Had we been deficient in taste, we should have been exposed to injury in eating that which should be rejected as food; and along with a deprivation of the kindred sense of smell, we should have been constantly in a state of difficulty and danger. It would be needless to speculate on the deprivation of feeling, for we cannot conceive that life should exist for any length of time with such a deficiency. Great as we must deplore the misfortune of those who labour under an irremediable privation of any of the senses, we must in as great a degree admire that Providential care which provides a measure of compensatory happiness. Although stricken with blindness and shut out from being a spectator of nature's marvellous handiwork, how usually superior is the enjoyment of harmonious sounds, how exquisite the love of music! The deaf, too, have their enjoyments, and are at least blest with a pleasing unconsciousness of the loss which they sustain. Lamentable, indeed, is the fate of those who have been deprived of the two more important senses-seeing and hearing; yet that even blind deaf-mutes, with no other senses to rely upon than smell, taste, and feeling, may enjoy a qualified happiness, and be susceptible of moral cultivation, has been shown in several well-accredited instances. One of the most remarkable cases of the kind is that of James Mitchell, the story of whose blameless and interesting life we propose in the first place to lay before our readers.

JAMES MITCHELL.

JAMES MITCHELL was born in the year 1795 at Ardclach, a parish in the north of Scotland, of which his father was clergyman. He was the youngest except one of seven children, and neither his parents nor his brothers or sisters had any deficiency in the senses. Soon after birth, his mother discovered that he was blind, from his manifesting no desire to turn his eyes to the light. On inspection, it was observed that it was blindness caused by cataract; both the lenses were opaque, a cloudy pearl-like substance resting over the retina or seeing part of each eye. This was a sufficiently distressing discovery, but how much greater was the anguish of the poor mother when she soon after found that her infant was deaf as well as blind! Excluded from all ordinary means of direction, the child was guided only by feeling and natural impulse-an object so helpless as to require constant and careful attention. Fortunately, his constitution was otherwise sound: he learned to walk like other children, by being put to the ground and left to scramble to his feet, holding by any objects near him.

While between one and two years of age, he began to evince considerable acuteness in touch, taste, and smell, being able by