ton to New York, which formerly required days for its performance, is now accomplished within a few hours. A voyage to England, once always of uncertain duration, and frequently requiring months for its performance, is now made in ten days. One month only, instead of six, is consumed in a voyage to the Pacific coast. Events which have taken place in the East Indies have been known here within a month afterwards! These great facilities of intercourse increase, immensely, the number of travellers, and bring the inhabitants of the whole civilized world in contact, and make them acquainted with each other. What is known by one person in one place may be known by all in every place. "Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased." These are the discoveries, the characteristics of the age,-and they have an incalculable influence on human development and progress.

A process by which the laws of electricity and magnetism may be applied to the purposes of intercommunication between different minds in different places, is a recent discovery, also exciting the admiration and astonishment of mankind. Who would have imagined, a few years since, that a commercial order could be sent from Boston to New York, that order executed, and the answer received in Boston, and the whole occupying but ten minutes! And yet this wonder has been accomplished. Thought, the moment it is uttered, may be transmitted with the speed of lightning to distant regions, and leave its foot-prints, at pleasure, at any place along its course. And copies of these foot-prints can be multiplied by the power of steam at the rate of ten or more thousands per hour, and by the same power scattered in all directions. It is thus that nearly every important event is now known throughout this vast country almost as soon as it occurs.

The discoveries, too, in geology, in chemistry, and in other natural and physical sciences, are no less wonderful. In almost every department of knowledge, and in almost all the features of practical and mechanical life, there prevails an astonishing activity. New discoveries are constantly made, and each gives new impetus to further developments. Man accomplishes more in a few months now than formerly in many years.

He seems

to live faster and longer in the same time. All is energy and progress. If these distinguishing characteristics of the age are wisely directed, by wise men,-if the progress shall be towards good and not towards evil,—it is impossible to tell what future glories are yet reserved for the triumph of the human mind. We are among those who believe that the age of discovery is yet in its infancy; and that, great as are the achievements of the human intellect, others still more wonderful are yet in store for us.

Do not these characteristics of the age demand that something should be done for Sanitary Reform? Shall the art of preserving our lives, and of invigorating our health, be the only art that shall remain in the same stationary position in which it has long existed; or that shall be permitted sometimes to make a retrograde movement? Shall ignorance, presumption and apathy brood over this most vitally important matter, while intelligence, attentive application, and vigorous activity press forward other objects in their rapid career of advancement towards perfection? We have described the field of inquiry, we have shown that there is encouragement to labor; and we believe that in no science or art,-in no department of knowledge or discovery, can more important or more useful achievements be made. Vaccination, etherization, and other preventive agencies, are great discoveries, but not greater than other and similar ones which are destined hereafter to be known.

Observation and discovery in the cure and expulsion of disease after its invasion we would not exclude, but would advocate and elicit in every available and useful form; and we believe there is much in this department of knowledge yet to learn, notwithstanding the great progress which medical science has made within the past few years. One of our most intelligent and eminent physicians was lately asked-"Do you suppose that the medical profession has arrived at that degree of knowledge which shall admit the belief that further useful discoveries cannot be made in the modes of treating disease?" "Certainly not," said he; "we are as yet only on the borders of ignorance!" This may be true in many respects. Notwith

standing the brilliant discoveries that have been made in physiology and in the various departments of medical science and medical practice,-notwithstanding the more thorough education and the more eminent medical skill that characterizes many physicians of the present day, there are few of them who have not sometimes discovered the imperfection of human attainments, and the uncertainty that may yet attend a practice guided by the highest medical skill. The measure we recommend is designed to pile up fact upon fact, in relation to life, disease, and mortality, until their nature and laws are ascertained and demonstrated; and thus aid, in various ways, in increasing knowledge, in leading to important discoveries, and in removing those uncertainties which attend the practice and success of the profession. And in this way we shall attempt to meet the demands of the age.

But the Sanitary Reform we advocate lies chiefly in another field of observation and discovery, which has as yet been very imperfectly explored. This may be called the Province of Prevention-prevention of disease-prevention of suffering-prevention of sanitary evils of every kind; and the efforts of those who enter this hopeful province should be directed to the discovery and the means of removal of the causes of these evils. Every effect must have a cause-every disease has its cause. And the effort should be to ascertain the exact relation which one bears to the other-what known, exact and positive causes, will produce a known, exact and positive disease, or a sanitary evil of any specific kind, and none other. And is not this as far within the limits of possibility and certainty as is the treatment and eradication of disease? Cannot the exact nature of an atmospheric, local or personal cause of disease, and the exact personal condition with which it most easily assimilates, and which it most easily affects, be definitely and accurately ascertained? If such a desirable discovery could be made, what manifold blessings on humanity would it confer! We know that a human body, unaltered from its original organization or functions, coming in contact with the virus of small-pox, either inhaled while floating in the atmosphere, or imbibed by outward contact or inoculation, will produce a

specific effect, a specific disease. Here is cause and effect of a known and exact relation to each other. We know, too, that vaccination, properly performed, will alter the original organization or functions, so that the same virus will not in either way take effect. Here is another exact cause and effect whose relations are equally known. This is a discovery which has, within the last fifty years, saved thousands and thousands of lives, and might have saved thousands more, had it been universally applied. Now it is but fulfilling the demands of the age to press inquiries vigorously, and to endeavor to discover the causes of every disease which may attack the human body. If the same exact and definite information could be obtained, as to the causes of cholera, dysentery, scarlatina, typhus, consumption, and the other grave diseases, to which we are subject, and as to the particular condition of the individual which they most easily affect, how much might be done for the avoidance of those diseases by the removal of their causes! How many lives might be saved, how much suffering might be prevented! Does not the spirit of the age then demand the approval of a measure which promises to do this great, most important work?

VII. It should be approved because IT INVOLVES AN IMPOR

TANT DUTY.

If a measure is practical, useful, economical, philanthropic, moral, and demanded by the spirit of the age, it needs no argument to show that it is our duty to approve it. And if such is our obligation, nothing further need be said. For, in our judgment, whoever violates a known duty is guilty of crime, and justly makes himself liable to its penalties. If an individual swallows poison, and death immediately follows; or if, by improper eating, drinking, or course of life, he gradually debilitates his constitution, and death is the ultimate consequence, he violates a known law, neglects his duty, and justly suffers

"Of all the great undertakings by which the era is signalized, there is perhaps none which so clearly stamps a character of real and essential progress as the Sanitary Movement; for the result of this, mediate and immediate, is a positive, a cumulative good; a social, moral, and intellectual amelioration of a most beneficial nature,-one which we believe is destined to effect great results in the material advancement of a people. Its ultimate effect whether so intended or not, lies beyond the pecuniary advantage-the dollars and cents; it recognizes the existence of claims and sympathies-intimate relations between all phases and grades of society."-Chambers' Papers for the People, No. 9, p. 1.

the physical penalties of his guilt. If we, as social beings, make no effort to elevate the sanitary condition of those around us by removing the causes of disease, we violate a known duty, and make ourselves justly guilty and liable to punishment; and we shall inevitably be punished, either by suffering sickness, or by death, or in some other way. If a municipal or state authority neglects to make and execute those sanitary laws and regulations on which the health and life of the people depend, they violate a known duty, and are justly chargeable with guilt and its consequences; and they will certainly be punished, either by means of less capacity for labor, of increased expenditures, of diminished wealth, of more abject poverty and atrocious crime, or of more extended sickness and a greater number of deaths; or in some other form. These are the physical and social consequences of a neglect of sanitary duty. But there are others; and we would mention them with all that regard which is their due.

It has already been said that the first sanitary laws were the direct revelation of the Divine Lawgiver; and that they have been further developed in the successive ages of the world. These laws are now, to some extent, well understood. And may we not conclude that we shall be brought to an account for the manner in which we have observed and obeyed them? May we not reasonably believe that we shall hereafter see the wisdom of that providence which produces the earlier and later deaths, the physical sufferings, and the innumerable sanitary evils which surround and afflict us in this world,-that they were the just and inevitable result of violations of those sanitary laws which were given us for our guidance and happiness, and that these evils might have been avoided if these laws had been understood and obeyed? May it not then appear that many a law-maker, many a public administrator, and many a private individual, has been guilty of robbing others, and of robbing himself, of health and of life,-all that is dear on earth;-guilty of murders and of suicides;—and none the less fearfully real and punishable because they were unintended? The possibility of such a result may well arrest universal attention. "In regard to the whole range of the laws of health