SANITARY SCIENCE, known also under the names of PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, STATE MEDICINE, HYGIENE, and PUBLIC HEALTH, has been variously defined by different writers.* Dr. Mapother's is perhaps as good a definition as any. In the first of his Lectures on Public Health he describes this science as "an application of time laws of physiology and general pathology to the maintenance of the health and life of com munities, by means of those agencies which are in common and constantuse." This department of science received so strong an impulse, about a quarter of a century ago, from the labors of Southwood Smith, Edwin Chadwick, Lyon Playfair, and others, that many persons regard it as of modern origin; and doubtless to a great extent they are right; but on back to the records of early history, we almost invariably find evi dence that the health of the general population was a subject of legislation. The Mosaic code of laws—the most ancient on record—contains minute directions for the cleanliness of the person, the purification of the dwelling and the camp, the selection of healthy and the avoidance of unwholesome food (pork, for example, which in hot countries is more commonly found to harbor parasites than in temperate climates, and blood, which is the most putrescible part of the animal), the seclusion of persons with contagious disorders, the regulation of sexual intercourse at certain periods, and various other points bearing on the physical well-being of the Jewish nation. The Greeks and Romans, although not, like the Jews, making hygiene a part of their religious duties, were far from neglecting it. " The laws of Lycurgus," says Dr. Gairdner, " are not wanting in very pointed enactments on sanitary !natters; and the importance attached by all the Greek republics, and in the Platonic ideal polity, to physical culture, is too well known to remark. The Roman people. poor and apparently rude as it was In its origin, yet found time amidst its military occupations to construct the cloaca vunima as an indestructible and stupendous memorial of its attention to the drainage and sewerage of the city at a very early period of its history. At a later period aque ducts were made to cover miles upon miles of the surrounding plain, and their splendid ruins, still partly used for their original purpose, attest the munificence and the abun dance with which the first of requisites was supplied to the imperial city."— Public Health in Relation to Air and Brater, 1862, p. 6. Moreover, we know enough of the construction of the private houses and public buildings of the Romans to see that they recognized the necessity for free ventilation and good drainage. When the archiatri populares, or state-physicians, were first appointed in the Roman empire, is not certainly known. Their mode of election is described in the Theodosian and Jus tinian codes. There were ten of them in the largest towns, one to each district or sub division; seven in towns of the second order, and five in the smaller ones. They
collectively formed a college, whose duty it was to attend to the public health, and they may,be regarded as the earliest type of our "general medical council." Gradually, however, as Christianity spread, an utter misconception of doctrine led to the neglect of all care of the human body. While the monks and friars devoted themselves to good works, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and instituting hospitals, they entertained no idea of the possible ,prevention of disease. They never attempted to impress upon their` followers the importance of drainage, ventilation, pure and abun dant water, etc.; but when an epidemic arose it was supposed to be a manifestation of God's special anger, and it would have been impossible to make them understand that it was the natural result of a prolonged disregard of the laws of nature. Those who have read dean Stanley's graphic Memorials of Thomas a Becket will be inclined to wonder whether those who adopted such penances as his could ever be free from cutaneous disorders. The state of the towns in England in the 13th c. is so clearly described by Mr. Brewer in his introduction to the Monumenta Franciscan, that we should have been glad to have extracted it, if our space had permitted. Those who have not access to the valuable series in which Mr. Brewer's work is included, will find a sufficient quotation from it in Dr. Gairduer's interesting volume on Air and Water, pp. 44-47. In another work in the same series—the Liber Alba*, edited by Mr. Riley—much important infor mation regarding the general sanitary state of London in the medieval times may also be found. In addition to the causes of disease indicated by these writers, such as the absence of drainage, the accumulation of filth, bad ventilation, insufficient and often unwholesome water, inattention to personal cleanliness, etc., must also be noticed the ordinary food in those times. The common vegetables of our own day, excepting the cabbage, were only slowly introduced from the time of Henry VIII. As turnips were not then used as a winter-food for oxen and sheep, these animals were with difficulty kept alive during the season when grass was scanty, and were therefore killed and salted in the beginning of the cold weather; and during several months, game and river-fish were the only kinds of fresh, animal food. Macaulay, iu his celebrated third chaptcr on "The State of England in 1085," observes that, at that time, meat, although cheaper than in former times, was still so dear that hundreds of thousands of families scarcely knew the taste of it; that bread such as is now given to the inmates of work-houses was then seldom seen even on the trencher of a yeoman or of a shopkeeper; and that the great majority of the natives lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats. Many important facts of a similar nature are also recorded in Froude's history of England.