ising beyond them. Malaria generally lurks near the surface of the
earth, and seems to be more abundant in the night time. Persons sleeping
in the upper story of a house may escape its morbid influence, while
those occupying apartments on the lower floor, become affected.

DAMP CELLARS.

Damp cellars, under residences, are a fruitful cause of disease. Dr.
Sanford B. Hunt, in an article in the _Newark Daily Advertiser_,
speaking of the recent epidemic of diphtheria in New York City, says:

"Pestilences that come bodily, like cholera, are faced and beaten by
sanitary measures. Those which come more subtly need for their defeat
only a higher detective ability and a closer study of causes, many of
which are known, but hidden under the cellars of our houses, and which
at last are only preventable by public authority and at public expense
in letting out the imprisoned dampness which saturates the earth on
which our dwellings are built. Where wood rots, men decay. This is
clearly shown in the sanitary map printed in the _Times_. In the great
district surrounding Central Park, and which participates in its
drainage system, there are no cases. On the whole line of Fifth Avenue
there are none. The exempt districts are clearly defined by the
character of the soil, drainage, and sewerage, and by the topography,
which either has natural or artificial drainage, but most of which is so
dry that only surface-water and house-filth--which does not exist in
those palaces--can affect the health of the residents. But in the
tenement houses and on the made lands where running streams have been
filled in and natural springs choked up by earth fillings, diphtheria
finds a nidus in which to develop itself. The sanitary map coincides
precisely with the topographic map made by Gen. Viele. Where he locates
buried springs and water-courses, there we find the plague spots of
diphtheria and in the same places, on previous maps prepared by the
Board of Health, we find other low types and stealthy diseases, such as
typhoid and irruptive fevers, and there we shall find them again when
the summer and autumnal pestilences have yielded place to those which
belong to the indoor poisoned air in the winter. The experience of other
cities, notably London and Dublin, once plague spots and now as healthy
as any spot on earth, proves that most of the causations of disease are
within the control of the competent sanitary engineer, even in
localities crowded