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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
LIFE UNDER GLASS, 
 
 CONTAINING SUGGESTIONS TOWARD 
 
 THE FOEMATION or ARTIFICIAL CLIMATES. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE A. SHOVE. 
 
 " If all were free, 
 
 Who would not, like the swallow, flit, and find 
 What season suited him? in summer heats 
 Wing northward, and in winter build his home 
 In sheltered valleys nearer to the sun." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 (LATE TICKNOE & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1874, by 
 
 JAMES B. OSGOOD & CO., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 BOSTON.- 
 
 STEBEOTYPED AND POINTED BY RAND, A VERY, & Co. 
 117 FRANKLIN STBEET. 
 

 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 COUNTLESS HOST OF WEATHER -SENSITIVE INVALIDS 
 
 OF THE NORTH 
 
 fjts ILtttle Uolume is ftespcctfullg QctitcatelJ, 
 
 AS A 
 
 8UGGKSTION TO THOSE WHO ARE TO ORGANIZE THE SANITARY 
 
 SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE ; LET US HOPE, 
 
 OF THE NEAR FUTURE. 
 
 M351802 
 
ONE of the foremost of English medical writers, 
 Dr. James Johnson, emphatically says, " I declare 
 my conscientious opinion, founded on long observa- 
 tion and reflection, that if there was not a single 
 physician, surgeon, apothecary, chemist, druggist, or 
 drug, on the face of the earth, there would be less 
 sickness and less mortality than now obtains." And 
 Prof. Magendie is reported to have addressed his stu- 
 dents at the Medical College in Paris to the following 
 effect : " Gentlemen, medicine is a great humbug. 
 I know it is called a science. Science indeed ! it is 
 nothing like science. Doctors are mere empirics 
 when they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as 
 men can be. Who knows any thing in the world 
 about medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done me the 
 honor to attend my lectures; and I must tell you 
 frankly, that I know nothing about medicine. True, 
 we are gathering facts every day. We can produce 
 typhus-fever, for example, by injecting a certain sub- 
 stance into the veins of a dog ; we can alleviate dia- 
 betes ; and I see distinctly, we are fast approaching the 
 day when phthisis can be cured as easily as any disease. 
 But I repeat it to you, there is no such thing now as 
 medical science. I grant you, people are cured ; but 
 how ? Nature does a great deal ; imagination does a 
 great deal ; doctors do devilish little." 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 To the man or woman who is blessed with 
 even the smallest of conservatories or green- 
 houses, and whose home is on the shady 
 side of the fortieth parallel of latitude, the 
 motive of the following little work will need 
 no apology. It is such a supreme satisfac- 
 tion to have a few hundred cubic feet of 
 space fenced in with crystal from the raging, 
 stinging winds of a Northern winter, a shel- 
 tered nook where one can easily fancy it the 
 middle of May, while out of doors the frozen 
 blood of St. Januarius has not yet begun to 
 liquefy under the touch of the returning 
 sun, that a mind of ordinary intelligence 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 which enjoys such a privilege will acknowl- 
 edge the desirability and the practicability 
 of fencing off very much larger portions of 
 space with transparent material, so that 
 multitudes may be enabled to enjoy the 
 benefit and the pleasure of a mild and equa- 
 ble winter temperature. 
 
 An article published in " The Atlantic 
 Monthly" for March, 1873, entitled "Life 
 Under Glass," attracted considerable atten- 
 tion throughout the Northern States from 
 people who are not afraid of ideas merely 
 because they are new. It was suggested to 
 the author from influential quarters to ex- 
 tend the essay, and have it published in a 
 book form. The author is conscious, that, 
 even in its enlarged form, the essay is still an 
 inadequate presentation of a subject so im- 
 portant (as he believes it to be) to the well- 
 being of the Northern peoples. 
 
LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 IT is one of the tritest of axioms, that cus- 
 tom, or repetition, will often reconcile us to 
 the most afflicting events. 
 
 Let a desolating war break out in any 
 country after a long interval of peace, and 
 the first insignificant skirmish excites the 
 public mind to the most intense degree, 
 although the loss of life may be slight ; but, 
 let the war continue long enough, and the 
 most sanguinary battles at length cease to 
 excite in the contending peoples, except in 
 
 7 
 
8 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 individual cases, that thrill of horror which 
 attended the breaking-out of the carnage. 
 
 As with wars and battles, so with diseases. 
 There are some destructive maladies which 
 cause an annual mortality far greater than 
 the loss of life in any battle of modern 
 times, yet which have become so common, so 
 closely inwoven into the fibre of the race, 
 as to seem as much a part of the fixed order 
 of things as are the taxes, and quite as little 
 to be avoided. 
 
 At the head of the list of such diseases 
 stands consumption, unrivalled by any other 
 malady of the North in the number and 
 character of its victims. This scourge of 
 the most enlightened of the earth's peoples, 
 those who boast of their descent from the 
 energetic and the progressive Aryan race, 
 loves a shining mark. Its too often fatal 
 shafts seem to seek out the bright and beau- 
 tiful of earth's children. It neglects the 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 very young and the very old, but gathers its 
 annual harvest of tens of thousands out of 
 those in the early or later prime of manhood 
 and womanhood. 
 
 Fifteen thousand human beings are annu- 
 ally killed by tigers in India. The North- 
 American shudders as he reads a statement 
 indicative of so deplorable a state of affairs, 
 and thanks his stars that his lines are cast 
 in pleasanter places. A little reflection 
 would show him that there is an enemy 
 among us more destructive of valuable life 
 than all the tigers of India, plus its venom- 
 ous serpents. 
 
 Of all the deaths that occur in most 
 Northern countries, consumption is responsi- 
 ble for nearly or quite one-fifth. Let us sup- 
 pose that the woods and swamps of our 
 land were jungles infested by royal Bengal 
 tigers, which caused a yearly destruction 
 of life equal to one-fifth of all the deaths. 
 
10 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 How long would such a state of things be 
 permitted to continue? .The tigers we are 
 happily free from ; but their place is more 
 than supplied by an insidious and fatal 
 disease, which, more discriminating than the 
 scourge of the Indian jungles, selects its 
 prey from the very flower of society. 
 
 The indifference with which this great loss 
 of valuable lives is regarded in the commu- 
 nities in which it occurs is not flattering to 
 the intelligence of the age. If some fatal 
 disorder like the pleuropneumonia threatens 
 the domestic animals, there is directly an 
 intense excitement. Remedies of various 
 kinds are experimented with ; the whole 
 matter is thoroughly discussed in news- 
 papers, in farmers' clubs, and in public meet- 
 ings. Legislatures are even convened to 
 enact repressive laws, and stamp out the 
 disease before it is too late. 
 
 In the case, however, of a merely human 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 malady like consumption, which sweeps off 
 men and women in lieu of cows and oxen 
 having a pecuniary value, society is content 
 to fold its hands after the fatalistic manner 
 of the Moslem, while the mortality proceeds 
 unchecked, as an inscrutable and irremedi- 
 able dispensation of Providence. 
 
 " The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves." 
 
 Yet society is roused from its apathy if the 
 cholera in its infrequent visits, or the yellow 
 fever, or the small-pox, claims a few victims. 
 These are unmistakably contagious diseases ; 
 and selfishness whispers to each individual 
 that it may be his turn next. Directly there 
 is a panic : all the means that sanitary 
 science can suggest are energetically used by 
 boards of health having unlimited powers 
 to prevent the spread of the malady. All 
 of this is very natural and proper. If it 
 
12 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 were possible, likewise, to get up a whole- 
 some panic in regard to consumption, which 
 is a greater evil than all the other mala- 
 dies mentioned combined, something might 
 also be done to check its ravages. 
 
 Much has been written as to the causes of 
 pulmonary consumption, and different theo- 
 ries prevail as to its nature and origin. Its 
 proximate causes are undoubtedly manifold, 
 the chief of which are, hereditary tendency 
 or a scrofulous taint of the blood, a weaken- 
 ing of the system, an unwholesome diet, &c. 
 But, whatever may be the proximate or the 
 exceptional causes, it is evident that an un- 
 genial and variable climate must bear the 
 chief onus of responsibility for its preva- 
 lence.* A climate liable to sudden and 
 
 * Possibly there are some who will not admit that con- 
 sumption has its origin chiefly in atmospheric causes. If 
 that is not the case, why is it that there are certain climates 
 v. here the disease seldom or never originates? Such is the 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 great falls of temperature at all seasons, or 
 which is subject to long spells of raw, humid 
 weather, is shown by statistics to be a con- 
 genial habitat of pulmonary consumption. 
 On the other hand, climates more uniform in 
 character, and having a dry atmosphere, are 
 comparatively exempt from lung disease.* 
 
 case iu Minnesota, which is largely peopled from New 
 England, the emigrants including many consumptive 
 families; yet the children grow up without the disease 
 developing itself, though retaining the same habits, and 
 modes of life, as before their emigration. As a remedy 
 for the disease when developed, the climate of Minnesota 
 has been greatly overestimated. It is stated by good 
 authority, that not more than five per cent of those in the 
 earlier stages of this disease are permanently benefited by 
 removal to Minnesota. The land is high, and the air con- 
 sequently dry and pure ; but the terrible severity of the 
 winters is a great drawback. 
 
 * To trace the connection between the languages of 
 different peoples and the climates they lived in would 
 repay the investigations of even a Max Miiller. It is un- 
 doubtedly possible to judge very nearly of the climate 
 of any country from a mere vocabulary of the words in 
 
14 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 From the peculiarities of climate of New 
 England and some other portions of the 
 Northern States, one would naturally ex- 
 pect to find consumption a prevalent disease 
 in these regions ; and such is the fact. 
 
 daily use by the inhabitants. Thus the climate of Eng- 
 land is characterized by a very large proportion of dark, 
 misty, rainy, and cloudy days. Somebody has compared 
 it to looking up a chimney when the day is fair, and to 
 looking down the chimney when it is unpleasant. The 
 words in the English language descriptive of foul weather 
 far outnumber those used to describe fair weather. For 
 example, take the adjectives commencing with the letter 
 D, which are in common use by the English people when 
 talking of the weather. A spell of foul weather might be 
 described as being dark, damp, drizzly, dreary, dismal, 
 dirty, dull, dripping, doleful, drowsy, dumpish, dubious, 
 distressing, deused, dreadful, detestable, dangerous ; and, 
 if the colloquist were addicted to profanity, several more 
 emphatic adjectives beginning with D might be used. To 
 describe a fine day, using only words commencing with 
 the letter named, the choice would be restricted to three or 
 four dry, delightful, delicious, and perhaps delectable, 
 though the latter word is not in general use. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 Whatever else we may have to be proud of, 
 our climate is not a subject for unmixed ad- 
 miration. It is well known to be a climate 
 of extremes, what the naturalist Buffon 
 called an excessive climate, extremes not 
 only of heat and cold, but of wetness and 
 dry ness. The great range of the thermome- 
 ter, in some years more than a hundred and 
 twenty degrees of Fahrenheit's scale, is 
 rivalled by the fluctuations of the hygrome- 
 ter. Pluvial floods that would not discredit 
 the rainy season of the tropics times 
 when it seems easy to believe in the theory 
 of Leibnitz, that the universe is in flux 
 are followed or preceded by drouths worthy 
 of the red sands of the Colorado desert, 
 drouths sharp and long enough to cause all 
 organized life, animate and inanimate, to 
 thirst for a little of that moisture, which, in 
 its excess, was so great a discomfort to man 
 and beast. It was such a drouth that pre- 
 
16 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 pared the way for the terrible dies irce of the 
 burning of Chicago and the Michigan lum- 
 ber region. 
 
 At all seasons the temperature of these 
 regions is liable to sudden and great alterna- 
 tions from warmth to cold, and the reverse. 
 For instance, on the 29th of January, 1873, 
 the temperature at the writer's residence, in 
 Southern Massachusetts, fell fifty degrees in 
 seven hours, or from thirty degrees above 
 zero to twenty below that point. The next 
 day the mercury rose seventy degrees in five 
 hours. Such severe changes are destructive 
 to vegetable as well as to animal organiza- 
 tions. In the winter of 1871-72 the com- 
 bined cold and drouth were so intense as to 
 destroy hardy evergreens over a large extent 
 of the country. The following summer was 
 intensely hot. More than three hundred 
 fatal cases of thermic fever, or sunstroke, 
 were reported in New- York City alone. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 The mortality in that city, during the ter- 
 ribly hot week ending with July 6, was 
 three times as great as the average.* 
 
 * A valuable and interesting feature of the ninth- 
 census reports are the "charts of mortality" in the 
 second volume. These charts show in distinct colors the 
 relative mortality from various maladies in different 
 sections of the country. The first shows the mortality 
 from consiimption. The highest average of deaths from 
 this disease, over two thousand in ten thousand, is indi- 
 cated by dark blue. This color covers the greater part of 
 the New-England States, and also appears in North- 
 western New York, in Eastern New Jersey, around the 
 head waters of the Ohio Tliver, in South-eastern Indiana, 
 and Northern Kentucky. The next highest average, 
 fourteen hundred to two thousand deaths in ten thousand, 
 is shown by a lighter shade of color. This covers a large 
 part of Michigan, Southern Wisconsin, and parts of Il- 
 linois, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The 
 greater portion of the Middle States are covered by it, 
 excepting Pennsylvania. The only spots in the country 
 east of the Rocky Mountains with a perfectly white 
 record, with less than five hundred and fifty deaths in ten 
 thousand, are the northern parts of Minnesota, Wiscon- 
 sin, and Michigan, and small areas in Virginia, North 
 Carolina, Georgia, and Southern Florida. 
 
18 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 It would be 'easy to fill a large volume 
 with evidence showing the excessive and 
 variable character of our climate ; but the 
 labor would be superfluous. Every resident 
 of the regions under consideration is 
 thoroughly sensible of the fact from un- 
 pleasant, personal experience. It is not 
 strange, that, in a climate with such peculi- 
 arities, phthisis pulmonalis is responsible for 
 one death in every five. A locality in which 
 a harsh, changeable winter and spring are 
 followed by a summer of debilitating heat 
 is the most unfavorable that could be devised 
 for those afflicted with phthisis, or who have 
 a tendency towards it through hereditary 
 descent. Hence many, who have the means 
 and can bear the journey, take flight in the 
 autumn with the birds of passage to more 
 friendly climes, to Florida, to Georgia, and 
 the Carolinas, to the Bahamas, and even to 
 Southern California. It has been denied by 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 some physicians of eminence among them 
 the noted Dr. Ramadge of London that a 
 winter residence at the South is of any 
 benefit to people having tuberculous diseases 
 of the lungs. There is evidence, however, 
 that many cares of the earlier stages of the 
 malady have occurred owing to removal to a 
 milder latitude. The number of such cures 
 would, no doubt, be much larger than it is 
 if any southern climate could be found 
 where the conditions were absolutely per- 
 fect for effecting a cure. Italy, Southern 
 France, and Spain, were formerly popular 
 winter resorts for those afflicted with this 
 disease ; but experience has long since shown 
 that the shores and islands of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea are far from being favorable 
 localities for the cure or amelioration of this 
 disease. The average winter temperature is 
 mild compared with that of more northern 
 lands ; but sudden changes frequently occur. 
 
20 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 Cold, cutting winds, like the mistral of 
 Southern France and the tramontana of the 
 west coast of Italy, alternate with the hot 
 and debilitating sirocco, " Auster's sultry 
 blast." The spring months are especially 
 trying to persons with weak lungs, from 
 the keen, easterly winds which often prevail 
 at that season. , The best resort for con- 
 sumptives across the ocean, excepting some 
 parts of Syria, is undoubtedly the Island of 
 Madeira. Yet the climate of this favored 
 island is not perfection. " The spring at 
 Madeira," says Sir James Clark in his work 
 on the sanitive influence of climate, " as 
 at every other place, is the most trying sea- 
 son for the invalid, and will require, even 
 there, a corresponding degree of caution on 
 his part." Notwithstanding this drawback, 
 he considered a residence in Madeira, during 
 the cold season, to be decidedly beneficial in 
 the earlier stages of lung disease. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 21. 
 
 The winter climates of Florida, of South- 
 ern California, and of some other places in 
 the austral regions of our country, with the 
 summer climate of the Minnesota watershed, 
 are far superior, in a sanitive point of view, 
 to the shores and islands of the Mediterra- 
 nean. Florida especially, though sometimes 
 subject to rough " northers," has a winter 
 temperature of great mildness. That of 
 San Diego, in Southern California, is said to 
 be nearly or quite equal to it in this respect. 
 
 But, whatever may be the advantages of 
 these and other distant resorts for the sick, 
 it is obvious that they can be made available 
 to only a small portion of the large numbers 
 of persons who need a mild, dry, and equable 
 atmosphere as a primal condition of cure. 
 Possibly five per cent of this class are able 
 to bear the expense and endure the fatigues 
 of the long journey required. What is to 
 be done with the remaining ninety-five per 
 
22 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 cent ? Must they give over all hope of re- 
 covery, and hasten the sad finale by yielding 
 to the depressing influence of a cheerless 
 gloom? At present there is only one re- 
 source by which they can avoid, to some ex- 
 tent, the trying changes of temperature, and 
 the cold, raw spells of weather incident to 
 the winters and springs of our northern 
 clime ; and that is, to keep indoors as much as 
 possible. The remedy, it is needless to say, 
 is almost as bad as the evil sought to be 
 avoided. How can invalids regain health 
 who have to breathe for days and weeks at 
 a time the close air of a sitting-room, 
 poisoned by stove or furnace, and filled with 
 the irritating dust from carpets and clothing ? 
 It is only the natural sequence of cause and 
 effect that the enfeebled vitality of multi- 
 tudes succumbs under such unfavorable con- 
 ditions. Is there no remedy for this state 
 of things? Cannot an artificial climate be 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 23 
 
 provided for these stricken ones, which shall 
 furnish a breathing medium, dry, pure, agree- 
 able in temperature, and of a nearly uniform 
 degree of warmth? in brief, a climate far 
 surpassing, in its sanitive influence, any 
 natural climate on the globe? The writer 
 believes that this is entirely possible ; and 
 he is not without the hope of imparting 
 to others some portion of his own well- 
 grounded faith. 
 
 The question has often been mooted, 
 whether man has the power to influence or 
 change, in any degree, the general climate of 
 the regions he occupies. Those conversant 
 with the facts bearing upon the question can 
 have but one opinion to give in the premises ; 
 which is, that, within certain narrow limits, 
 the climate of any country can be modified 
 by human agency. The temperature of large 
 districts in England has been raised appre- 
 ciably by the artificial drainage of the soil, 
 
24 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 which was primarily cold through excessive 
 wetness. After drainage, the dry, cultivated 
 soil, being more easily warmed by the sun, 
 absorbs heat to a great depth, and imparts it 
 again to the air above by radiation. 
 
 In the neighborhood of Salt Lake, in Utah, 
 cultivation of the soil and tree-planting hav^ 
 noticeably improved the climate. Where 
 there were formerly frosts in every month of 
 the year, frost is now unknown during the 
 growing season. The climate has also lost 
 much of its former aridity. Rains are said 
 to be much more frequent ; and the level of 
 Salt Lake is constantly rising, threatening 
 ultimate overflow of its banks. Possibly, in 
 time, it will become a fresh-water lake. The 
 wonderful patience and industry of the illit- 
 erate Mormons have changed the region they 
 occupy from a cold, arid desert into a ver- 
 dant garden, where all the fruits and cereals 
 of the temperate zone grow in perfection. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 25 
 
 Similar changes, though perhaps less marked, 
 have attended the cultivation of the soil 
 in other seemingly unpromising localities. 
 Even under the proverbially rainless sky 
 of Egypt, it is said, some indications of a 
 moister state of affairs have followed the 
 extensive planting of forest-trees under the 
 orders of the Khedive. 
 
 Such instances as these show that meteor- 
 ological phenomena can be sensibly modified 
 by man's agency. But they do not prove 
 that it will ever be possible to effect any 
 radical change in the earth-climates. No 
 amount of drainage or tree-planting would 
 ever give to New England the atmospheric 
 temperature of the Gulf States. Such a rad- 
 ical bouleversement as that, if it ever takes 
 place, will be due solely to the operation of 
 those occult forces, whether cosmical or 
 telluric in their nature is yet an open ques- 
 tion, but, in either case, inconceivably slow, 
 
26 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 as the mills of the gods, which, during the 
 existence of our weather-worn planet, have 
 more than once revolutionized its climates, 
 and which may even now be inaugurating 
 the cycle that shall, perhaps, hundreds of 
 centuries hence, restore to these northern 
 lands the tropic temperature and vegetation 
 the} r possessed in the carboniferous age. 
 Such a contingency as that, if it were a near 
 one, would not be entirely agreeable to con- 
 template ; but it is altogether too remote to 
 excite any deep interest in the world of to- 
 day. What the present generation of men 
 is, or ought to be, interested in, is to use the 
 means it undoubtedly possesses to counteract 
 the ill effe'cts of our present climate upon the 
 systems of those who are unable to bear its 
 severities of temperature. 
 
 It is obvious that no efforts of man will 
 ever enable him to control, in any degree, 
 the vast atmospheric waves which sweep 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 27 
 
 over land and sea with alternate floods of 
 warmth and cold, now soothing us into 
 Elysian dreams with the soft accent, the 
 spirits leniS) of the sweet south ; now scour- 
 ging and pinching us with the spiritus asper 
 of the icy north. Yet these great and often 
 sudden changes of temperature can be ren- 
 dered innocuous to the most susceptible 
 invalids by creating isolated climates of con- 
 siderable extent, and of any desirable temper- 
 ature and hygrometric condition of atmos- 
 phere. The material which chiefly enables 
 this to be done is abundant and compara- 
 tively cheap, and, were it not so common, 
 would excite perennial wonder and admira- 
 tion. 
 
 .There is no transformation in art or nature 
 more wonderful than the conversion of sub- 
 stances so opaque, and so earthy in nature, 
 as are sand and alkali, into such a material 
 as glass, a material having scarcely one 
 
28 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 property characteristic of its components; 
 which almost rivals the diamond in hardness, 
 brilliancy, and transparency ; which can be 
 blown, moulded, and cut into myriad shapes 
 of use and beauty ; which enables mankind 
 to have light, warm, and cheerful homes; 
 which furnishes the means of exploring the 
 distant abysses of the stellar spaces, and of 
 revealing a new world in the dust of earth 
 and air, and by the aid of which it becomes 
 easily possible to grow the flowers and fruits 
 of the tropics under the cold skies of the 
 north. There is no other substance of man's 
 invention that approaches glass in its impor- 
 tance to the well-being of the race in high 
 latitudes. Without its beneficent aid, large 
 portions of the earth's surface that are now 
 peopled by thriving and mentally-advanced 
 communities would be uninhabitable except 
 by semi-savages. Indispensable as it already 
 is, its use will undoubtedly be greatly 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 29 
 
 extended in the near future. Owing to its 
 property of allowing the transmitted heat- 
 rays of the sun to pass through its substance 
 without material hinderance, while it prevents 
 the free escape of the heat thus imprisoned 
 into space, one can bottle up sunshine, as it 
 were, in one's grapery or conservatory. If a 
 man puts a glass roof over his garden, it is 
 equivalent to a removal fifteen or twenty 
 degrees nearer to the equator. 
 
 The writer has had some experience as an 
 amateur cultivator of our native grapes. 
 Some years ago he had a mild attack of the 
 grape-fever, induced by the glowing, descrip- 
 tive catalogues of certain noted vine propaga- 
 tors in the valley of the Hudson. A spot of 
 mellow garden-soil was prepared by trench- 
 ing and enriching ; a close board fence was 
 built around the north and west sides for a 
 wind-screen ; and in this dry, rich, sheltered 
 spot, several hundred vines were planted, 
 
30 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 comprising all the varieties then in vogue. 
 For two or three years the vines grew well, 
 and some first premiums for the fruit were 
 taken at the county fairs. But a succession 
 of unfavorable seasons ensued. Heavy floods 
 of cold rain in July and August, followed by 
 scorching sunshine and sultry air, brought 
 mildew and sun-scald in their train. Sul- 
 phur, said to be a specific for the oidium^ was 
 freely applied through the nozzle of an old 
 bellows, but with scarcely any effect. The 
 diseased leaves dropped from the vines in 
 untimely showers before the end of summer, 
 leaving the unripened fruit to shrivel and 
 perish. Deprived of the leaves, the wood of 
 the new shoots also remained unripened, and 
 the buds for the next year's growth undevel- 
 oped. As a consequence, all the vines except 
 a few of the hardier sorts were permanently 
 enfeebled. 
 
 The impending failure of the grape cul- 
 
I NT ROD UCTORY. 31 
 
 ture in the open air being foreseen, it was 
 decided to transfer the field of operations to 
 an artificial climate. A grape-house of 
 modest dimensions was built, and sixteen 
 vines of the best foreign varieties were 
 planted with their roots in the border out- 
 side. No more pains were taken with the 
 border than had been bestowed on the soil 
 in which the out-door vines had been 
 planted. The house-vines were not set 
 until June, and not much growth was 
 expected of the feeble-looking little things 
 for that season. They soon, however, sent 
 up shoots which grew with wonderful rapid- 
 ity and vim in the genial air of the grapery. 
 They seemed to be almost conscious of their 
 good fortune in being placed in such favora- 
 ble conditions for growth, sheltered from 
 rough winds, from cold, and from storms. It 
 was a pleasure to watch their daily develop- 
 ment of healthy, stocky wood, and of richly- 
 
32 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 colored, beautifully-shaped, veined, polished, 
 crenulated leaves. Some of the canes at- 
 tained a length of more than twenty feet, 
 with a diameter at the base of three-fourths 
 of an inch, before they were checked by the 
 cold of autumn. The health and vigor of 
 the vines still continue undiminished, and 
 they annually bear many clusters of fine 
 fruit. 
 
 Glass graperies are not uncommon nowa- 
 days ; and the writer's experience in this 
 interesting department of horticulture would 
 hardly be worth relating except as an illus- 
 tration of the superiority of an artificial cli- 
 mate over a harsh natural one for the 
 cultivation of semi-hardy and tender vines 
 and plants. Foreign grapes, varieties of the 
 Vitis vinifera, it is well known, will not suc- 
 ceed in the Atlantic States, even when 
 planted several degrees farther south than 
 their original homes in Europe and Asia. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 33 
 
 * 
 
 If one has a greenhouse in his garden, he 
 is, to a certain extent, independent of the 
 changing seasons and of inclement skies. In 
 winter, when the sun shines, he can enjoy a 
 summer-like temperature under the protect- 
 ing glass ; and, by adding artificial heat, he 
 can surround himself with greenery and 
 bloom. Even when the sun is veiled by 
 thick clouds, its heat-rays penetrate through 
 the vapors of the upper air, so that the tem- 
 perature of the air within the greenhouse is 
 very perceptibly raised. To the susceptible 
 invalid in winter, weary of the prison-life of 
 a sitting-room, perhaps ill lighted and ill 
 ventilated, a greenhouse on a sunny day 
 seems a delightful change. The gales of 
 January or of March may be roughly scour- 
 ging the world outside ; but under the glass 
 roof the air is quiet and genial like a winter's 
 morning in the Antilles. The enfeebled 
 system absorbs the magnetic, vitalizing 
 
34 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 rays in every pore. Our style of domestic 
 architecture trill not, as a general rule, allow 
 of having, like the old Romans, solaria on the 
 house-tops. Our solaria for the enjoyment 
 of sun-baths must be on a less-elevated situ- 
 ation; and, for a large class of invalids in 
 winter, must be under glass. 
 
 It will not be questioned that tender plants 
 which have been enfeebled by exposure to a 
 harsh atmosphere can generally be restored 
 to vigor by simply placing them under the 
 shelter of a glass roof. Considering the es- 
 sential solidarity, and oneness of origin, of 
 the two organized kingdoms of Nature, their 
 close similarity in their lowest forms, so that 
 scientific men yet disagree as to the point 
 where the vegetable kingdom ends and the 
 animal kingdom begins, it would seem no 
 more than a just inference, that, in their more 
 developed forms, they mus.t still have many 
 attributes or properties in common. Is it 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 35 
 
 not, then, reasonable to suppose that the 
 treatment required by delicate, exotic plants, 
 which have become diseased in an ungenial 
 climate, is, with some modifications, the 
 treatment proper for animals and for human 
 beings enfeebled by the same cause? For 
 man also, under these inclement skies, is not 
 yet acclimated, but may be considered an 
 exotic from the warmer regions of the planet 
 which undoubtedly gave him birth. 
 
 A few years since, a gentleman of Phila- 
 delphia Gen. A. J. Pleasonton instituted 
 some experiments with animals placed under 
 glass, or in glass-covered pens, in winter. 
 He found that healthy animals, such as 
 young pigs, grew more rapidly than in ordi- 
 nary pens ; while a sick calf was speedily re- 
 stored to full health, and made a surprising 
 growth. The glass used in the pens was 
 half blue or violet colored, and half common 
 or colorless. The experimenter attributed 
 
36 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 the beneficial effect to the blue glass alone, 
 from the previous wonderful effect it had 
 seemed to produce upon the growth and 
 fruiting of some vines in a grapery in which 
 it had been used. Yet it is more than proba- 
 ble, that, if all the glass in the pens had been 
 colorless, the same, or perhaps even a supe- 
 rior effect would have been produced upon 
 the animals. The time of year being winter, 
 they had the full benefit of the sun's light 
 and warmth, with no exposure to cold winds 
 and storms. 
 
 These experiments * were not thorough 
 enough to be conclusive upon any point ; and 
 
 * Some experiments of the writer's with fowls having 
 the rotip and other disorders showed conclusively that 
 recovery was much more certain and rapid when the sick 
 birds were placed iinder the shelter of a greenhouse than 
 when confined in an ordinary pen, or allowed to roam at 
 large. 
 
 The claim of the Philadelphia gentleman in regard to 
 the efficacy of the violet rays in promoting vegetable and 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 37 
 
 they certainly do not warrant the conclusion 
 that the beneficial effect was owing solely to 
 that portion of the glass which was colored 
 blue. As far as they go, they simply coin- 
 cide with the inference deducible from a 
 common-sense view of the subject ; which is, 
 that domestic animals, whether sick or well, 
 will thrive better when protected from the 
 storms and cold of winter, if, at the same 
 time, they can have the benefit of the sun's 
 light and warmth, than they will in pens of 
 the ordinary construction. 
 
 animal growth is not sustained by later experimenters, 
 such as Professor Pfeiffer of Marburg; and l>y Selim and 
 Placentim. The experiments of these gentlemen show 
 that the yellow rays are more promotive of the evolution 
 of carbonic acid in animals, and its absorption in plants, 
 than any other color in the spectrum, or than white light ; 
 the violet rays having the least power in these respects, 
 excepting the red rays in the case of animals. The absorp- 
 tion of carbonic acid by plants, and its evolution by ani- 
 mals, are prime essentials to the growth and health of 
 each. 
 
38 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 From the great similarity of the human 
 organization to that of the other mammalia 
 lower in the scale of being, it is reasonable 
 to infer that a like beneficial effect would 
 follow if invalids with certain diseases hav- 
 ing their origin in vicissitudes of weather, 
 among them consumption, were placed, dur- 
 ing the inclement season, in an environ- 
 ment permitting the fullest entrance to the 
 sun's warmth and light, while, at the same 
 time, the unfavorable influences of a rough 
 atmosphere were excluded. Such an experi- 
 ment if that can be called an experiment 
 which appears to the reflective intellect an 
 absolute certainty can only be satisfacto- 
 rily tried on a very large scale. If properly 
 carried out, it would call into exercise all 
 the resources that modern science, aided by 
 a lavish use of capital, can command ; and the 
 results would undoubtedly be commensurate 
 with the means employed. In the succeed- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 39 
 
 ing pages, it is hoped to demonstrate, beyond 
 reasonable cavil, that such an investment of 
 money w^uld be profitable to capitalists, as 
 well as greatly beneficial to invalids. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PLAN FOB A SANITARIUM. 
 
 MANY millions of treasure directed by the 
 best practical science have been expended in 
 costly glass houses for the protection of rare 
 plants, or for the growing of non-hardy 
 fruits; but neither thought nor money has 
 been given to furnish adequate winter shel- 
 ters for the myriads of tender human plants 
 whose physical systems are too weak to 
 endure the rough weather of a harsh and 
 capricious clime. Yet there are indications 
 that the time is not very distant when this 
 defect in our civilization will be remedied. 
 The means for remedying it can be found 
 only in a system of winter gardens, which, 
 
 40 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 41 
 
 as will be shown in the sequel, shall also be 
 summer gardens during the warm season, on 
 a scale of magnitude startling to timid 
 minds, and in which the chief materials of 
 construction shall be iron and glass. 
 
 The London Crystal Palace of 1851 demon- 
 strated the wonderful adaptability of iron 
 and glass in combination for the construction 
 of large edifices. The history of this famous 
 building is still fresh in the minds of this 
 generation of readers. Most of them can 
 recall how marvellously rapid was its con- 
 struction; its exceeding cheapness, costing 
 less in proportion to its size than an ordinary 
 barn ; and how, having admirably answered 
 its purpose as an exhibition-building, and at- 
 tracted the wondering admiration of people 
 of all nations, it was taken down, and recon- 
 structed, with some modifications, at Syden- 
 ham, as a permanent pleasure-resort for the 
 people of London and vicinity. For beauty, 
 
42 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 convenience, and cheapness of construction, 
 combined, the Crystal Palace for the World's 
 Fair of 1851 stands unrivalled among the ex- 
 hibition-buildings that have adorned the capi- 
 tals of the world. The sequence of events 
 that led to the realization of this unique and 
 splendid structure may be unfamiliar to some 
 of the readers of these pages. 
 
 In the year 1831, a gigantic species of 
 water-lily, with floating leaves many feet in 
 circumference, each of them capable of sup- 
 porting, without sinking, the weight of a 
 half-grown boy, and with flowers of corre- 
 sponding dimensions, was discovered by 
 Schomberg, the botanist, in the Berbice, 
 one of the sluggish rivers of Demerara. Seeds 
 of this immense water-plant were sent to 
 England, and fell into the hands of Joseph 
 Paxton, then horticultural manager of Chats- 
 worth, the princely seat of the Duke of Dev- 
 onshire. A single plant raised from these 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 43 
 
 seeds was treated with the most careful at- 
 tention to its supposed needs. It was placed 
 in a soil of peat and burnt loam ; the tem- 
 perature of the house was nicely regulated ; 
 the water in its tank was artificially warmed, 
 and its surface was gently agitated by ma- 
 chinery in imitation of the ripples of a river. 
 Under such extra care, the plant expanded 
 with wonderful rapidity: it soon outgrew 
 the accommodations provided for it, and it 
 became indispensable to speedily enlarge its 
 habitation. Being a man fertile in resources, 
 and having carte blanche from the wealthy 
 and liberal-minded duke as to expense, Mr. 
 Paxton accomplished this in a few weeks ; 
 and the result was a beautiful structure of 
 iron and glass, in which the Victoria Regia 
 could expand and blossom as freely as in its 
 native stream. The conservatory thus has- 
 tily erected was the germ of the Crystal 
 Palace, for the plans of which Joseph Paxton 
 was made Sir Joseph. 
 
44 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 Thus, if the Victoria Regia had not been 
 discovered; if seeds of the plant had not 
 been sent to England ; if these seeds had not 
 found their way to Chatsworth, or had failed 
 to germinate ; and if a less ingenious person 
 than Paxton had taken them in charge, then 
 the marvellous glass palace of the World's 
 Fair would not have been built, but, instead, 
 Hyde Park would have been lumbered with 
 the ungainly pile of bricks and mortar de- 
 cided upon at first by the building com- 
 mittee : so that, if any link in the chain of 
 seemingly incongruous and unimportant cir- 
 cumstances had been lacking, the present 
 age would probably have seen no adequate 
 exemplar of the grand results that may be 
 effected when iron and glass are used as the 
 chief materials in the building of large edi- 
 fices. 
 
 The conservatory at Chatsworth, though, 
 of course, it could not compare in size with 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 45 
 
 the World's-Fair building, was yet a splen- 
 did specimen of a plant-house, unequalled at 
 that day in size and appointments. Two 
 acres of glass panes were required in its con- 
 struction, and it contained several distinct 
 climates to suit the needs of plants from dif- 
 ferent zones. Some idea of its size and of 
 the ultra regal splendors of the ducal palace 
 may be formed from the fact, that, while 
 Queen Victoria was once visiting at Chats- 
 worth, she entered the conservatory one 
 evening with the duke in a carriage-and- 
 four, while the beautiful structure blazed 
 and glittered in her honor with the light of 
 fourteen thousand burners. Enchanted with 
 the brilliant scene, the young queen turned 
 to her host, and exclaimed, " Devonshire, you 
 beat me ! " If such marvellous glass struc- 
 tures have already been built for conserva- 
 tories and for exhibition-purposes, what may 
 not be expected in the future, when the 
 
46 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 same material shall be used for the greatly 
 more important purpose of constructing sani- 
 tary resorts for the prevention and cure of 
 some of the worst maladies that afflict and 
 almost decimate the Northern peoples ? For 
 it will yet be generally acknowledged, that 
 the great loss of valuable life, due to the ill 
 effects of extreme and changeable climates, 
 can be very largely reduced through the 
 beneficent agency of the material called 
 glass. 
 
 In the present stage of our civilization, 
 human life, judging from the general apathy 
 in regard to its needless waste, is considered 
 to be of less importance than the lives of 
 brutes. Little heed is paid to the hard logic 
 of statistics, which shows that more than one- 
 third of the human race, or at least of that 
 portion called civilized, dies before reaching 
 the age of five years. " Of all the coffins 
 that are made in London," wrote Charles 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 47 
 
 Dickens, " more than one in three is made 
 for a little child." Add to this slaughter of 
 the innocents the needless mortality at more 
 advanced stages of life, and the aggregate 
 becomes so enormous as to make it seem a 
 marvel that even the present slow increase 
 in the population of Christendom is main- 
 tained. In a new country like our own, 
 with an immense area of unoccupied terri- 
 tory, the subject assumes an importance, 
 which, from the merely utilitarian point of 
 view, it does not possess in the more dense- 
 ly-peopled countries of the globe. Until 
 our vast domain is filled with happy homes, 
 we shall continue to welcome the throngs of 
 emigrants that seek our hospitable shores 
 from the countries over the ocean. They are 
 considered, and rightly so, to be a most im- 
 portant element in the enhancement of the 
 wealth and power of the nation. Yet while 
 the peasants of Europe are encouraged to 
 
48 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 emigrate, even by the lure of free home- 
 steads, very little heed is paid to the need- 
 less waste of life that is constantly taking 
 place in our native-born population. 
 
 If each raw Irishman or German that 
 lands from the emigrant-ships, with no other 
 wealth than the ability and will to work for 
 a living, is worth, as has been estimated, not 
 less than a thousand dollars to the country, 
 then certainly a native American, in the 
 same circumstances, is worth at least as 
 much. If he is threatened or attacked by 
 maladies liable to a fatal termination, and his 
 health is restored by the use of proper 
 means, then there is a thousand dollars, or 
 its equivalent, saved to the wealth of the 
 nation. Is it not about time to supplement 
 the Poor Richard maxim, that " a penny 
 saved is as good as a penny earned," by the 
 nobler one, that a life saved is as good as a 
 life imported ? Often, in fact, it might be a 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 49 
 
 great deal better, considering the character 
 of some of the human raw material that 
 comes to us from the Old World. The utili- 
 tarian, the dollar s-and-cents view of the 
 matter, is not, of course, the highest one that 
 might be taken ; but it is the one most 
 likely to be heeded in an age when the first 
 question asked in relation to any undertak- 
 ing is, "Will it pay?" 
 
 The site of a sanitarium, it is obvious, 
 should be on high land, to secure the prime 
 essentials of pure air and thorough drainage 
 of the soil. A level-topped hill of sufficient 
 area, with a gravelly subsoil, would be one of 
 the best possible locations. The establish- 
 ment, as has already been said, should be on 
 an extensive scale. Only on a generous 
 scale of expenditure could satisfactory re- 
 sults be produced, either remedially or finan- 
 cially. The form of the main edifice, 
 whether the ground-plan is a circle, a square, 
 
50 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 a parallelogram, a Greek cross, or other 
 figure, is not, for purposes of illustration, 
 very material; though an approach to the 
 compact form of the square or circle would 
 be much preferable to a long, narrow, cen- 
 tipede-shaped structure like the building for 
 the Vienna Exposition. The chief materials 
 of construction would be iron and glass. 
 These materials necessitate a light, airy, 
 graceful style of architecture. As the circle 
 is the simplest and most economical of ma- 
 terials for enclosing a given space of any 
 geometric figure, we will suppose the 
 ground-plan of the edifice to be round ; 
 though the mechanical difficulties of erect- 
 ing a circular building would be somewhat 
 greater than if the shape were rectangular. 
 The diameter of the edifice should then be 
 at least fifteen hundred feet. The walls of a 
 circular building of this size would enclose 
 an area of a little over forty acres, not far 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 51 
 
 from the size of Boston Common, exclusive 
 of the Public Garden. There may be some 
 who will consider the building of edifices of 
 such immense size entirely impracticable ; 
 but, to the resources of modern engineering 
 and mechanical skill, there is, practically, no 
 limit in this direction, except the amount of 
 capital at command. Buildings of more 
 than half the siz~e proposed have already 
 been erected. The London - Exhibition 
 building of 1862 covered an area, with the 
 picture-gallery and annexes, of twenty-four 
 and a half acres. A forty-acre building is 
 quite within the limits of the practicable. 
 
 The walls of the edifice would be forty or 
 fifty feet high, and would be supported by 
 iron columns of the proper dimensions, 
 bedded in concrete at the base, and likewise 
 by a cordon of ornamental iron towers 
 eighteen or twenty feet in diameter, rising 
 above the walls. The vast expanse of the 
 
52 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 glass roof would be supported by regular 
 rows of lofty iron columns, upholding the 
 symmetrical system of arches, girders, and 
 rafters overhead. The roof would rise at a 
 gen tie,, regular pitch from the walls towards 
 the centre, where it would be nearly a hun- 
 dred feet from the ground below. The 
 
 
 
 glass panes covering it would be no less than 
 one-third of an inch in thickness, and four 
 feet long* The sashes they would be fitted 
 into would be arranged on the well-known 
 ridge-and-furrow principle, with alternate 
 angular depressions and elevations, the lower 
 angles forming gutters to carry the rain- 
 water into the hollow columns, whence it 
 would flow into the system of drain-pipes 
 and sewers. In the centre of the edifice 
 would rise a dome of lofty proportions, 
 artistic and graceful in its outlines and 
 adornments. This dome would be furnished 
 with ample ventilators worked from below. 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 53 
 
 The steam-boilers for warming the edifice in 
 the absence or inadequacy of the sun's rays 
 would be in the lower stories of the towers 
 outside the walls ; which would thus serve a 
 double use, besides being a pleasing archi- 
 tectural feature of the building. Pure air 
 would constantly pass into the interior of 
 the garden through a sufficient number of 
 apertures near each tower in the lower 
 portion of the walls. This fresh, cold air 
 would be warmed on its passage into the 
 building by passing through net-works or 
 coils of hot steam-pipes. There would thus 
 be an abundant and constant, though gentle, 
 flow of pure, warm air from all points of the 
 base of the garden 'towards the centre ; 
 where, in accordance with the familiar law 
 governing heated atmosphere, it would rise 
 and flow out through the ventilators in the 
 dome. Such a constant influx at the base 
 and efflux at the top of the building would 
 
54 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 insure the greatest purity of the air within. 
 It would have none of the oppressiveness 
 often experienced in a common, ill-ventilated 
 conservatory, but would be in the highest 
 degree agreeable and healthful. The means 
 of ventilation would be under such easy 
 control as to enable those in charge of that 
 department to maintain a nearly uniform 
 temperature, whatever might be the fluctua- 
 tions of temperature outside. 
 
 The aesthetic details, the adornment of 
 the grounds inside, will now be briefly con- 
 sidered. Although the constructive details 
 of form, size, materials, &c., have to be first 
 considered, yet the adornment of the grounds 
 within the walls, and the furnishing of 
 ample means to gratify the various mental 
 needs of a large community of people of 
 diverse tastes, is a question of the highest 
 importance to the success of the undertak- 
 ing. In this, as in all other departments, 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 55 
 
 considerations of expense should not be 
 allowed to hinder the grand result intended 
 to be accomplished ; which would be the 
 creation of an arboreal and floral Eden, 
 where the most consummate art would be so 
 concealed as to seem only nature under 
 superior conditions. 
 
 The area of forty acres would require for 
 its laying-out and embellishment -the careful 
 thought of the most accomplished landscape- 
 gardeners. All the attractions that un- 
 stinted means can command for the adorn- 
 ment of pleasure-grounds would be here 
 called into requisition. Broad, winding, 
 gravelled avenues and serpentine paths 
 would lead among rock-work, shrubbery, 
 clumps of ornamental trees, trim lawns, and 
 parterres of flowers ; over ravines spanned 
 by graceful bridges ; around miniature lakes 
 and fountains ; and by the side of grassy 
 banks, where the winter sunbeams would 
 
56 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 linger as warmly as if it were June. There 
 would be swings, and archery and croquet 
 grounds ; there would be aviaries of birds 
 from all climes ; there would be a large and 
 well-stocked aquarium, and a zoological 
 garden containing specimens of such animals 
 as are especially noted for interesting tricks 
 and manners, or for beauty of form and 
 coloring. Music would lend its subtle 
 charm ; birds of song would flit among the 
 tree-tops or in the shrubbery ; the bell-like 
 notes of the hermit-thrush, the haunting 
 sweetness of the veery's song, the gushing 
 joy of the bobolink, the cheerful refrain of 
 the song-sparrow, the flute-like . call of the 
 oriole, the robin's clear madrigal, and the 
 
 blue-bird's warble, would call up reminis- 
 
 
 
 cences of the bright days of early summer, 
 though winter might still desolate the world 
 outside. At occasional times, the music of 
 a large and perfectly-trained orchestra would 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 57 
 
 set the warm air of the garden pulsing with 
 the lively, the martial, or the grand religious 
 strains of the great tone-masters of the 
 world. 
 
 The hundreds of lofty iron columns re- 
 quired to support the crystal roof and the 
 vast dome would be made to harmonize 
 with the scene by having their formal out- 
 lines concealed under a covering of rapidly- 
 growing, climbing vines. They would thus 
 resemble rather the tall trunks of a symmet- 
 rically-planted grove of palm-trees, wreathed 
 with tropic climbers, than the hard, unattrac- 
 tive supports of the edifice. Scattered 
 everywhere, singly and in social groups, in 
 sunny nooks and cosey corners, would be 
 found an abundance of the most inviting 
 seats and lounges. Seated or reclining in 
 these after the needful exercise of the day, 
 the invalid visitors could pass the time in 
 any rational way to which they felt inclined , 
 
58 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 in some light, agreeable work, in reading, in 
 conversation, in games of chance or skill, or 
 in observing the animated, enchanting scene 
 around, while listening to the inspiriting 
 strains from the orchestra, or the softer 
 melody of the singing-birds. 
 
 Within the transparent walls of a palace- 
 garden of the size designated, ten thousand 
 or more visitors would find ample room for 
 exercise and recreation, an atmosphere pure 
 and agreeable in temperature, plenty of 
 opportunities for taking sun-baths, agreeable 
 society, and countless objects of interest to 
 occupy and interest their minds. The un- 
 healthy mental habit, so common with in- 
 valids, of an introverted, anxious study of 
 their own symptoms, would give place to a 
 lively and healthy interest in their novel and 
 delightful surroundings. They would almost 
 forget that they were invalids amid the mani- 
 fold attractions on every hand. With none 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 59 
 
 of the unfavorable winter conditions of 
 ordinary house-life to contend with, the 
 recuperative powers of the human organiza- 
 tion, fhe'vis medicatrix naturce, aided by the 
 pure, mild air, the regular exercise, the 
 genial sunshine, albeit of midwinter, and 
 the more healthy mental status, would, in a 
 large majority of cases of phthisis pulmonalis 
 in its earlier stages, and in some other 
 diseases, soon show the happiest results ; 
 the irritated, tuberculous lungs would grad- 
 ually heal; the wearing cough would sub- 
 side ; the pains of the rheumatic would yield 
 to the sanitive influences of the place, and 
 retire into some unknown limbo, where are 
 gathered those undesirable things, which, 
 when happily lost, are never sought for 
 nor regretted ; * strength would return to 
 weakened frames, roundness to wasted limbs, 
 and happiness to clouded minds. 
 
 * Damnum dbsque injuria, as tlie lawyers say. 
 
60 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 It is admitted that these are rose-colored 
 pictures; but they are in no degree over- 
 drawn. They fall short of what will be re- 
 alized when even a small fraction of the out- 
 lay, the thought, and the time, that are now 
 given to the destruction of human 'life, shall 
 be given to its preservation. So long was it 
 taught in the schools of medicine, ex cathe- 
 drd, that consumptive disease was, from its 
 nature, wholly incurable, that the idea still 
 influences a large portion of the medical 
 faculty, as well as of the public at large.* 
 
 * The science of medicine in its present state has re- 
 ceived the hardest blows from its own professors. Here is 
 what Dr. John Mason Good says in the premises: "The 
 science of medicine is a barbarous jargon; and the effects 
 of our medicines on the system are in the highest degree 
 uncertain; except, indeed, that they have destroyed more 
 lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined." Simi- 
 lar testimony is given by other distinguished physicians, 
 among them our own Dr. Holmes, who thinks, that, if the 
 greater part of the materia medica were thrown into the sea, 
 it would be better for mankind, and worse for the fishes. 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM; 61 
 
 No doubt it is incurable by drugs, whether 
 in heroic or infinitesimal doses: but give 
 Mother Nature a fair chance, furnish the 
 proper conditions, and she will often per- 
 form marvellous cures. These conditions, it 
 is obvious to the candid, receptive mind, 
 would exist in perfection in a winter-garden 
 like the one described, not wholly de- 
 scribed, however ; for some important details 
 have not been referred to. 
 
 The large numbers of people that would 
 congregate at an establishment like the one 
 under 'consideration would need the best of 
 boarding accommodations close at hand, so 
 that no exposure to cold, stormy weather 
 need occur in going to or from the hotels. 
 The plan includes a broad, glass-enclosed 
 street, extending entirely around the central 
 edifice, at the distance of, perhaps, three hun- 
 dred feet from its walls. This circular bou- 
 levard would be at least seventy-five feet 
 
62 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 wide, and would have an ample carriage- 
 way in the centre, paved with wood or 
 asphalt, and at the sides roomy, level walks, 
 separated from the carriage-way by iron 
 railings covered with flowering vines. The 
 walls of- this boulevard need not be more 
 than one-third as high as the garden-walls, 
 and the roof would be arched. It would be 
 warmed and ventilated like the garden, with 
 which it would be connected by glass pas- 
 sage-ways. Here would be the finest and 
 most unique of street-arcades, a crystal- 
 covered, circular Broadway, or Boulevard des 
 Italiens, more than a mile in circuit, adapted 
 for drives, for horseback-riding, or for prom- 
 enading, and available for use by the most 
 susceptible invalids in all weathers. Let the 
 storms of winter rage as fiercely as they 
 might out of doors : they would never disturb 
 the serene quiet and warmth of this circling 
 arcade. On its outer circumference would 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 63 
 
 be the spacious hotels for the visitors, con- 
 nected with it by short, enclosed passage- 
 ways. The hotels, twenty or thereabouts in 
 number, would be managed by thoroughly 
 competent and trustworthy persons, who 
 would see that all reasonable wants of their 
 guests were provided for. The food fur- 
 nished would be nutritious and wholesome. 
 The warmth and ventilation of the apart- 
 ments would correspond with the rest of the 
 establishment. In the persons of the land- 
 lords would be united the characters of the 
 genial, considerate host, and of the intelli- 
 gent physician. Like the other officials of 
 the place, they would be picked men. 
 
 Between the garden-walls and the encir- 
 cling boulevard there would be a ring of 
 ground open to the outer air, three hundred 
 feet wide, and extending around the central 
 building. The radiating passage-ways from 
 the garden to the boulevard, eight in number, 
 
64 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 would divide this ring of ground into an 
 equal number of distinct plats, each several 
 acres in extent. These open-air gardens 
 would be tastefully laid out with walks, 
 grass-plots, evergreen-trees, and shrubbery: 
 surrounded on all sides by high walls, they 
 would be sheltered from rude winds, and 
 would afford fine opportunities for exercise 
 on mild, sunny days. They would also con- 
 tain the spacious buildings required for gym- 
 nasia, libraries, chapels, galleries of art, 
 * museums of natural history, theatres, bowl- 
 ing-alleys, and the like, needed for the exer- 
 cise, amusement, or instruction, of the visitors. 
 All of these buildings would directly commu- 
 nicate with the garden, or with the arcades. 
 There would also be numerous shops, of 
 various kinds, along the boulevard. Shop- 
 ping, that occupation so congenial to the 
 feminine mind, and not wholly devoid of 
 attractions to the rougher sex, could thus be 
 done in all weathers. 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 65 
 
 Excepting at meal times, and during the 
 hours required for sleep, but" little of the 
 time of the visitors would be passed in 
 the hotels. Even the evenings would be 
 chiefly spent in the garden and the arcades, 
 which, lighted by thousands of burners, or 
 by shaded, electrical lights, would seem like 
 some enchanting dream of romance. Foli- 
 age never appears to such beautiful advan- 
 tage as under a strong artificial light : the 
 shadows are deeper than under the more 
 diffused light of day; so that the graceful 
 spray and finely-cut leafage of rare trees and 
 plants, in an illuminated pleasure-garden, are 
 brought out with salient and picturesque 
 distinctness. With the brilliant light, the 
 sparkling fountains, the cheerful warmth, the 
 beautiful foliage and flowers, the moving 
 throngs of people, and the delicious music of 
 the perfectly-trained orchestra, the garden- 
 palace in the evening would be another " Pal- 
 
66 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 ace of All Delights." For those who chose 
 to attend, there would also be the special 
 attractions of the theatres, concert-halls, lec- 
 ture-rooms, and other outside entertainments. 
 Amid such an endless variety of attractions, 
 there would be no opportunity for indulging 
 morbid fancies or forebodings. Cheerfulness 
 would take the place of despondency, or of 
 oft-recurring apprehensions for the future ; 
 and thus the medicament of the healing 
 forces of Nature would have a fair field for 
 its restorative effects. 
 
 Works have been written to show the 
 powerful influence of the mind over the 
 body, either for good or ill ; but this extraor- 
 dinary influence of mental conditions in its 
 sanitive aspect is not recognized, nor taken 
 advantage of, as it should be, by any system 
 of therapeutics yet established. Imagina- 
 tion is a more potent remedy in disease than 
 all the drugs in the pharmacopoeia. Well- 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 67 
 
 authenticated instances show that it is some- 
 times capable of causing death, and its 
 re-vitalizing power over its physical integu- 
 ment is equally well established. Napoleon's 
 saying, that " imagination rules the world," 
 is no less true of the little world, the mi- 
 crocosm of man's personality, than of the 
 world of affairs. In our ideal establishment, 
 the influence of the imagination would be 
 taken advantage of in all possible ways to 
 assist in overcoming disease. 
 
 In the foregoing necessarily imperfect 
 description of what is desirable in a remedial 
 establishment for large classes of invalids, 
 there is nothing that cannot be easily realized, 
 when the importance of the subject shall be 
 impressed, as it should be, on the minds of 
 philanthropists and capitalists. As a paying 
 investment, such a winter-resort would un- 
 doubtedly surpass most of the popular stocks 
 that command a premium on Wall or State 
 
68 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 Street. Although the data are not all 
 attainable on which to base an exact calcula- 
 tion of the cost of constructing and of operat- 
 ing a sanitarium on the scale indicated, yet 
 it is possible to form an approximate estimate 
 of these expenses, as well as of the probable 
 returns or profits. 
 
 In an article in " The Atlantic Monthly " 
 for March, 1873, and on which this essay is 
 partly based, some calculations were entered 
 into as to the amount of capital needed, and 
 the cost of operating, as well as of the pecu- 
 niary returns that could be reasonably 
 expected. The Crystal Palace of 1851 was 
 taken as a basis of calculation. That edifice 
 contained thirty-three million cubic feet of 
 space ; and it cost at the rate of one penny 
 and one-twelfth per cubic foot, or an aggre- 
 gate of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
 sterling. Our ideal sanitarium would con- 
 tain about four times the cubic space of the 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 69 
 
 Crystal Palace, including garden, dome, tow- 
 ers, and arcades, in the calculation, but not 
 the hotels and other outside buildings. At 
 the same rate per foot as the London Palace 
 cost, it would require the sum of six hundred 
 thousand pounds, or about three millions of 
 dollars, in its construction. Owing, however, 
 to the much higher prices of labor and mate- 
 rials in this country than in England, and 
 their general advance in both countries since 
 1851, our garden-palace would cost more 
 than twice the amount named. To be on 
 the liberal side, we will estimate its cost at 
 eight millions of dollars of our currency. 
 For the land and its grading, drainage, and 
 ornamentation, and for the hotels and other 
 needful structures, four millions more would 
 most probably be sufficient. Twelve mil- 
 lions of dollars * would, therefore, be the 
 
 * This amount is about the estimated cost of the 
 Hoosac Tunnel, when completed. 
 
70 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 estimated capital required. The interest on 
 this amount, at the liberal rate of eight per 
 cent, would be nine hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand dollars a year. The working expenses 
 are somewhat more difficult to estimate. A 
 somewhat careful study of the subject leads 
 to the conclusion, that the running expenses, 
 including the cost of boarding ten thousand 
 visitors from the 1st of November to the 
 1st of June, would not exceed $2,500,000 a 
 year. Adding this amount to the interest on 
 the capital, we have the sum of $3,460,000 
 as the outgoes of each working year. To 
 meet these expenses would be the board-bills 
 of the visitors for the season. 
 
 The price of board at the hotels should be 
 placed as low as possible, so that people of 
 limited means could enjoy the benefits of the 
 sanitarium as well as the rich. Large num- 
 bers of people can be provided for at a much 
 lower rate per capita than small numbers 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 71 
 
 would cost. Two dollars a day will not 
 seem an unreasonable price, when it is con- 
 sidered that it is much lower than the cost 
 of living in first-class city hotels or at any 
 popular Southern winter-resort, and that 
 here all the inestimable advantages of the 
 garden would be thrown in. At two dollars 
 a day, the board-bills of ten thousand visit- 
 ors for thirty weeks would foot up the very 
 large sum of $4,200,000, or $740,000 more 
 than the interest on the capital at eight per 
 cent and the estimated working-expenses 
 united. This surplus would certainly furnish 
 a reserve-fund large enough to meet any 
 unforeseen outlay that might occur. 
 
 Let no person of little faith suppose for a 
 moment that there would be any lack of 
 visitors at a winter-resort like the one under 
 consideration, even if the per diem were 
 twice the rates proposed. "All that a man 
 hath will he give for his life." During the 
 
72 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 time that would be required to complete such 
 an establishment, its great magnitude, its 
 novel plan, its unexampled attractions, and 
 its presumable sanitary advantages, would be 
 thoroughly canvassed, not only in our own 
 land, but all over that part of the globe to 
 which the newspaper-press has access. It 
 would be advertised gratuitously among all 
 peoples, and invalids of every Northern 
 country would desire to avail themselves of 
 its undoubted benefits. From the opening 
 day the hotels would be filled to their ca- 
 pacity with the weak-lunged, the rheumatic, 
 and the declining. But the phthisical and 
 the rheumatic would not be the only classes 
 to whom the winter-garden would be a de- 
 lightful haven of rest, where the constitution 
 could recover from the injurious effects of 
 exposure to a stormy world, or of an ignorant 
 disregard of hygienic laws. Carlyle, in one 
 of his dyspeptic moods, if, indeed, he have 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 73 
 
 moods of any other sort in these latter days, 
 - tells with grim humor of the time when 
 he first became aware that he possessed a 
 diabolical apparatus called a stomach. In a 
 land where pork in all its Protean forms, 
 and hot saleratus-bread, form the chief sta- 
 ples of diet, there are multitudes who have 
 arrived at the same disagreeable knowledge 
 in regard to their epigastric region that dis- 
 turbed the Chelsea sage. There is no doubt 
 that some forms of dyspepsia, for which a 
 mild winter climate is recommended, would 
 readily yield to the magnetic warmth, the 
 wholesome, well-cooked, nutritious food, and 
 the systematic exercise, furnished by the pro- 
 posed sanitive establishment. And there 
 are still other classes to whom a residence 
 within its walls would insure speedy relief 
 from their maladies, and, finally, a permanent 
 cure: one such class, for instance, would 
 consist of the vast army of performers on 
 
74 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 what Charles Dickens called the " great 
 American catarrh," although the instrument 
 is well known in England and other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Who will have the hardihood to say that 
 the winter-garden would lack patronage, 
 when there are so many times ten thousand 
 people in the land, without including visitors 
 from other lands, who would anxiously watch 
 its progress to completion, and joyfully avail 
 themselves of its unexampled advantages ? 
 
 There is, however, another view of the 
 subject, well worthy of having a volume 
 written in its elucidation, but which can 
 only be briefly touched upon here ; and that 
 is the advantages of such a winter-resort for 
 well people. Even if an acknowledged 
 invalid were never allowed to enter its gates, 
 a place with such marvellous and unique 
 charms as the winter-garden would possess 
 would be thronged for half the year by 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 75 
 
 people of wealth, culture, and fashion from 
 all parts of the land. No city in America 
 can at present offer such allurements to 
 men and women of means whether they 
 were refined and intellectual, or sensuous 
 and superficial as would be concentrated 
 within the limits of the establishment. New 
 York's summer pride and joy, the beautiful 
 Central Park, would appear bleak and barren 
 under a wintry sky compared with the 
 wealth of verdure and of bloom to be found 
 under the forty acres of crystal forming the 
 garden-roof. The elite of the great cities 
 would flock to it, as in summer they seek 
 the cool breezes of the mountains, or of 
 Newport, Long Branch, and Cape May. 
 Within its sheltered precinct they would 
 escape all the multiplied discomforts of city 
 streets in winter and spring, the driving 
 storms of rain and snow, the blustering 
 north-west gales, the slippery sidewalks, the 
 
76 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 almost endless mud and slush, and the blind- 
 ing clouds of dust, that make a Northern city 
 in winter, for all its social, artistic, and lite- 
 rary attractions, a most wretched place of 
 abode for sensitive people. The contrast 
 between the comfortless streets and squares 
 of the cities in winter, with the verdant 
 beauty and the quiet warmth of the winter- 
 garden during the same season, would be too 
 great to pass unheeded among the wealthy 
 residents of Northern towns. At the garden 
 they would not only escape all the discom- 
 forts named ; but they would find, besides 
 warmth and greenery, all the means for 
 amusement or culture they left behind in the 
 storm-scourged city. Operas, concerts, thea- 
 tres, lectures, libraries, galleries, museums, 
 all of high excellence, would occupy the 
 charmed hours. The broad, circling, arch- 
 roofed boulevard would be a more thronged 
 and fashionable drive on a mid-winter's day 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 77 
 
 than even the avenue at Newport on an 
 August afternoon. Owners of fast trotters 
 and of stylish turnouts would all be anxious 
 to display their teams and themselves on 
 such a novel and magnificent track before 
 the assembled wealth and fashion of the 
 land. Each ingredient that goes to make 
 up the summer crowd at a great watering- 
 place would find its counterpart here, for- 
 tune-hunters of both sexes, mammas with 
 marriageable and unmarriageable daughters, 
 fast young men, and flirting, gay young 
 women. All of these well-known types 
 would muster in their usual force ; but there 
 would also be very many visitors of a differ- 
 ent stamp, people of refined manners and 
 cultivated minds, whose combined influence 
 would be felt in the tone of the place, and 
 would not be without its beneficial effect on 
 even the brainless fops and feminine votaries 
 of millinery. Poets, artists, essayists, novel- 
 
78 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 ists, would find here endless suggestions and 
 materials to work into poems, pictures, es- 
 says, and stories. Especially would the 
 many educated, delicate, sensitive, spirituelle 
 young and middle-aged women that are to 
 be found in wealthy families, and whose 
 poetic, impressible natures, and general frail- 
 ness of organization, make them keenly alive 
 to the discomforts caused by the atmospheric 
 changes of winter, find an earthly paradise 
 within the genial realm of glass, where win- 
 ter and rough weather were obsolete terms. 
 
 It has already been shown, that, if any 
 reliance whatever can be placed upon d priori 
 estimates, such a winter gathering-place 
 would be a profitable investment of capital ; 
 but an important source of income was not 
 mentioned. A location would be chosen 
 where land was comparatively cheap, and a 
 tract of several thousand acres secured. 
 Two or three hundred acres immediately 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 79 
 
 surrounding the establishment would be 
 reserved for an outside park. It would be 
 finely laid out, and ornamented with drives, 
 foot-paths, skating-ponds, groves of decidu- 
 ous and evergreen trees, trim hedge-rows, 
 and shrubbery. This outer park would be 
 the pleasure-resort of the visitors on fine, 
 sunny days. The remainder of the land 
 outside of the park would be surveyed and 
 mapped into lots, streets, and squares, to 
 meet the requirements of a large, prospective 
 population. People of all trades and occupa- 
 tions would be drawn towards the city of 
 glass, to supply the wants, real or fanciful, of 
 its thousands of inhabitants. Men of wealth 
 and taste would surround the park with 
 ornamental villas. A large and prosperous 
 town, ultimately to grow into a city, would 
 inevitably soon crystallize within sight of the 
 lofty dome of the garden-palace, a Dome 
 of the Invalides of even more magnificent 
 
80 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 proportions than the famous landmark of 
 strangers in the French capital. Building- 
 lots could not be otherwise than in brisk 
 demand in the vicinity of a magnet so 
 powerful. The income to the corporation 
 from this source alone would be very great. 
 Four large, distinct towns have sprung up 
 around the Sydenham Palace since its erec- 
 tion a few years ago. Another source of 
 income would be the rent of stores along the 
 circular boulevard, or the lease of land for 
 their erection by other parties. 
 
 Thus far the sanitarium, or the garden- 
 palace, has been considered only in its win- 
 ter aspect ; but, paradoxical and improbable 
 as it may seem, it can be demonstrated that 
 its sanitive effects during hot weather would 
 be scarcely less than during the cold season. 
 This statement will excite the surprise and 
 incredulity of many who have not considered 
 the subject in all its bearings, nor familiar- 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 81 
 
 ized themselves with some of the most impor- 
 tant inventions and discoveries of the age. 
 
 It is well known that hot weather is often 
 quite as injurious to those suffering from 
 pulmonary disease as the cold, changeable 
 weather of winter. Dr. Ramadge of London, 
 in his work on Consumption, stated that the 
 cases of this disease that came under his 
 notice in summer were nearly double the 
 number that he treated in winter. He 
 gives as the cause of this increase the aug- 
 mented temperature of the weather, increas- 
 ing the intensity of two of the most important 
 stages of the hectic paroxysm, the hot and 
 the sweating. Dr. Rush also found the sum- 
 mers of Philadelphia very unfavorable to 
 those having this disease. The mortuary 
 statistics of Massachusetts show that about 
 as many die of lung-disease in summer as in 
 winter. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, from the above 
 
82 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 and much other evidence that might be 
 adduced, that those afflicted with pulmonary 
 disease need a mild, equable temperature all 
 the year round. A .temperature never rising 
 much above 65 Fahrenheit, nor falling 
 much below that point, would undoubtedly 
 be the best. It has already been shown that 
 such a temperature could be easily main- 
 tained in the glass garden during the cold 
 season ; and it is proposed to show that the 
 temperature of the air within could be kept 
 down to that point during the hottest days 
 of summer. 
 
 A few years since a machine was intro- 
 duced into some of the English collieries to 
 perform the difficult and dangerous work of 
 kirving, or cutting under the seams of coal ; * 
 an operation which had previously been per- 
 
 * Compressed air was first practically used in the con- 
 struction and ventilation of the Mont-Cenis Tunnel, and it 
 has since been used in the Hoosac and other tunnels. 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 83 
 
 formed by hand, and by which many lives 
 had been destroyed. The machine did the 
 work much quicker, cheaper, and better than 
 it had previously been done ; and at the same 
 time it produced another most important 
 benefit, it cooled and ventilated the mines. 
 It was operated by means of air, highly com- 
 pressed by an engine at the mouth of the 
 mine, and conducted by flexible tubes to the 
 required spot. According to a well-known 
 law in physics, air, when compressed to a 
 sufficient degree, is deprived of its heat. 
 Tyndall has lately succeeded in compressing 
 it to such a degree, that, when it issued from 
 the pipe, it was so intensely cold as to con- 
 geal all the moisture of the room into minute 
 snowflakes. In the. collieries it was found 
 that the air used to drive the machines at a 
 pressure of three atmospheres, or somewhat 
 over forty pounds to the square inch, issued 
 from the conducting pipes at nearly a freez- 
 
84 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 ing temperature. The oppressive warmth 
 natural to deep mines was very sensibly 
 diminished, and the condition of the air 
 within was also materially improved, by the 
 constant influx of pure cold air from the 
 surface of the ground. Air, artificially 
 reduced in volume, has since been applied to 
 other purposes, such as ventilating long rock 
 tunnels during excavation, and driving the 
 perforating machines.* 
 
 * "For the construction of the tunnel (Mont Cenis), the 
 great instrument in the hands of the engineers is com- 
 pressed air. And what an instrument it is ! By its aid 
 they furnish air for respiration, wind to drive away 
 vapors, power to run machines ; they eject water to play 
 against the rock, produce cold to temper the atmosphere, 
 and heat by a blast at the forges near the entrance. Thus 
 air, wind, power, water, cold, heat, can all be applied, 
 and precisely where they are wanted. This sounds like 
 fable ; but it is a literal truth." Report on European 
 Tunnels by CHABLES S. STOBBOW, 1862; Massachusetts 
 Reports. 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 85 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that compressed 
 air is the easily-applied remedy for too high 
 a temperature in buildings as well as in 
 mines. The boilers in the basements of the 
 iron towers surrounding the sanitarium, 
 which in winter would furnish steam to 
 warm the edifice, would, during hot summer 
 days, furnish the force for working many 
 powerful compressing engines. Pipes of 
 suitable size would lead underground from 
 the towers to all parts of the interior, where 
 the compressed, refrigerated air would escape 
 through large, concealed registers, perforated 
 with small holes like a cullender or the fine 
 rose of a watering-pot. The powerful jets of 
 cold air would thus be so sifted, or divided, 
 that they would escape ordinary notice. 
 Cold air being heavier than warm, it would 
 remain in the lower portion of the garden, 
 where it would do the most good, until 
 warmed by the sun, when it would rise, and 
 
86 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 flow out through the upper ventilators to 
 make room for a fresh supply. Portions of 
 the roof would be shaded by canvas awnings 
 during hot weather; and the refrigerating 
 effect of the compressed air would be further 
 aided by closing the ventilators in the lower 
 portions of the edifice, while those in the 
 dome and roof would remain open. 
 
 By the means above mentioned, the sum- 
 mer temperature of the sanitarium could be 
 kept down to any desirable point. The air 
 within would be perfectly pure and pleasant- 
 ly cool, like mountain-air in warm weather. 
 The susceptible visitors would encounter 
 none of those sudden atmospheric changes 
 common to our climate at all seasons, and 
 which are quite as injurious in their effects 
 upon invalids in summer as in winter. So 
 far as the important conditions of tempera- 
 ture and pure air could aid in the recovery 
 of the visitors, they would be far better situ- 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 87 
 
 ated than they could be in any natural 
 climate to be found on the globe. Their 
 surroundings also, social, entertaining, sani- 
 tive, and educational, would far surpass any 
 other summer-resort in the country. Invalids, 
 however querulous and notional some of 
 them may often appear, are still an intelli- 
 gent class : they would not be backward in 
 recognizing, and availing themselves of, the 
 inestimable advantages of such a refuge from 
 the debilitating heat of the dog-days. The 
 sanitarium in summer would be quite as well 
 patronized as during the wintry season. 
 Like St. Peter's at Rome, it would have its 
 own climate, independent of the changing 
 seasons outside. To its equable temperature 
 would apply the description of Madame de 
 Stacl of the unvarying climate of the 
 interior of the great Roman basilica : " II 
 a ses saisons a lui, son printemps perpetuel, 
 que 1' atmosphere du dehors n'altere jamais." 
 
88 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 But the perpetual spring of St. Peter's, with 
 its " dim religious light," its cold stone 
 floor, and its ponderous columns, could bear 
 no comparison with the cheerful brightness, 
 the expanded area, and the leafy beauty, of 
 our ideal garden-palace. 
 
 Such is a general description of the author's 
 plan of a sanitarium, on a scale commensu- 
 rate in some degree with the importance of 
 the end to be subserved, but not all beyond 
 the resources of any large civilized commu- 
 nity to carry out. Even if all the details of 
 the plan were perfected (which, it is needless 
 to say, they are not), they could not well be 
 given in an essay intended to be untechnical 
 and popular in its scope. Many desirable 
 minor features of the plan, that have recom- 
 mended themselves to the approval of the 
 writer during his study of the subject, have 
 not been mentioned. For instance, the walls 
 inside of the central garden, as well as of the 
 
PLAN FOR A SANITARIUM. 89 
 
 arcade and connecting passage-ways, could 
 be utilized to advantage by training up the 
 supporting columns and mullions thousands 
 of vines of the Hamburg, Chasselas, Muscat, 
 and other fine varieties of foreign grapes 
 which will thrive in this climate only under 
 glass. Great quantities of the finest fruit 
 could be grown and ripened in this way 
 without extra expense, which, with a little 
 care in keeping, would supply the hotel- 
 tables throughout the winter with grapes for 
 the dessert, contributing in no small degree 
 to the health and gratification of the visitors. 
 Another plan of utility, which would recom- 
 mend itself especially to those many visitors 
 who were lovers of fancy poultry, would be 
 to use one or more of the open-air gardens, 
 between the central edifice and the arcade, 
 for extensive poultry-yards. In these large, 
 sheltered, sunny ranges, numerous flocks of 
 the best breeds of gallinaceous and aquatic 
 
90 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 fowls would help to furnish eggs and chick- 
 ens for the tables d'hdte; and, besides, would 
 be a pleasing addition to the amusements of 
 the guests. But many such details as these 
 must be left till the capital is subscribed, a 
 board of directors chosen, a location pur- 
 chased, and the ground-plan and elevation 
 of the buildings decided upon. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THERE is a homely Scotch proverb, the 
 sentiment of which Emerson has finely elab- 
 orated in his essay on " Compensation," 
 which says, "There was never a stinging 
 nettle that hadn't a dockin-leaf close beside 
 it : " the moral deducible from which is, that, 
 for nearly all the evils of this world, a remedy 
 is to be found close at hand. 
 
 The dockin-leaf that is to cure the wounds 
 caused by the stinging nettles of harsh cli- 
 mates is the glass pane, aided by other 
 appliances, some of which have been men- 
 tioned in the preceding pages. It needs no 
 belief in a future millennium to be very cer- 
 
 91 
 
92 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 tain that the years of the world yet to come 
 will see a greater regard for human life, and 
 a more earnest effort to prevent its needless 
 waste, than prevails at present. As it is, man 
 does not live out half his allotted days. 
 If we accept the deductions of M. Flourens, 
 the eminent French savant, then a person 
 who has reached the threescore and ten 
 years of the Psalmist ought to be scarcely 
 beyond the prime of life. Flourens' investi- 
 gations into the laws governing the duration 
 of animal life, though perhaps not entirely 
 reliable, have yet a certain interest ; and his 
 conclusions in regard to the natural limit of 
 human life may be correct, even should the 
 premises on which they were based prove to 
 be untenable. He found, that, as a rule, the 
 inferior animals live on the average about 
 five times as long as the time it takes them 
 to attain their full growth. Thus a horse is 
 about five years in getting his growth ; and 
 
CONCLUSION. 93 
 
 I 
 
 the average age of horses is not far from 
 twenty-five years : and so of other animals, 
 domestic and wild. Reasoning from analogy, 
 Flourens concluded, that, as the same laws 
 of being govern mankind that rule the 
 destinies of horses and other animals, and 
 as it requires twenty years for man to get his 
 growth, then the average duration of human 
 life should be five times twenty, or one hun- 
 dred years. " A man between sixty and 
 seventy," says the ingenious Frenchman, 
 " ought to be only in the full maturity of his 
 powers, physical and intellectual."* 
 
 Whether this hypothesis of the natural 
 limit of human existence is the true one or 
 not, it is evident that some do attain a life of 
 one hundred years and upwards ; and perhaps 
 all would, if inherited tendencies and sur- 
 
 * For a full exposition of this theory of M. Flourens, 
 see his work entitled " De la Longevite Humaine, et de la 
 Quantite' de Vie sur le Globe." 
 
94 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 rounding circumstances were equally favora- 
 ble to length of days. But sanitary science 
 will have to make long strides before cente- 
 narians become very plenty in our streets. 
 Before that far-off time arrives, consumption, 
 which sweeps off the very flower of human- 
 ity at the present day, will be so far con- 
 quered as to demand a much less proportion 
 of the victims of the grim destroyer than one 
 out of five. As some of the readers of these 
 pages may be inclined to doubt the curabil- 
 ity of this disease, even in its earlier aspects, 
 it will not be out of place to quote the opin- 
 ion of the celebrated Laennec, one of the 
 most skilful physicians that ever lived, and 
 who made the study of pulmonary disease a 
 specialty. 
 
 44 The cure of consumption,"* says Laen- 
 
 * "La guerison daiis les cas de phthisie pulmonaire ou 
 1'organe n'a pas ete entierement envahi, ne presente, ce 
 me senible, aucun caractere d'impossibilite, ni sous le 
 rapport de la nature du mal, ni sous celui de 1'organe 
 affecteV 
 
CONCL US ION. 95 
 
 nec, " when the lungs have not been entirely 
 disorganized, ought not to be considered at 
 all impossible, either as regards the nature 
 of the disease or the part affected. The 
 destruction of a part of the substance of the 
 lungs is not necessarily mortal, since even 
 wounds of this organ are frequently healed." 
 
 Dr. Caswell, the almost equally eminent 
 English physician, adds his testimony to that 
 of his French confrere. He emphatically 
 says, 
 
 " We cannot avoid repeating the fact, that 
 pathological anatomy has, perhaps, never 
 afforded more conclusive evidence in proof of 
 the curability of a disease than it has in that 
 of tubercular phthisis." Testimony of the 
 same tenor from other distinguished physi- 
 cians might be cited, if this were meant to 
 be an exhaustive treatise on pulmonary dis- 
 ease. But it will suffice, for the purposes of 
 an untechnical essay, to bring forward two 
 
96 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 such names as the above in support of the 
 position that consumptive disease is not 
 necessarily fatal ; that, unless too deeply 
 rooted, it will yield to the healing forces of 
 nature, if the proper conditions of air, tem- 
 perature, exercise, and diet, are furnished to 
 the patient. It has been the object to show, 
 in the previous chapters, that these condi- 
 tions could be found in perfection nowhere 
 else than in a sanitarium like or resembling 
 the one described. Such an establishment 
 would be under the charge of a superintend- 
 ing physician of the highest intelligence and 
 the strictest integrity, assisted by a corps of 
 subordinates selected for the same qualities. 
 All the means that have proved beneficial 
 in the treatment of the malady, such as con- 
 centrated nutriment, vocal gymnastics, in- 
 spiration and expiration of the breath 
 through tubes, &c., would be discriminatingly 
 used to assist Nature in her efforts to throw 
 
CONCLUSION. 97 
 
 off the disease. As to prevent is always 
 better than to cure, those persons who were 
 attacked with the symptoms of incipient 
 phthisis would find the sanitarium a ready 
 refuge, where all such unfavorable symptoms 
 would speedily vanish under the genial 
 influences of the place. If such an establish- 
 ment were under the control of the State, 
 and if it were made compulsory upon physi- 
 cians to report every case of incipient lung- 
 disease to the proper authorities as is now 
 the case in regard to small-pox, then the 
 immediate removal of such persons to the 
 sanitarium would insure their speedy recov- 
 ery; and thus the dragon of Consumption, 
 having no victims to feed upon, would, with 
 a sort of poetic justice, die of atrophy. The 
 philanthropist, the capitalist, or the legisla- 
 tor, who shall aid in such a desirable result, 
 will deserve, far more than that old knight 
 of Malta for his battle with the python, to 
 
98 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 have the title " Draconis Extinctor " engraved 
 upon his monument. 
 
 In the preceding pages some hard things 
 have been said about our American climate, 
 which were, nevertheless, quite within the 
 bounds of truth. But equally hard things 
 have been said of other climates. None of 
 the earth climates is perfect in all respects. 
 The writer once saw a weather-diary that 
 had been kept by a person of a somewhat 
 sensitive, poetic nature. In it he had noted 
 down all the days in the year when the 
 weather seemed to him to be perfect, days 
 when it was neither too hot nor too cold, 
 neither too wet nor too dry, too windy nor 
 too cloudy. The number of such perfect 
 days, according to his reckoning, amounted 
 to just five out of the three hundred and 
 sixty-five ! Perhaps other years would show 
 a better record, and a less fastidious observer 
 might have recorded more days that were 
 
CONCL USION. 99 
 
 perfect in the same year. To a person full- 
 blooded and in vigorous health, the weather, 
 save as it affects his material interests, is a 
 matter of little concern. To such a one, ex- 
 posure to the bracing, wintry north-westers 
 exhilarates and tones the whole system ; and 
 a poetic temperament, even in a frail physi- 
 cal organization, will find a keen delight in 
 threading woodland paths while the wintry 
 gales are sweeping through the tree-tops 
 overhead. What Goethe said of youth, that 
 it is intoxicated without wine, might be often 
 said at such times of middle age, if not of 
 senility. But, after making all due allow- 
 ance for the good points which our American 
 climate undeniably has, the fact still remains, 
 that a great majority of the days of the year 
 are not as agreeable nor as healthful to peo- 
 ple of sensitive organizations which term 
 includes most women as well as many men 
 as they might be. It will be one of the 
 
100 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 chief objects of the social and sanitary 
 sqience of the future, to neutralize, as far as 
 possible, these defects of climate. 
 
 In submitting to the public the foregoing 
 plan of an establishment adapted either for 
 a sanitarium or for a pleasure-resort, it is 
 not claimed that no improvements can be 
 suggested in the more unimportant features ; 
 but the central and main ideas here ad- 
 vanced are believed, for the best of reasons, 
 to be impregnable to the assaults of hostile 
 criticism. Probably there are some good 
 matter-of-fact people, who are perfectly 
 satisfied with the world as it is, who will 
 consider the whole thing an idle dream of 
 the imagination, about as unsubstantial in 
 basis as the "stately pleasure-dome" in 
 Kubla Khan ; but such incredulous souls are 
 respectfully reminded that all things have to 
 be imagined before they can become accom- 
 plished facts in the world of realities. To 
 
CONCLUSION. 101 
 
 create any thing of importance before it was 
 imagined, -or ideally created in the mind, 
 would be an obvious impossibility. Those 
 who assume to decide that any proposed un- 
 dertaking is impracticable at the present 
 day are very liable to have it conclusively 
 shown that their souls are not prophetic 
 ones. Such was the case with Dr. Dionysius 
 Lardner, whose pamphlet, written to prove 
 that a steamship could never cross the 
 Atlantic Ocean, first reached this country 
 by way of a steamship. 
 
 It is to be expected that some of the ideas 
 advanced in these pages will be assailed and 
 criticised. That is the ordeal which all 
 ideas, with any claim to novelty or impor- 
 tance, have to encounter. But if they have, 
 as is believed, a firm foundation in truth and 
 reason, they will not be put down by cavil or 
 vapid sarcasm. Some of the objections may 
 seem plausible at first to those who have not 
 
102 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 fully considered the subject, while others 
 will have as little relevancy as the objection 
 of a member of the British Parliament to 
 the first railroad that was chartered in Great 
 Britain. " Suppose," said this sapient mem- 
 ber of the committee before which the great 
 North-Country engineer was advocating his 
 proposed undertaking, " suppose that a 
 cow should get on the track of your railroad 
 when the engine was coming along." "So 
 much the worse for the coo," was the terse 
 reply. 
 
 Of not much more cogency than the com- 
 mittee-man's objection to the railroad is the 
 one that the glass in the garden-palace 
 would be liable to be broken by summer 
 hail-storms.* If hailstones of ordinary size 
 
 * Another objection of even less cogency is the one, 
 that a heavy fall of snow would crush in the roof of the 
 edifice. Perhaps an expert mathematician Prof. Pierce, 
 for instance might be able to calculate for what fraction 
 
CONCL USION. 103 
 
 should fall on glass one-third of an inch or 
 more thick, it would be so much the worse 
 for the hailstones. As for those extremely 
 rare cases when balls of ice of great size fall 
 from the clouds, they are so infrequent, that 
 they may be considered out of the range of 
 ordinary probability. Such a meteorological 
 bombardment, depending, as the iceballs do 
 for their formation, upon certain uncommon 
 electrical states of the upper air, is one of 
 the rarest of natural phenomena, and is 
 always very limited in its range. The 
 chances that an ice-storm, severe enough to 
 break glass of the thickness proposed, would 
 pass over any given locality once in a cen- 
 tury, could not be greater than one in a 
 million. During hot weather, large portions 
 
 of a second a snow-flake would remain as a snow-flake 
 on the garden-roof. Snow would melt almost as soon as 
 it touched the glass, wanned from below; and would pass 
 off by the proper conductors as rain-water. 
 
104 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 of the garden-roof would be covered with 
 canvas, which, as far as it extended, would 
 be a'protection against hail ; and, if it were 
 thought advisable, the whole could be com- 
 pletely shielded by covering it with a net- 
 ting of small galvanized wire, with meshes 
 an inch or so in diameter. 
 . Only one severe hail-storm has passed 
 over the Sydenham Crystal Palace since its 
 erection, and then no damage was done. By 
 a most singular coincidence, it rattled down 
 upon the glass roof with tremendous din 
 while the grand Hailstone Chorus from 
 Israel in Egypt was being performed, at a 
 musical festival in honor of Handel, by an 
 immense chorus of singers and a large 
 orchestra. 
 
 The question now arises, Who among the 
 wealthy, the philanthropic, the men of great, 
 business-energy and of far-seeing minds, will 
 aid in furnishing the required capital for an 
 
CONCLUSION. 105 
 
 initial establishment like or resembling the 
 one inadequately described in the preceding 
 chapter ? There are a few men in the coun- 
 try who could spare the amount needed for 
 its realization, and scarcely miss it from their 
 colossal fortunes. But the money would not 
 be sunk nor thrown away. If there is any 
 reliance whatever to be placed on calculations 
 a priori, such an outlay of capital would 
 be remunerative to its owners, as well as a 
 great public benefit. What an opportunity to 
 secure undying fame for some money-king who 
 has the far-sightedness and the audacity to 
 embark a portion of his accumulated millions 
 in such an enterprise ! Is there not one such 
 man in the country, endowed with the 
 sagacity, the liberal-mindedness, and the 
 nerve, to boldly take the initiative, and show 
 the world what may be done by wealth when 
 directed by a high purpose ? Or must it be 
 left for the co-operation of men of smaller 
 
106 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 means? State or national aid is not to be 
 expected, until public opinion, which gives 
 law to the law-makers, is educated to see the 
 importance and the feasibility of the enter- 
 prise. If it were possible and why is it 
 not? to enlist the interest of a few men 
 endowed with the persevering energy dis- 
 played by some of the master-spirits who 
 have carried to successful completion the 
 great undertakings of the age, one such 
 establishment might be made ready for dedi- 
 cation on the approaching centennial of the 
 nation's birth. 
 
 It may be that the present generation of 
 men will not see the creation of even one such 
 oasis of bloom and warmth amid the cheer- 
 less ice-deserts of our Northern winters. If, 
 unfortunately, that should be the case, then 
 we shall have missed a practical realization 
 of the beautiful possibilities of existence in 
 artificial climates on this weather-beaten 
 section of the earth. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE almost unlimited potentiality of glass in 
 the amelioration of the winter climates of high 
 latitudes will yet be generally recognized. There 
 are many ways by which its more extensive use 
 would render life during the cold season greatly 
 more endurable. How easily, for example, and 
 at what comparatively small expense, could the 
 bleak, storm-swept streets of Northern cities in 
 winter be converted into delightful thoroughfares, 
 as far as pedestrianism is concerned, by enclos- 
 ing the sidewalks with large, thick glass panes, 
 supported in a light, ornamental iron framework ! 
 No alteration whatever in the buildings or the 
 streets would be needed. Small iron columns, 
 four or five feet apart, would rise from the curb- 
 stones to nearly the height of the first story of 
 the stores or dwellings. These columns would 
 support a light, open-work entablature, from 
 
 107 
 
108 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 which the glass roof would slope upwards to the 
 side of the buildings. The spaces between the 
 columns could be left square at the top, or made 
 more ornamental by arches, either round or 
 Gothic. At the bottom, for three feet or 
 upwards in height from the curbstones, iron 
 plates would be substituted for glass, to avoid 
 accidental breakage from hubs of wheels or 
 other causes. Openings would be left at the ends 
 of blocks, where there were cross-streets, suffi- 
 cient to allow free passage to the tide of foot- 
 people. There would also be openings opposite 
 each store or house front. The glass in the sides 
 would be set in movable iron sashes, which 
 would be taken out on the approach of warm 
 weather, and replaced before winter. The glass 
 in the roof would remain permanently throughout 
 the year, and in summer would be covered with 
 canvas awnings. 
 
 The cost of thus enclosing the sidewalks of the 
 principal streets in an}' large city would not be 
 great ; while the benefits that would follow, in the 
 
APPENDIX. 109 
 
 promotion of health and comfort, would be incal- 
 culable. The thousands of pedestrians that 
 daity throng any great city thoroughfare would, 
 if its sidewalks were thus enclosed, be almost 
 entirely sheltered during the inclement season 
 from storms, cold winds, and dust : they would 
 also, to a great degree, be exempt from the 
 annoyances of snow and mud and the dangers 
 of icy flag-stones. Ladies and delicate invalids 
 could do their shopping or visiting, or take their 
 needful daily exercise, in all weathers. Nor 
 would the benefits of these arcades end with the 
 cold season. The awning-covered roofs would 
 in summer be a protection from rain, from the 
 hot noonday sun, and, to some extent, from dust. 
 Only one small interest will suffer when this 
 entirely feasible, and certainly desirable, plan 
 shall be generally adopted ; and that is the 
 umbrella-makers. But there will still be a 
 demand for their useful commodities from the 
 country- towns. 
 
 It admits of no question that the business-street 
 
110 LIFE UNDER GLASS. 
 
 or block, in any considerable town, which shall 
 be the first to have glass arcades for the protec- 
 tion of its. sidewalks' during the wintry season, 
 will attract trade enough to its stores to pay the 
 cost of such enclosures many times over. It is 
 one of the anomalies of our civilization, that, 
 while the greatest care is justly taken to prevent 
 needless suffering among domestic animals, no 
 protection whatever, save a few slight awnings 
 in summer, is provided for the throngs of men, 
 women, and children, that daily pass and repass 
 along the sidewalks of every large town. They 
 are exposed to the full peltings of the fierce win- 
 try storms ; to frequent danger to limb, and even 
 life, by the often icy flaggings ; and, in the hot 
 season, to the scorching noonday sun and the 
 frequent torrents of rain. 
 
 In view of this neglect to provide the means 
 conducive to human health and comfort in city 
 streets, would it not be well to start a society for 
 the prevention of cruelty to pedestrians, with 
 some philanthropic Mr. Bergh for its president, 
 
APPENDIX. Ill 
 
 the aim of which should be to agitate the matter 
 in all reasonable ways until the proper remedies 
 were provided? The city of the future will 
 undoubtedly have better appliances for the com- 
 fort and well-being of its inhabitants than do 
 the cities of to-day. 
 
 As only by often-repeated iteration do unfamil- 
 iar ideas become familiar and accepted ones, it 
 will not be out of place to restate, in conclusion, 
 the main points advanced in the foregoing expo- 
 sition. They are briefly summed up as follows : 
 that while vicissitudes of climate cannot be 
 controlled by human agency, yet it is possible to 
 neutralize, to a great degree, their ill effects ; 
 that the three principal agents, which in the near 
 future will be used to make this possibility a 
 reality, are GLASS, STEAM, and COMPRESSED AIR. 
 By the intelligent use of these means, the cold of 
 winter and the heat of summer may each be neu- 
 tralized, and artificial climates be created, agree- 
 able and healthful in temperature, and, if desired, 
 nearly invariable throughout the year. 
 
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