Modernist author Gertrude Stein attended medical school and conducted research when the now discredited theory that humanity was easily divisible into a small number of biological races and two genders reigned supreme. Stein's education connects her to scientists working to maintain the hierarchy of races, primarily in the field of medicine. Although she is better known for her formal experimentation that breaks with the literary traditions of the nineteenth century, Stein's nonfiction writing before she abandoned medicine and moved to Paris demonstrates her antagonism to the rigid evaluations made by theorists of human difference. This connection to the history of medicine is an important background for Stein's first published work, Three Lives. Stein's contemporaries praised this collection of novellas for providing an alternative to the dialect style of rendering African American speech. With Stein's scientific training in mind, this article shows how more of Stein's aesthetic choices in Three Lives can be seen as a pointed satire of scientific racism based on deductive logic. Stein's challenge to the prevailing paradigms of race and gender is evident when the narrator's original, biologically deterministic point of view gives way to a nuanced understanding of difference. Accepting that this narrator is unreliable shows that Stein's first fictional work was written in continuity with her academic nonfiction, challenging contemporary assumptions about the nature of humanity. This article also demonstrates how fiction leaves behind traces of intellectual debates that now can provide insight into the impact of scientific theory: Three Lives demonstrates that the acceptance of and challenges to scientific paradigms are not immediate and exemplifies how the literary sphere has been used to test the consequences of prevailing patterns of scientific analysis and challenge their acceptance.
413With'regard to the flushing of sewers, it ought to be borne in mind, that the heavier matters held in suspension in the sewage, or driven along the sewers by the force of its current, never moves with the same velocity as the water, and consequently, with intermitting currents as in house drains, it is often left dry and sometimes becomes indurated, so that it cannot be moved by the succeeding flow of water ; hence the necessity of a continuous current of water in all pipe sewers, to prevent the accumulation of matter within them. The sizes of all house drains and pipe sewers should he such, that they should never be more than four-fifths filled with water, or sewage, so as to allow of a free circulation of air through them, at all times, as the air not only facilitates the flowing of the water and promotes ventilation, but it also prevents the accumulation of highly-concentrated gases and their rising through the drains into the houses.T h e paper is illustrated by a plan of the sewers of Richmond.Mr. DONALDSON said, that at present, the drainage wm conducted into the Thames, the main end outfall sewers not being yet completed, brit it was intended to connect them, ultimately, with the Kennington sewer. The largest pipes he had employed, were 20 inches in diameter, but pipes of that size were rarely made so perfect as those of smaller dimensions, and there was great diEculty in well securing the joints. Where a larger diameter than l 8 incheu was required, he should prefer, on the score of safety, to construct a brick culvert, of which the cost would be about the same: the Contractors, indeed, finding at the time, some difficulty in obtaining the 20-inch pipes, offered to construct instead, a 30-inch sewer of bricks in cement. If pipe sewers could be made large enough to carry off the surface waters, and strong enongh to bear the pressure of the superincumbent earth at great depths, he should prefer then) to brick drains, provided the cost were the same ; for the damage to drains arose not only from the wear and tear, but also from the rats, who could not attack the pipes, which should be carefully jointed with clay, not with cement. The use of pipes was, homever, subject to this inconvenience, that whenever it became necessary to make a new junction, it was difficult to avoid breaking them in opening the ground, and thus a greater expense was often incurred, than would have resulted from the use of brick drains.Mr. HERTSLET said, the most striking feature of the plan was the employment of the separate system. There was no doubt, that
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