ANNUAL ADDRESS 
-OF 
1ST VICE PRESIDENT, 
lew Orleans Auxiliary Saoitarj 
ASSOCIATION- 
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHAT REMAINS TO 
BE ACCOMPLISHED TO RENDER NEW 
ORLEANS HEALTHY AND 
PROSPEROUS. /’SDffS&fev 
Delivered February 15, 1883. 
NEW ORLEANS: 
W. B. STANS BURY & CO. PRINT, 3S NATCHEZ STREET. 
1883. ANNUAL ADDRESS 
—OF— 
iiW4ii isiiiii 
1ST VICE PRESIDENT, 
lew Queans Auxiliary Sanitary 
ASSOCIATION- 
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHAT REMAINS TO 
BE ACCOMPLISHED TO RENDER NEW 
ORLEANS HEALTHY AND 
PROSPEROUS. 
Delivered February 15, 1883. 
NEW ORLEANS: 
W. B. STANSBURY & CO. PRINT, iS NATCHEZ STREET. 
iS8,3. WHAT HAS REEN DONE AND WHAT REMAINS TO HE AC- 
COMPLISHED TO RENDER NEW ORLEANS 
HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS. 
Mr. Chairman— 
It should be cause for congratulation among our citizens that 
the men who met together at the termination of the epidemic of 
1878 to form the New Orleans Auxiliary Sanitary Association are 
yet—with two lamentable exceptions—at their post of volun- 
tary labor. 
The mere knowledge of the organization of this body has 
awakened, throughout the entire country, a feeling of profound 
interest. Everywhere a confident belief is expressed that through 
the measures it proposes and the business methods which such 
a body may with reason be expected to employ—the good health 
of New Orleans, and its uninterrupted prosperity will be assured. 
The work that has been accomplished by this association, 
during its four years of life, is well known to sanitary authori- 
ties in every State of the Union. Each step towrard reform has 
been watched by them with the greatest solicitude; and wre are 
encouraged by their intelligent appreciation. It may well be 
so; our interests are identical. From every section of the 
country we are receiving words of commendation, mingled with 
expressions of amazement that opposition should be offered by 
any class of citizens to a movement of such transcendent im- 
portance. 
As many of our citizens may not be aware of the existence of 
an association entitled the “Sanitary Council of the Mississippi 
Valley,” it becomes part of our duty in connection with what 
has been previously stated, to make known to them its origin, 
motives and the drift of its debates. 
The “Council” was organized by representatives of the State 
Boards of Health in the Mississippi Valley, who had been in- 
vited by the State Board of Health of Tennessee, to meet in 
Memphis on the 80th of April, 1879, “for the purpose of 4 
counseling together and arranging a definite plan of co-operation, 
should events render it necessary to establish quarantine.” 
The Sanitary Council of the Mississippi Valley includes in its 
organization members of the State Boards of Health of Minne- 
sota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois; also numbers of local boards 
and local sanitary societies, in the States above mentioned, and 
of sanitary societies in other States. 
The objectrwhich induced this league of States is one which 
appeals so directly and with such force to the family, and to 
each individual inhabitant of every city, town and village in the 
whole country that it may reasonably be assumed that, until the 
general government shall “ assume direction and control of 
national and maritime quarantine”—the Sanitary Council will 
not disband. On the contrary, the number of States represented 
in that body will steadily increase until it becomes .a national 
and all-powerful organization. 
The following quotation from the address delivered by B. C. 
Kedzie, president of the Council, at a called meeting held in this 
city on December 9, 1880, is of importance in elucidation of the 
foregoing remarks: 
“ When the leading sanitarians of the valley assembled at 
Memphis, the discussion assumed a much wider range than the 
matter of quarantine. Questions of sanitation assumed an im- 
portance equal to that of quarantine, and the discussions which 
arose and the plans which were then adopted were among the 
results, not least in importance, of that meeting. It may be 
objected that, notwithstanding the meeting of sanitarians, and 
the formation of the Sanitary Council, the yellow fever again 
visited and desolated Memphis. Too true. Memphians seemed 
smitten with an insane confidence that the fever would not strike 
their city two years in succession, and the instant and complete 
removal of all the active causes and adjuvants of the fever was 
fatally delayed. But if the Sanitary Council did not save Mem- 
phis from the yellow fever in 1879, it saved the river belt from the 
irresponsible shotgun policy and saved the valley from the com- 
mercial paralysis of an inflexible quarantine. In addition to this 5 
the Sanitary Council stimulated local sanitation and pointed out 
the direction in which quarantine, when made necessary, should 
impose the least restraints upon travel and traffic compatible 
with public safety. 
“The problems which came before the Sanitary Council at its 
formation are still unsolved; the possible dangers, which created 
this council, still hang over the vast valley. The questions of 
public health relating to the Mississippi valley rise to national 
importance, for it embraces a region of imperial extent and 
holds a commerce vast beyond human comprehension. 
“The sanitary problems which dominate this valley cannot be 
settled by reference to the narrow limits of a State. Disease 
and pestilence know nothing of the arbitrary chalk marks which we 
call geographical lines. Deaf to all eloquence about States 
rights, the only right they recognize is the right of men to 
sicken and die, or to get well, if they can. 
“ The attempt to adjust the sanitary and commercial problems 
of this great valley by the co-operation of States jarring and dis- 
cordant upon the very issues at stake, with the inevitable clash 
between self-interest on the one hand and the possible peril of 
distant peoples on the other—with the natural jealousy of rival 
cities and competing and the mistrust which it is so easy 
to create and so hard to destroy—the attempt is crushed with de- 
feat from the very outset. 
“ Each State may indeed consider itself amply competent to 
decide these questions for itself, or reject with proud disdain 
any outside interference or even suggestion. But commercially 
and sanitarily the States of this valley must stand or fall to- 
gether. We are one body, not only politically but socially held 
together by the interlinking ties of pecuniary interest and the 
bonds of a common safety. Nature and history have alike de- 
creed that we shall be one people. If a State could push her 
commerce in defiance of the sanitary "welfare of sister States, the 
dark spectre of the shotgun quarantine and lawless vigilance 
committee rises in the background, an apparition before which 
even the pushing spirit of commerce must quail. 
“If any one suggests that this dark picture is a figment of the 
imagination, I appeal to those who know this valley best if such 6 
a picture might not become a frightful reality whenever the pes- 
tilence and commerce claim joint occupancy of the Mississippi? 
Confidence is the basis of commerce. It is an old saying that 
‘confidence is a plant of slow growth,’ but sIoav as is its growth it 
may wither in an hour if the essential conditions of confidence 
are withdrawn. 
“While every State is concerned in the proper settlement of 
these questions, no part of the country is more interested in the 
proper adjustment of these relations than Louisiana, and no city 
has more at stake than New Orleans. At the North, the line of ex- 
port fluctuates between a southern and eastern outlet. If the 
Mississippi is obstructed, the lake region looks to the St. Law- 
rence and the Hudson, and the Hudson to the Potomac. But 
the sudden deflecting of these lines of travel and trade involves 
friction, and friction means loss. Yet the loss by the 
permanent deflection of the lines of trade would be a hun- 
dred-fold greater for New Orleans than for Chicago. It is a 
matter of importance for Chicago to have the interests of health 
and trade harmoniously adjusted; for New Orleans, it is a vital 
necessity. We may, therefore, safely look for the cordial co-op- 
eration of the citizens of the Crescent City in any project which 
looks to a permanent and satisfactory solution of the problems 
of public health as related to commerce. 
“ No effort to patch up matters so complex and conflicting, by 
the separate or even the joint action of the States immediately 
involved, promises permanent relief. No arrangement will have 
stability or withstand the pressure of publicjexcitement, which 
does not insure general confidence. 
“ To insure such confidence, in the first place, the parties 
who direct and control in these affairs must be, not only truth- 
ful and impartial, but free from all temptation to concealment, 
evasion or injustice. In other words they must be, in the literal 
sense of the word, disinterested—without pecuniary, social or 
other motives to bias their decisions. Not that men are incapa- 
ble of withstanding such influences, for there are thousands of 
honorable men who will act justly and uprightly in the face of 
the most powerful temptations. But, where a motive to sway 
one’s judgment can be seen, in the cowardice of a public panic 7 
the existence of such a motive will in itself create suspicion, and 
suspicion must be allayed if we would preserve the public tran- 
quillity. No matter how unfounded is the suspicion, the suspi- 
cion is fatal. 
“ It is said ‘ capital is timid,’ but it is bravery itself compared 
with the cowrardly instincts of life. The scoffer of old announced 
a fundamental fact in human existence, when he exclaimed, 
‘ Skin for skin;’ yea, all a man hath will he give for his life. 
“ I know I am now not holding up the noble side of human 
character, but it is this very ignoble phase of .humanity with 
which we have to deal in a popular panic. The history of this 
valley two years ago forbids the use of honeyed phrases in dis- 
cussing this subject. 
“ In the second place, the organization, which shall have control 
of these two-fold interests of public health and commerce, must 
have authority co-extensive with the district threatened. It 
must overleap municipal and State barriers, because the interests 
involved and the dangers treated are not circumscribed by such 
limits. 
“ In the third place, it must have authority which shall be un- 
disputed, because to be useful it must be promptly exercised in 
the presence of threatened danger. In such cases delay is defeat. 
“ In the fourth place, it must have the money and the means 
to promptly and efficiently carry out any steps necessary to 
guard the public health and to guard the interests of commerce 
as related to public health. 
“ All these considerations point to the national authority as 
the one power capable of affording us the protection and relief 
we need. The work is national in importance and should be 
carried out by the national arm. Either the present National 
Board of Health, with enlarged powers and increased facilities 
or some other national organization which shall still more com- 
pletely meet this want, is our only hope of permanent relief. 
“ When such an organization is placed in charge of, and held 
responsible, for the safety of the great valley, then may the Sani- 
tary Council of the Mississippi Valley exclaim, with one of old, 
‘ Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ But until the 
national authority assumes its proper position, and exercises its 8 
proper control over these great interests of this valley, the Sani- 
tary Council has a mission to fulfill.” 
We also quote from the address of Dr. B. C. Kedzie, its pre- 
siding officer, delivered at the annual meeting convened on the 
third Wednesday in April, 1881 : 
“ The tranquillity of the valley in the presence of danger was 
decisive proof of public confidence; but this feeling of confidence 
never rested upon the present State Board of Health of Louisi- 
ana. The broad ground of public confidence was the National 
Board of Health acting in concert with other boards of health 
in the valley, so far as the general sanitary matters of the valley 
were concerned, and in the Auxiliary Sanitary Association with 
reference to New Orleans. 
“ This latter association is worthy of more than a passing 
notice. 
“ It modestly calls itself an ‘auxiliary,’—not a principal. With- 
out patronage or revenue, with nothing but the clear head and 
generous heart to do good, it has done more with less means 
than any volunteer sanitary organization in the history of the 
world. 
“In a city which has been the sanitary opprobrium of the con- 
tinent, confronted by problems in sanitary engineering of the 
most difficult character, without means, except the voluntary con- 
tributions of those whom it could enlist in sanitation, it has as- 
tonished the nation by the results it has already accomplished, 
and it bids fair to make New Orleans one of the healthiest cities 
on this continent. No wonder people have confidence in such an 
association and trust its word and its work without question.” 
We can assert from positive knowledge that the people of the 
Mississippi valley regard the existence of this association and its 
persistence in reformative works as a matter of the utmost im- 
portance; should obstruction be offered, and the only practical 
effort that has ever been made, with a high and noble purpose, 
to reform the sanitary evils in our midst, be thwarted by the mal- 
content, the conscience of those who achieve a design in every 
sense ignoble may have a sad awakening. 
The voluntary labors of the active members of this body will 9 
not be misconstrued by any fair-minded citizen, whose devotion 
to the public good springs from pure and simple philanthropy. 
Reviewing the history of this city from its foundation, we can- 
not discover that, at any time prior to the organization of this 
association any efforts have been made by those most deeply 
concerned, to correct by practical means the insanitary condition 
within the municipality. 
On several occasions, notably at the close of the epidemic of 
yellow fever in 1848 and 1853, as stated by the Sanitary Commis- 
sion of 1853, the subject of the sanitary condition of our city 
became a theme of deep concern and anxious scrutiny. The 
great malignity of the fever, its unparalleled spread, all tended to 
arouse public attention, and the conclusion was arrived at that 
the subject merited the most thorough and careful investigation. 
Prior to this period the sanitary condition of the city had not 
received the attention its great importance required. The pub- 
lic had been steadily assured by the authorities and others that 
“ the city was one of the healthiest in the Union,” “although 
subject to occasional epidemics.” Confiding in these assurances, 
the great mass of the citizens took little part in the subject, 
being quieted and lulled into security by these representations. 
Our reputation abroad, however, from occasional exposures by 
Boards of Health and other sources, and, above all, by the greed 
calamity of 1853, fully aroused the public, and induced the de- 
termination to look thoroughly into the subject. 
We propose in this paper to give many valuable quotations 
from these reports. They are very voluminous. The researches 
were thorough—the conclusions arrived at in strict accordance 
with the added knowledge of sanitary and hygienic methods 
gained during the past quarter of a century. Nevertheless we 
do not believe that one citizen in a thousand has ever read these 
reports. They are out of print, and this association is indebted 
to the editor of the German Gazette for the use of a copy. 
We do know that their labor was comparatively in vain. Nearly 
thirty years were permitted to elapse before any adequate number 
of citizens volunteered to devote a portion of their time to the 
onerous but transcendent duty of making practical application 
of the invaluable sanitary suggestions of this commission. 10 
No city can attain to the highest degree of prosperty in which 
there are not some wise and good men to teach and other men to 
learn—nay more, what city can hope to prosper, in any degree, 
that is given over by its own citizens to those who make office- 
holding the profession of their lives ? What avails an expressed 
devotion to State or city if we permit their affairs to be under 
the sole control and management of those who very frequently 
are least interested in their material prosperity? 
The experience of the past teaches us that other methods must 
be adopted than those we have supinely assented to, would we 
prevent any interruption to the good health and rapid recovery 
from the almost '“moribund” condition of this city four years ago. 
What but the dread of yellow fever has prevented the more 
rapid growth of New Orleans? Who will gainsay the assertion 
that every epidemic retards our progress for years? 
In the past an immense territory was tributary to this city; 
events which we were unable to control, have worn new channels 
of trade. How do supplement this lost supremacy should now 
be our chief concern. 
If “ health is wealth,” let us unite as one man to make per- 
manent the present exceptional salubrity. 
In every public enterprise there must be those who lead and 
others that support. This is a people’s movement, pure and 
simple; the first, and, should it be permitted to expire for want 
of sympathy and support, it may prove to be the last that will 
be adventured within the memory of its rise and fall. 
At the beginning, it was not our purpose to aid in the routine 
work which should be done by a metropolitan health board. 
That labor was imposed upon this body by the innumerable 
complaints of every conceivable nuisance, which the “ constituted 
authorities ” overlooked or neglected or lacked power to abate. 
Our “ auxiliary ” efforts were, however, exerted to the utmost 
on the outbreak of yellow fever in the summer succeeding the 
terrible epidemic of 1878. In the summer of 1879, at which 
period the members of the Board of Health were in constant 
friendly communication with the association, we were informed 
that the board was totally unable, for want of funds, to cope 
with the gigantic labor required to stamp out the flame before it 11 
spread (as it did in Memphis) throughout this city. This asso- 
ciation together with the National Board of Health, undertook 
the task. 
A powerful pump was placed upon the levee in front of the 
infected district, which encircled with fresh water from the river 
the entire rectangle of three by five squares, to which area the 
fever was successfully confined. 
Our medical director, the late Dr. White, at once instituted a 
systematic house-to-house inspection; foul premises were thor- 
oughly cleansed and disinfected. This purification was immedi- 
ately followed by a reinspection, to ascertain if the work had 
been thoroughly done. 
The cost of this great undertaking was many thousand dollars; 
but when it is considered that another epidemic of yellow fever 
occurred in Memphis in the summer of 1879, we may, with con- 
fidence, leave to those who profited by an uninterrupted business 
in New Orleans, during that summer of intense anxiety, to esti- 
mate the gain. 
A few quotations from the “Southern Medical Reports” of 
1849, and the report of the Sanitary Commission of 1853 will 
give a better insight into the purposes of this association than 
any language of our own. It will also serve a purpose we have 
always held to be of the utmost importance, that of disseminat- 
ing among the people a knowledge of our insanitary evils, and 
of imparting a degree of confidence, which should be universal, 
that, by well directed and persistent efforts, this city can be made 
as healthy as any in the country. 
Quotations from the Southern Medical Reports, volume I, 
1849: 
“ The government organized by the people of this region to 
provide for their welfare and safety have deemed the preserva- 
tion of human life either beneath their notice or beyond their 
comprehension. 
“It appears strange that a city like New Orleans, situated im- 
mediately on the banks of the greatest river in the world, should 
suffer in any respect for the want of water, and we venture to 
predict that, at some future period, the inhabitants will look 
back with astonishment at our long endurance of the incon- 
venience and injuries directly traceable to this cause. 12 
“ The sanitary condition of the city is very bad.” “ Let us not 
deceive ourselves, but rather let us look the facts sternly in the 
face and endeavor to find a remedy for existing evils. We shall 
never commence the great business of reform until we have be- 
come fully aware of our real condition. 
“ Little or nothing has ever yet been done directly and ex- 
pressly with the view of improving the sanitary condition of the 
city of New Orleans. But we trust the time is not far distant 
when this intelligent community, enlightened by the investiga- 
tions of the medical profession, will adopt the necessary meas- 
ures for rendering our city as it may be, both a pleasant and safe 
abode at all seasons of the year. 
“ With us, then, there is every hope that, with the progressive 
improvements which are in accordance with the enlightened 
period in which we live, and which, of course, the public will 
adopt as soon as they clearly perceive them, yellow fever will 
disappear in the train of sanitary ameliorations. 
“ Yellow fever did not appear in our city until many years 
after its establishment; nor does it exist in our immediate vici- 
nity at this time (1849), from which it is but reasonable to infer 
that it must depend upon some condition of things within our 
corporation, which we may hope to discover and correct. 
“ It is not too much to say that a perfect system of drainage 
and sewerage, embracing the city and neighborhood, would be 
cheap at any price, for they at once remove all known causes of 
disease under control of the public; both filth of every kind, 
and almost everywhere undue moisture. 
“ The present (1849) system of police is a mere mockery and 
deception, leaving the public here, and those interested abroad, 
under the impression that its salubrity is unimprovable. 
“ The removal of street and back-yard filth has been essayed 
in vain; in fact the proper and effective cleaning of the city— 
its effectual drainage, so far as to ascertain how these conditions 
influence the health and well-being of the inhabitants, 
HAS NEVER VET BEEN TRIED. 
The offal from the houses has not been removed from the streets; 
the filth scraped up into masses has been suffered to- lie for days, 
often until washed into the gutters by rain, or scattered by carts 13 
and drays, the gutters left choked up by filth. The Board of 
Health considers it its sacred duty to the public to speak plainly; 
it is nearly the only power it has; it can point to causes affecting 
the salubrity of the city, but it has no power to remove them.” 
QUOTATIONS FROM THE REPORT OF THE SANITARY COMMISSION 
OF 1853. 
“ No opportunity has been slighted—no toils have been spared 
to push our explorings and researches throughout the vast realm 
of the yellow fever zone, in both South and North America and 
the West Indies. Out of these data, together with the experience 
of many years, have grown the materials which form the opinions 
and principles put forth in the report, as to the origin and cause 
of yellow fever. The one is that yellow fever is, and always has 
been, here and elsewhere a preventable disease. 
“The other is that the presence of two general hygienic condi- 
tions are absolutely indispensable to the organization and trans- 
mission of the disease—the one of them, atmospheric,—the other 
terrene. These must meet in combination, or, there will be no 
result. The absence of one, as to this disease, is as the absence 
of both, and as one of these conditions is almost wholly Avithin 
the control of man, and the other partially so, it must follow that 
his power extends to its preArention and expulsion. 
“There must exist some cause for the great insalubrity shoAvn 
in the mortuary returns. It certainly does not arise from its 
cleanliness and the absence of those sources productive of dis- 
ease in every country. 
“Then it must derive its origin from those conditions in which 
it differs from other places that are healthy. Or shall we aban- 
don as useless, all the dear-bought experience of our race, and re- 
main as we are, despite our recent and bitter afflictions ? Are 
we forever to turn our faces upon the past and to be made no 
wiser by its \raluable teachings? 
“The problem thus presented to us to solve is not a new one. 
It has been solved a thousand times before. We give it again, 
with the special experience derived from our locality and cir- 
cumstances and Avith the same uniform results. 
“ The causes of this insalubrity have been most carefully scru- 
tinized, and it is our deliberate conviction that they are fairly 
ascribable to local conditions which are mainly removable. 14 
“The great practical principle of the report, therefore is, that 
the yellow fever, although among the greatest of physical evils, 
is demonstrably a remediable evil, and it will be the function of 
a future section to set forth in detail, the remediable appliances 
which, reasonably employed and scrupulously enforced, will ex- 
tirpate the disease in any locality. 
“ If, upon such investigation, the recommendations are found 
reasonable; if they are in accordance with the science and the 
well attested experience of the present enlightened age; then we 
hope there will be no hesitation in putting them upon immediate 
trial (1853). 
“The ‘let alone system ’ has been tried long enough; it has 
filled the domiciles of the dead, cast adrift numbers of our cher- 
ished population,—restrained and still restrains (1853) large and 
valuable accessions, and has checked and impaired our advance- 
ment and thrift in every branch of industry. The trial has been 
full and unsatisfactory. All unite in saying there must be sani- 
tary reform;, it is written in indelible characters on the age. 
“ If the mortuary calamities of the year 1853 will drive our 
people, (so long deluded on the subject of their sanitary condi- 
tion, ) to open their eyes to the actual truth; if it can be demon- 
strated, to their satisfaction that we have labored and suffered 
under remediable ;ills; that there is yet hope for us, then the 
fearful lesson we have been taught will not have been in vain, 
and we shall date from 1853 a new era of prosperity and pro- 
gress in all that may be compassed through numbers and com- 
merce—health and thrift. 
“ In no part of the world is sanitary reform so much needed 
as in New Orleans. In no country on earth has a place been so 
much injured through a want of insight into her sanitary con- 
dition by her municipal officials. In none have more pains been 
taken to keep from the people a knowledge of it. The very 
attempt to enlighten the public in relation to this important in- 
terest has been steadily repulsed with denial, if not with incredu- 
lity, and the authors have been pointed to as inimical to the 
city.’ 
“ The obvious effect of all this has been the entire neglect of 
sanitary measures, which has palsied the hand of enterprise, 15 
and has driven from our city valuable citizens and immigration 
of labor, of wealth, and of intellect. 
“New Orleans is one of the dirtiest, and with other conjoint 
causes, is consequently the sickliest city in the Union, and 
scarcely anything has been done to remedy it. 
“ That the one results from the other, is in exact accordance 
with the common sense, the common experience and common 
feeling of mankind, and yet, to use the language of a distin- 
guished investigator, “ the city lies quiet, with an open keg of 
gunpowder with a lighted torch only a foot above it.” 
“ Like causes produce like effects under the same circum- 
stances, forever; if then the city is to be restored to salubrity 
there must be a radical change. No city can bear many inflic- 
tions of such a calamity as that of 1853, without serious deteri- 
oration. Concealment and boasting will not help us much. 
“ Public confidence is plainly on the wane; the disparaging truth, 
that almost every official, as well as unofficial, means have been 
used to conceal, deny, explain away, has been resorted to, and 
now it stands forth in all its unabashed effrontery, in the vqry face 
of well attested and repeated proofs that the evil exists and is 
remediable. It requires a calamity, like that of 1853, to 
open our eyes to the actual truth.” 
“A conviction of an error must precede its correction.” 
“ The cost to the city, to reach this conviction is to be estimated 
by millions, and to her commercial prosperity—to the value of 
her real estate,—to the reputation for perennial insalubrity,—fig- 
ures cannot calculate it. Shall we say, then, that all this could 
have been prevented ? Have any preventive means been tried ? 
“ The same remarks applies to all Northern cities. Philadel- 
phia particularly has suffered as much by yellow fever as New 
Orleans. 
“ Nay, it has been more fatal there than here. The same 
remarks are applicable to New York, Boston and Baltimore; 
they each of them have had their filthy or infected localities 
when their sanitary measures were not properly enforced. 
“ All epidemics, as all other diseases, must have a beginning, 
a starting point. That point will be in whatever part of a city 
or country, in which the localizing causes shall exist in the greatest 16 
excess. Tliis has been clearly demonstrated, by an examination 
into this subject in England, where it has been made evident 
that while an epidemic state of the atmosphere exists over the 
whole country, the disease will only be developed where there 
exists also in more or less intensity, the localizing conditions of 
filth, moisture, stagnant air, etc., to constitute the perfect com- 
bination. 
“ In the latter part of the last century, and the earlier decades 
of this, yellow fever Avas common, almost annually in some cities, as 
far north as latitude 40 deg. The ground is now assumed, and will 
be hereafter supported in this report, that the immunity noAV en- 
joyed by them, has resulted from no change of climate, but has 
arisen from the application and enforcement of sanitary laws 
and regulations. 
“The cheapest, best and most rational mode, will be found in 
the practical application of the means of prevention, by the intro- 
duction of those sanitary measures that experience, fully tested, 
has shown to have saved other communities from pestilence and 
restored them to salubrity. 
“ * * Surely this is Avorth striving for, and Ave shall 
prove that all this is within our poAArer; that it only requires us 
to put our shoulders firmly to the wheel, and that you are bound 
by every principle to own the impulse which duty prompts, and 
a sense of self-preservation and a just pride aid us in carrying 
out.” 
Quoting at great length from an English report, the conclusion 
is arrived at, “that the most perfect sanitary arrangements are 
the largest pecuniary economy, and the cost of preventable dis- 
eases is equal to the whole public revenues of the country. 
“If then we have arrived at this important fact, to what cause 
yellow fever is to be ascribed, if Ave can no longer plead igno- 
rance, as an excuse for inaction, we have no farther excuse for its 
continuance among us, and Ave do seriously think that it is as 
much the duty of the civil authorities, to keep this city free from 
yellow feve r as it is to keep it exempt from any other control- 
lable calamity. Reform is the great watchword applicable to our 
situation, and no stone should be left unturned to remedy the 
evils of the past, and arrest the downward marsh of everything. 
“Our reputation abroad for salubrity is ruined—only reform is 
now left for us. All cities, Avherever situated, have been subject 17 
to epidemics. New Orleans has stood many such trials. She is 
now at a crisis, and it will depend upon her people to say wheth- 
er she shall recuperate or not. 
“Her consulting faculty, (this Commission) have pronounced 
her entirely susceptible of cure, if their advice is followed, oth- 
erwise not. A new era has sprung up; it is signalized by the 
appointment of this first Commission of Inquiry into the real, 
not the supposititious, condition of New Orleans. We look upon 
it as a proof that the reform so much needed, and without which 
no permanent prosperity is to be expected for this city, is about to 
commence; that the influence of sanitary measures is at last to 
be attempted, and we cannot avoid the prediction that it will 
eventuate, as it has in all other places, in future prosperity and 
advancement. 
“As regards the propriety of quarantine, the Commission are 
unanimously of opinion that a quarantine should be established.” 
Accordingly, in 1855, at its next session after the publication 
of this report, the Legislature enacted our present quarantine 
laws. 
These quotations represent, it will not be doubted, the sanitary 
evils which existed at the time they were written, 1849 and 1853. 
Siqce then, however, much has been accomplished correcting 
the insanitary conditions within the corporate limits. Still much 
remains to be done, and it is for the citizens to determine, in the 
fight of past experience, whether the task shall be confided alone 
to the municipal authorities, or whether there is needed the 
assistance of such a body as this Association acting in their be- 
half, uninfluenced by any consideration, be it said, other than 
those which will produce the speediest and best results in the 
most practical and economical manner. 
The natural increase of population has extended the limits of 
the city since 1853. Lagoons, canals and basins which then ex- 
isted have been filled up and obliterated. Swamps in the rear 
of the city have been cleared of timber, exposing to the influence 
of the sun and air a vast malarious area. 
There have been many miles of streets paved with granite 
blocks, replacing the objectionable wooden pavements. Ban- 
quettes, also formerly constructed of plank, have been covered 
with flagging or brick. An aggregate of 15 acres of deep and 18 
filthy ponds, denominated “ fever holes,” extending on the levee 
upward from Canal street, are no longer in existence. 
Well-contrived garbage boats now receive and deposit the im- 
mense accumulation of filth in the deep bosom of the Mississippi 
river, which filth was deposited formerly in the rear of the city 
often within its limits. 
One hundred and seventy miles of street gutters are now 
flushed by an abundant stream of fresh water from the river, 
rendering them comparatively clean and positively innoxious. 
To that extent they no longer emit their sickening odors, nor 
serve as hot-beds for the production of mosquitoes. 
The Camp street canal, but recently a disgusting cesspool of 
filthy sewage, injurious alike to health and the value of adjacent 
property, has been converted into a pleasant promenade. 
The public squares, formerly enclosed by high curbs and 
dilapidated railings, concealing filth and promoting moisture 
and mould, the resort of tramps by day, and their favorite lodging 
ground by night, are now, thanks to the efforts of intelligent 
citizens following the recommendations of this association, con- 
verted into delightful resorts for young and old. Above all, the 
public mind is now as never before directed toward those meas- 
ures of prevention, whereby, according to the reports from which 
we have so liberally quoted, this city may be rendered exempt, 
as Eastern cities have been, from the curse of yellow fever. 
The public press of New Orleans has been specially instru- 
mental in producing this most hopeful result. 
The press of this city have, without exception, advocated the 
cause of sanitary reform with a talent and perseverance, albeit 
without pecuniary reward, which reflects upon them the highest 
honor. 
Regarding the matters treated of in this paper as of transcen- 
dent interest to every citizen, it will be printed in popular form 
and widely circulated, for it is thus only that the minds of the 
busy workers in a large city can be drawn away from their daily 
pursuits to reflect upon a subject which, viewed aright, is the 
only sure foundation upon which to erect a lasting superstruc- 
ture of prosperity. 
On every convenient occasion we have given notice that our 
transactions and debates are open to the public. We invite all 
citizens to our weekly meetings, and to take part in the discus- 
sion of matters relating to their welfare.