BSPORTS 
qv 
SEECI/U. COMMITTEE 
ON 
\X 
Vaccination and Sewerage, 
/ MADK TO THK 
BOARD OF HEALTH, 
At its Meeting, May 1st, 1872. 
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. 
if pILBERT, pORNER OF JHIRD AND pREEN pTREETS 
1872. REPORTS 
OF 
SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
VACCINATION AND SEWERAGE, 
MADE TO THE 
* 
BOARD OF HEALTH 
At its Meeting, May 1st, 1872. 
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. 
fjRADLET if pILBERT, pORNER OF JhIRD AND pREEN pTRBB 
1873. REPORT 
OF 
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON VACCINATION. 
To the Honorable Board of Health of the City of Louisville : 
Long and gloomy is the catalogue of physical sufferings to which man, 
placed at an immeasurable distance above other animals by his char- 
acteristic excellencies of material organization, and by the exclusive 
attributes of reason and intelligence, stands incessantly exposed—heavy 
the tribute which at the shrine of eternal and unerring justice he is 
called upon to pay for this proud pre-eminence in the scale of created 
being. 
Civilization, too, with all her charms and blandishments, introduces 
among her favored children a train of evils and diseases which are al- 
most unknown to the more wild and rugged walks of savage life. 
Amid the sufferings and the diseases which this catalogue exhibits to 
our view, small-pox stands inscribed in distinguished characters of 
terror and devastation. 
Yet terrible, most terrible, not merely from its extent, but from its 
nature and severity, are the ravages committed by this relentless foe of 
human happiness and enjoyment. 
Her meagre and unsparing hand plucks not the hoary weeds, the 
fruitless thorns and brambles of our worldly wilderness. The sensitive 
plant, the lily, the passion flower, and the rose of human gentleness 
are as often the victims of her rapacity. Upon the cheek tinted with 
the warmest hues of youth, of beauty and intelligence ; upon the eye, 
illumined by the fire of genius and sensibility ; upon the heart, throb- 
bing with benevolence and animated by all the gentlest and most noble 
affections that can adorn or dignify the human character, this fiend of 
desolation delights to prey. 4 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
The very name conveys to the generous mind a sensation of chilli- 
ness and dread. Whenever the loathsome sound strikes upon our ear, 
scenes of woe and wretchedness to which we have been witnesses flit 
across the darkened mirror of recollection—the venerable form of age, 
bent in silent anguish over the distorted features of all its earthly hopes 
and happiness ; ardent and impassioned manhood, straining with con- 
vulsive agony to its widowed heart the putrid relics of plighted ten- 
derness and truth ; unconscious infancy, gazing with artless merriment 
upon the pustuled cheek of its faint and gasping mother, or perhaps 
drawing the horrible poison from her almost exhausted bosom. 
These are scenes which your committee can never turn to contem- 
plate without emotion. Against the depressing influence of such re- 
collection, long familiarity with the disgusting spectacle of this human 
misery have not yet sufficiently fortified their nature. A more than 
common gloom, inspired by these meditations, and the indifference in 
those whose duty it is to oppose this desolating malady, hangs over 
them as they sit down to the performance of the task of promoting 
a more general adoption of the practice of vaccination, and to suggest 
such measures as are best calculated to avoid the evils that arise from 
the neglect of this great sanitary blessing. The perfect protection of 
successful vaccination has been thoroughly demonstrated all over the 
world ; and every other country but ours has so nationalized this boon 
to humanity, that the masses are as familiar with its blessings as are 
ours with disfigured recoveries and loathsome death from its neglect. 
As early as 1802, vaccination was greatly recognized by all descrip- 
tions of people in Hindostan—in (Forbe’s Oriental Memoirs, vol. 3), 
Moorperal Streenivasachary, a Brahmin, thus writes to Dr. Anderson, 
at Madras, on vaccine inocculation : 
“ I beg leave to observe, for the information of the natives of this 
country, that I have perused the papers which you have published on 
that wonderful, healthful, and immortal vaccine matter discovered on 
the nipple and udders of some cows in England by that illustrious phy- 
sician, Dr. Jenner, whereby the loathsome, painful, and fatal small- 
pox has been prevented from seizing the many of our fellow-creatures 
in India, as well as in Europe. 
“I am eye-witness, as well as many others, that numbers of chil- 
dren here have been inoculated with vaccine matter without any injury 
or blemish whatever; it is, therefore, greatly to be wished, that an inti, 
mate knowledge of this wonderful discovery may be acquired by the ON VACCINATION. 
5 
natives of this country, so as to enable them to preserve the lives of 
the rich and honorable as well as those of low caste. On this account 
it might be useful to remove a prejudice in the minds of the people 
arising from the term cow-pock being literally translated comary in 
the advertisement which has been published in our Tamul tongue; 
whereas, there can be no doubt that it is a drop of nectar from the ex- 
uberant udders of the cows of England, and no way similar to the 
humor discharged from the tongue and feet of diseased cattle in this 
country. Signed, 
Moorperal Streenivasachary.” 
It may not be out of place here to mention the following singular 
fact respecting the antiquity of vaccination in India, taken from the 
Asiatic Register for 1804, which is altogether a curious and authentic 
addition to a subject so interesting to humanity. 
The fact stated in the translation of a written memorandum from 
the Nabob Mirza Mehady Ali Khan, who was long resident at Be- 
nares, that the effects of vaccination have been known for a great length 
of time in that celebrated quarter of India, will afford an ample field 
for the investigation of those who have the opportunity and ability, 
since they cannot want the inclination to prosecute so interesting an 
inquiry. 
The undoubted intimation of this fact, that vaccination has been 
practiced among the worshipers of Bowannee, will not detract an iota 
from the merits of the Jennerian discovery. The fortuitous and happy 
circumstance which led to the discovery in Europe has been unquestion- 
ably and most satisfactorily proved, whilst the anxiety, study, perse- 
verance, and indefatigable exertions which have been applied by its be- 
nevolent professor to insure the conviction of the world in the un- 
fa mnded benefit of the discovery, have entitled him to the lasting grat- 
itude of mankind. 
The full ascertainment of the fact will only go to afford an addi- 
tional instance of primeval oriental knowledge; whether acquired or 
accidental, is to be hereafter proved. It will only open an additional 
neglected mine for the curious and the learned, and will be another 
p oof that the East has been the seat of wisdom, “ where learning 
flourished and the arts are prized. ” 
The translation here follows : 
“ During the period of my abode in the district of Benares, my eld- 
est son being taken ill of a very bad kind of small-pox, and my friends 6 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
interesting themselves for my comfort and his relief, one of them named 
Slookum Chund, a Hindoo, pointed out to me that there was in the 
city of Benares one Alep Choby, a Brahmin from Oude, whose prac- 
tice was chiefly confined to this malady. 
“Him, therefore, I lost no time in sending for to the town of Gha- 
zeepoor, where I dwelt; and he arrived on the ninth day of the erup- 
tion. Ou seeing which, he observed that if the eruption had not taken 
place, he would have endeavored to facilitate and render it easy, but 
that now it was too late. 
“ In asking Choby what the process was, he said : From the matter of 
the pustule on the cow I keep a thread drenched, which enables me, at 
pleasure, to cause an easy eruption on any child, adoring at the same 
time Bowannee (who is otherwise called Debee, Alata, and Sebla, and 
who has the direction of this malady,) as well in my own person as by 
causing the father of the child to perform the like ceremonies. After 
which I run the drenched string into a needle, and drawing it through 
between the skin and the flesh of the child’s upper arm, leave it there, 
performing the same operation in both arms, which always insures an 
easy eruption; on the first appearance of which the child’s father or 
guardian renews his worship to Bowannee; and as the animal this 
goddess rides upon is an ass, it is customary for such parent or guardian 
to fill his lap with grain, which an ass is sent to eat up. These observ- 
ances ensure the propitious direction of Bowannee, so that only a very 
few pustules make their appearance, nor does any one die under this 
process.” Thus far did I learn from Alep Choby. 
“Upon referring on this subject to a native well-versed in the learn- 
ing and customs of the Hindoos, he told me that the practice thus de- 
scribed by Choby was not general among them, but confined to those 
who were attached to the worship of Bowannee, and adored her with 
implicit faith; and upon my asking this person whether he was aware 
how the matter of the pustule got from the cow, and whether all cows 
had such pustules, or only those of certain description, he answered 
that on these points he possessed no information, but had certainly un- 
derstood the cows had those pustules break out on them, and from the 
matter thereof children were infected, acknowledging, however, that 
he spoke not this from ocular knowledge, but from report.” 
Fully appreciating the delicate task assigned them, and believing that 
it is expected of them to remove rather than add to the confusion 
already existing in the public mind upon this subject, your committee ON VACCINATION. 
7 
deem it proper to avoid as far as possible the introduction of contro- 
verted topics, as well as any individual views they may hold in the 
premises. 
In the consideration of a subject embracing such a variety of topics, 
the majority of which are but imperfectly understood by the masses, your 
committee deem it essential to offer a brief description of the phenomena 
of the perfect and successful vaccine vesicle. When vaccination has been 
successfully performed on a healthy child, the incision may be felt ele- 
vated on the second day, and, on the third, if examined with a magni- 
fying glass, appears surrounded by a slight efflorescence. On the fifth 
day a distinct vesicle is formed, having an elevated edge and depressed 
center. On the eighth day it appears distended, with a clear lymph. 
The vesicle, on this, its day of greatest perfection, is circular, and either 
pearl-colored or slightly yellow. In its form and structure it resemble* 
the pustule of small-pox. The margin is turgid, firm, shining, and 
wheel-shaped. It is composed of a number of cells, by the walls and 
floor of which the specific matter of the disease is secreted. On the even- 
ing of the eighth day an inflamed ring or areola begins to form around 
the base of the vesicle, which continues to increase during the two fol- 
lowing days. This areola is of a circular form, and its diameter ex- 
tends from one to three inches. When at its hight, on the tenth day, 
there is considerable hardness and swelling of the subjacent cellular 
membrane. On the eleventh day the areola begins to subside, leaving, 
as it fades, two or three concentric circles of a bluish tinge. The vesicle 
before this has burst, and its surface acquired a brown color. The 
lymph which remains becomes opaque, and gradually concretes, so that 
about the end of the second week the vesicle is converted into a hard 
round scab of a reddish brown color. This scab contracts, dries, black- 
ens, and about the twenty-first day Tails off*, leaving a cicatrix, which 
is permanent in after life, circular, somewhat depressed, striated, and 
indented with more or less pits, corresponding to the number of cells of 
which the vesicle had been composed. 
The constitution generally sympathizes about the seventh or eighth 
day. The child is restless and hot, and the bowels are more or less 
disordered. This commonly subsides in two or three days. Many chil- 
dren pass through the disorder without the slightest indication of con- 
stitutional disturbance, which is not to be looked upon as by any means 
essential to the success of the vaccine process. About the tenth day a 8 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
papulous eruption of a lichenous character frequently shows itself on the 
extremities, and sometimes extends to the body. It continues for a 
week, and occasionally lasts after the scab has fallen off. This vaccine 
lichen is chiefly met with in children of full habit, where numerous 
vesicles had been raised on the arm, which discharge freely. It is an 
accidental occurrence, which, like the constitutional irritation, indi- 
cates a full effect upon the system, but is not deemed requisite to 
insure it. 
Vaccination in the adult exhibits the same succession of phenomena. 
The vesicles, however, are thinner and more easily ruptured. The 
lymph is usually of a yellowish tinge, and the areola is more extensive. 
The glands of the axilla, too, frequently swell, which is rarely observed 
in children. Constitutional irritation commonly runs higher. 
Believing that they have presented sufficient phenomena of successful 
vaccination to enable an observant community to recognize its genuine- 
ness, your committee proceed to the consideration of the irregular and 
unsuccessful vaccine vesicle. Imperfect vaccination is not characterized 
by any uniform sign or criterion, but exhibits in different cases different 
appearances, such as pustules, ulcerations, scales, and irregular vesicles. 
The most common form of irregular vesicles is marked at its commence- 
ment by very troublesome itching ; so great, as to provoke scratching 
or rubbing, to which the subsequent appearances are generally, but 
most unfairly, attributed. The vesicle throws out a premature efflores- 
cence, and advances too rapidly, so that on the fifth day it has attained 
its height, wrhen it will be found raised on a hard, inflamed base. It is 
acuminated or conoidal, and gives ver}7 much the appearance of an or- 
dinary festering sore. It is generally of a straw color, and contains, in- 
stead of clear, transparent lymph, opaque matter or pus. The succeed- 
ing scab is small, of an amber color, and drops off by the tenth day. 
In pursuance of the original design of this paper, your committee 
may briefly allude to some of the prevailing prejudices or distrusts in 
the public mind with regard to the subject under consideration. 
The most reasonable of these is, perhaps, the familiar fact of failure 
in the successful performance of an operation requisite to the production 
of a disease rendering small-pox nugatory. This is a matter of grave 
import—not only to the philosopher and the community at large, but 
to the physician also, and, as such, demands a careful and unbiased 
elucidation. The attention of Dr. Jenner was early directed to inves- 
tigate the impediments to perfect vaccination, and the circumstances ON VACCINATION. 
9 
which interfered with its protection. He contended that vaccine virus, 
originally good, might become, from a variety of causes, so deterio- 
rated in quality as to produce a local disease, but no such constitutional 
influence as is necessary to insure protection against small-pox. To- 
wards the close of his life, Dr. Jenner was of opinion that pre-occupa- 
tion of the skin was the grand impediment to the success of a vaccine 
vesicle. A popular belief with the public is, that the vaccine virus 
deteriorates by passing through a succession of human bodies. This 
theory was never countenanced by Dr. Jenner. The elevation and 
pearl-like aspect of the vesicle of the present day, the extent and shape 
of the areola, the color and form of the resulting scab, all correspond 
precisely with the earliest delineations and descriptions of Dr. Jenner. 
Your committee are not acquainted with anything that can possibly 
interrupt or prevent the constitutional operation of the vaccine virus 
in a susceptible subject, excepting a morbid state or action of the system, 
or constitutional excitement inimical to vaccine disease. 
Perhaps the strongest prejudice to be combatted in the minds of the 
people arises from an impression of the existence of a spurious vaccine 
matter and a spurious vaccine disease. This doctrine may be traced to 
the written and oral opinions of the earliest vaccinators, who did not 
discriminate between an imperfect and defective operation of the system 
and a supposed specific matter which has since been thought capable of 
producing a specific spurious disease. Great stress has been laid upon 
this subject, without offering the least direct or convincing proof of the 
reality or existence of such an article as spurious cow-pock matter. 
From whence does it proceed, and where shall we search for it? Does 
it originate in the cow, and is it thence perpetuated by inoculating 
the human body—or is it spontaneously generated in man ? Is it du- 
rable, ephemeral, or variable ? By what regular characters can it be 
detected, judged of, and described ? And why, if it be a specific con- 
tagion, does it occasionally arise from the use of genuine cow-pock mat- 
ter ? It appears somewhat remarkable that many of these points have 
hitherto been only carelessly adverted to by persons who have endeav- 
ored to engage the sanction of the public in instituting a vaccine estab- 
lishment, sounding the alarm and danger of a spurious matter, and. as- 
cribing the want of success in vaccinating to the use of it. 
Having alluded to the deficiency of proof respecting the existence 
of a specific spurious vaccine virus, your committee would not be at a 
loss to substitute opinions and inferences on this subject, apparently 10 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
more consistent with facts and practical observation, to account for the 
irregularities or deviations which have been construed into marks of a 
spurious disease. They, however, do not think it proper at present 
to do so. 
The next error of sufficient gravity to demand your consideration is 
a conviction on the part of the more intelligent portion of the com- 
munity that vaccination is a prolific source of cutaneous disease. 
On the subject of eruptive diseases no authority ever stood higher 
than Dr. Willan, who has said, after the most careful examination, 
that no new disorders have appeared since the discovery of kine-pock; 
that he has investigated many cases that were attributed to kine-pock, 
but found diseases well-known and described a thousand years ago, 
common diseases of the skin, having no connection whatever with vac- 
cination. The number of diseases of the skin, instead of increasing, 
has diminished since the introduction of this preventive, in proof of 
which facts were adduced by Dr. Willan and others, who assert that 
vaccination has a decided advantage over small-pox, measles, and scarlet 
fever in not exciting other diseases. Dr. T. S. Bell, in a paper pub- 
lished in the third series, seventh volume of the Western Journal of 
Medicine and Surgery, says: “Nor is there any reason for believing 
that a vaccine scab can communicate any other disease than the cow- 
pock, even if taken from children laboring under scarlet fever, measles, 
whooping-cough, scrofula, or anything of the kind. Physicians are 
often charged with giving scrofula to children by vaccinating them with 
matter from scrofulous children. It would be as rational to charge any 
other subsequent event of a child’s life to the same cause.” 
Believing that they have impartially set forth the more prominent 
prejudices of that class in whose behalf this effort is instituted, your 
committee beg your consideration of a class holding a more intimate 
relation to the cause we advocate—allusion is made to those already 
vaccinated. Are they protected? The Jennerian doctrine so often 
quoted, “That when once the human frame ha3 felt the full force of 
genuine cow-pock it wa3 never afterwards assailable by small-pox, es- 
tablishes the conclusion that the majority undoubtedly are.” But the 
question still recurs: What is the law which regulates the subsequent 
liability to small-pox, when the vaccine process has been impe»/ec% 
gone through, and when, from some peculiarity of habit, the system 
receives only a portion of that salutary influence which cow-pock is ca- 
pable of imparting. ON VACCINATION. 
11 
Dr. Jenner held that under such circumstances “ small-pox would 
recur, and that the degree in which its phenomena were modified was 
proportioned to the degree of perfection which the vaccine vesicle as- 
sumed during its development.” 
Dr. Vvillan holds the same view in regard to the permanency of vac- 
cination when the process is perfect. 
The medical department of the English Privy Council is of opinion 
that by early vaccination, if thoroughly performed and successful, 
most people are completely insured for their whole lives against small- 
pox. If, however, this early vaccination is imperfectly performed, or 
from any other cause unsuccessful, the protection is much less satisfac- 
tory. In consequence of imperfect vaccination, the population always 
contains very many persons who, though nominally vaccinated, and 
believing themselves secure, are really liable to infection. The au- 
thority above quoted holds that the best infantile vaccination sometimes 
loses more or less of its efficacy in process of time, and recommend, that 
all persons who have been vaccinated in infancy should, as they ap- 
proach adult life, be revaccinated, which, if successfully performed, 
does not require repetition; in proof of which it is said that the re-vac- 
cination to which nurses of small-pox hospitals in England invariably 
submit is a perfect protection. 
Whatever difficulty there may be in determining the exact number 
in which vaccination failed to impart perfect and permanent protection, 
it is clear that vaccine failures are sufficiently numerous to arouse pub- 
lic attention, if not disgust. 
Your committee are of opinion that this disgust and these failures 
will continue so long as this simple operation (elevated into a science by 
its immortal founder) is entrusted to the gebrueften hebmaman and bar- 
ber, instead of the observant, pains-taking physician. 
Should we, therefore, be surprised at the growing distrust in the pub- 
lic mind as to the protection offered by vaccination ? 
The physician should feel it indispensably necessary to conduct the 
process of vaccination with the greatest attention, through all its stages, 
and until its complete operation upon the system has taken place, and 
he should ever be ready to repeat the process, if any irregularity or de- 
ficiency in the first shall have been noticed. 
It may be suggested, for the proper discharge of this important 
duty—which should always (if practicable) be entrusted to the respon- 
sibility of the physician—that a regular period of attendance should 12 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON VACCINATION. 
be observed throughout the whole course of the disease—and especially 
on the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth days—and lastly, that the uner- 
ring test proposed by Bryce (which consists in performing a second vac- 
cination on the fifth or sixth day after the first) should be resorted to 
in case of doubt or necessity. 
Your committee have endeavored to present, from the limited ma- 
terial within their reach, such facts as clearly elucidate the points to 
which they have directed their efforts, and respectfully submit them for 
your deliberate consideration, hoping they may convince your honora- 
ble body of the urgent necessity of the adoption of legislative measures 
requiring their observance. 
Respectfully, 
J. WOOD CRAWFORD, Chairman. REPORT 
OF 
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SEWERAGE. 
At a regular meeting of the Board of Health, Dr. J. J. O’Rielly offered 
the following: 
Whereas: Many fatal cases of Typhoid Fever have been lately reported, 
which were attributed to imperfect connections between dwellings and sew- 
ers, and the Council being about to order pavement sewers on some of our 
streets, we think it becomes this Board to enquire into the best mode of sew- 
erage connection and ventilation; therefore, be it 
Resolved, That Dr. Bell, Dr. Rogers, and the City Engineer be appointed 
a special committee to examine into this question and report immediately to 
this Board. 
To the Honorable Board of Health of the City of Louisville : 
Gentlemen—The question thus submitted to your committee is one 
of the most important that can engage the attention of the people of 
Louisville. It comes home, directly or indirectly, to every inhabitant 
of the city. It addresses itself to the highest interests of every one; it 
should take a firm hold on every understanding. The investigation of 
it demands a thorough knowledge of the entirety of all the elements of 
the subject, because a single mistake may vitiate the force even of 
partial truths that may be mixed up with the mistake. The time has 
passed, we hope forever, when assertion was taken for knowledge; 
when an authoritative name gave currency to the weavings of the 
imagination. We approach the investigation of this momentous ques- 
tion in that spirit of scientific inquiry which has been well-portrayed by 
a master as the armory of the man of science. “He has no favorite 
theories to which he is wedded; no cherished traditions which he feels 
himself bound to sustain; no personal biases to which the evidences of 
the senses must yield ; no foregone conclusions which are permitted to 
vitiate the exactness of investigation. Truth is the fair ideal of all in- 
tellectual endeavor; the supreme object of all scientific inquiry; the 
essential element of all human progress. He who does not make it 14 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
paramount in the pursuit of knowledge is a charlatan, an imposter, a 
swindler, no matter by what dignified titles he is called. He who sub- 
stitutes his own fancies, or his own interests, or his own prejudices, for 
the majesty of truth, defiles the temple of the soul, and offers to the 
Lord the unclean sacrifice of a lie.” 
The department of knowledge embraced in the subject before us is 
called hygiene. It is very properly divided into public and private 
hygiene, and both divisions are involved in the inquiry submitted to 
your committee. They are, comparatively, of very recent birth, for it 
is very certain that they did not take rank as a comprehensive and ex- 
act science earlier than 1844. Those who are familiar with the medical 
reputation of Dr. J. A. Paris, of London, and with the legal eminence 
of J. S. M. Fonblanque, barrister at law, will readily recognize that 
they were thorough masters of their respective professions, but their 
great work, very great in its day, on medical jurisprudence, the result 
of their joint labors, published in 1823, betrays an ignorance, a nar- 
rowness of domain, a want of grasp, and a degree of uncertainty, in 
comparison with that which the world has attained since 1841, that 
unfits it now for teaching even the alphabet of hygienic science. In 
1844 the pressure of extensive avoidable sickness, and the enormity of 
a death-rate that was known to be unnecessary and preventable, aroused 
tlie potent powers of parliaments and of empires, and the accumula- 
tions of hygienic knowledge speedily created a hygienic science that 
demanded a recognized place among the necessary powers of govern- 
ments. There is not a European power that has not armed itself 
for the welfare of its people with all the potencies of a hygienic de- 
partment, through which all that can be done is done for preventing 
avoidable sickness and avoidable death. In this country these great 
measures for the public welfare are almost totally neglected by State 
governments ; as far as they are used, they owe their restricted, feeble 
powers to the flickering and uncertain manifestations and misgivings of 
municipal regulations. Were it not for the animus of the medical 
mind of the country, that will not silently look on preventable evils of 
this description, the public and private suffering would be almost im- 
measurable. 
SEWERAGE HISTORY. 
The terrible disasters of many centuries, in the experience of deso- 
lating pestilence in the shape of black-death, sweating-sickness, the 
THE ABSENCE OF VENTILATION. ON SEWERAGE. 
15 
plague, and typhus fever, which often decimated empires and almost 
depopulated large cities, awakened attention finally to the necessities of 
improved dwellings, of drainage and ventilation; but even these cura- 
tive means, when imperfectly or improperly done, had their manifold 
evils. London spent many millions of dollars on a sewerage system 
that transferred evils from one point to another, and carried disasters 
to parts that were previously free from them. This should awaken the 
attention of the people of Louisville. So far as mere sewerage is con- 
cerned, this city is well-equipped in all those portions that are sewered, 
and the drainage is successfully accomplished. But is this all that is to 
be done ? If we stop at this a serious battle against disease and death 
begins at this very point. Drainage may materially arrest the ravages 
of consumption; but what does the community gain if typhoidal dis- 
eases are distributed by the gases of the drains ? That this can be done, 
that it is done, stands upon irrefutable testimony given at numerous 
points of observation. A great many imperfectly informed persons 
suppose that if the sewer has a good outfall, if its contents flow freely, 
and if flushing of water is attended to, all is well. A more fatal error 
can scarcely be conceived. The flushings of traps and drains with water 
very frequently produce the very evils they are intended to prevent. 
They let loose deleterious gases that were imprisoned, and invite them 
from the sewer into the dwelling. Until we learn to do what is at pres- 
ent impossible, how to make two different things occupy the same place 
at the same moment, it will be beyond human power to prevent the 
evil of which we speak. Whoever may succeed in filling a bottle at 
the same moment with its full measure of each, air and water, may con- 
sider that he has made progress toward curing one of the most urgent 
of the calamities of sewerage. 
In Dombey and Son, one of the most masterly of the works of Mr. 
Dickens, he says: “ Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity 
that is poisonous to health and life, and have every sense, conferred on 
our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened, and disgusted, 
and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. 
Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant or flower, or wholesome 
weed, that, set in this fetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its 
little leaves forth to the sun as God designed it.” It is difficult to con- 
ceive of the magnitude of the evils that would up in a well-sewered 
AUTHORITIES ON FRESH AIR. 16 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
city without perfect sewer ventilation, but for the growth of plants, 
flowers, and wholesome weeds. They are the scavengers of the air, 
and, when abundant, they do their work on some of the gases most 
effectually. Any one may see this effect on carbonic acid gas by taking 
a clean bottle of clear water and breathing into it a short time. The 
water becomes milky in its hue from the presence of carbonic acid gas. 
Put a sprig of living mint into the bottle, cork it up, and the mint 
speedily cleanses the water and restores its clearness. A lustration of 
air, similarly contaminated, goes on constantly where accessible vege- 
table life grows abundantly. 
Mr. Dickens, in Dombey & Son, says further: “Those who study 
the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health of mac, 
tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were pal- 
pable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud 
above such haunts,” as those described above, “and rolling slowly on 
to corrupt the better portions of a town.” In the open air the laws of 
elasticity and diffusibility of gases are something of a safeguard against 
this rolling, but what is to be done when sewers for drainage are canals 
for carrying “noxious particles that rise from vitiated air,” and which 
force themselves through the house drainage pipes into the rooms of 
the finest dwellings of the city, and find egress into the streets from 
every sewer-opening and crack? There are devices that are well 
named traps, that are theoretically supposed to catch and hold in water 
noxious gases rising from the sewer. There is no truth in the theory. 
The water in the trap soon becomes surcharged with the gases, and 
gases easily escape through the water. If the water in the trap is 
flushed with fresh water, imprisoned gases escape past the water, and 
enter the house, or contaminate the outside air. As far as these de- 
vices catch and hold the understanding in the error we have named, 
they are indubitably entitled to the name of traps. There are few 
catch-basins that are entitled to confidence. The very best devices of 
this kind are liable, very liable, to get out of order, according to the 
testimony of all European engineers who have qualified themselves to 
speak on this subject; for, in order to be qualified to speak about it, an 
engineer must be chemist enough to know whether gases escape from 
sewers and drain-pipes or not, and he must be intelligent as to their 
effects on human beings when they do escape. James Lovegrove, Esq., 
associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, England, in a paper 
read before the Society of Arts, is very emphatic on portions of this ON SEWERAGE. 
17 
great subject. He says “ he was led to attach considerable importance 
to the subject of sewer ventilation in consequence of having, in many 
instances, observed in houses, where sanitary works had been carried out, 
a larger amount of effluvia after the execution of drainage works than 
existed before.” Mr. Lovegrove says: “Twenty different forms of 
traps in general use are all dependent on being constantly charged with 
water, and may be easily proved to be inefficient for the purposes for 
which they were designed, and for these reasons should be condemned.” 
Traps that are dependent on a film of water should not be relied upon 
too confidently; the water may evaporate, or disappear from other 
causes, and then the trap becomes a flue for drawing the pernicious 
gase3 of the sewer or water-closet into the house. Mr. Lovegrove, 
after mentioning a number of drains becoming untrapped in hospitals, 
residences, &c., gives the following instructive case, which should speak 
forcibly on this whole question: “In a public hospital, near Portman 
Square, a brick drain, in direct connection with the sewer,"passed sewer 
air inwards so strongly as to blow out the flame of a candle. This drain 
continued through the building, and received in its way the raised sink- 
inlets, also the drainage from the lavatories, sinks, and water-closets on 
the upper floor. In this case, when water was passed from one or the 
other of the inlets, it earned the contained air first to press against the water 
in the inlet water-traps, and, on reaction, to draw off sufficient water to 
untrap the inlet. Thus, through one or other of the inlets, air was 
generally escaping into the house.” The italics are ours. 
In some drains, Mr. Lovegrove says, “the more water that is 
thrown into (them), the more effluvia will escape.- The slimy coating, 
also, of the interior of a long length of drain is, of itself, sufficient to 
contaminate the contained air, no matter what fall the drain may have. 
In the methods just described, the one idea has been an unsuccessful 
endeavor to stop the opening from which the smell escaped, without in- 
quiring if this or that opening is stopped what will become of the foul 
air, what new state of things is produced, and what are the influences 
actually at work. Certain it is, that the mode generally adopted of 
trapping inlet-drains favors the escape of sewer air into the houses.” 
ENGLISH HORRORS. 
A recent case of sickness and threatened death in England has roused 
the attention of the civilized world to this subject. The sickness of the 
Prince of Wales was caused by ill-ventilated sewerage, by which the 
noxious gases escaped through the drains into the houses, and the death of 18 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
Prince Albert, his father, was due to the same cause. Londesborough 
Lodge, the residence of the Prince of Wales, was thoroughly drained 
and well supplied with “ traps.” But the sewers were not properly 
ventilated, and the mind of England has awakened to the fact that 
there is scarcely a sewer in England that is ventilated for safety. Sid- 
ney Smith said that the public would never rouse up to the disasters of 
railroad traveling until a Bishop was mangled, and now the slumbers 
of the empire have been broken by the disaster of the Prince of Wales, 
traceable to the great evil of badly ventilated sewers. There is scarcely 
a single house in England, connected with sewers, that is guarded 
against the ingress of noxious exhalations from the sewers. We do not 
know of a dwelling-house in Louisville thus connected that is safe from 
such destructive visitations as typhoid fever and kindred types of dis- 
ease. The investigations of the masters of sanitary science in England 
satisfactorily show that the dwellers in houses connected with im- 
properly ventilated sewers, sleep among agencies that may at any time 
burst forth with destructive powers, and many notable occurrences are 
recorded in which these evils manifested themselves unexpectedly and 
disastrously. The ravages of typhoid fever and kindred evils have 
been mapped along unventilated sewers connected with the dwellings 
of the sufferers. In a very able paper on “ The Study of Sociology,” 
in the Popular Science Monthly, Herbert Spencer, one of the great 
thinkers of the age, gives specimens of the mode in which great prob- 
lems are ignorantly managed. In alluding to the disasters at Londes- 
borough Lodge, Mr. Spencer says: “ Why did those in authority allow 
such defective sanitary arrangements ? was everywhere asked after the 
fever at Lord Londesborough’s, and this question you heard repeated 
regardless of the fact that sanitary arrangements, having such results 
in this and other cases, were themselves the outcome of appointed sani- 
tary administrations—regardless of the fact that the authorized system 
had itself been the means of introducing foul gases into houses.” In a 
note Mr. Spencer says: “Of various testimonies to this, one of the 
most striking was that given by Mr. Charles Mays, M. B., of New Col- 
lege, Oxford, who, having had to examine the drainage of Windsor, 
found that, in a previous visitation of typhoid fever, the poorest and 
lowest part of the town had entirely escaped, while the epidemic had 
been very fatal in good houses. The difference was this, that, while 
the better houses were all connected with the sewers, the poor part of ON SEWERAGE. 
19 
the town had no drains, but made use of cesspools in the garden. And 
this is by no means an isolated instance.” 
louisville’s neglect. 
There are two truths of the greatest gravity on this subject that are 
incontrovertible. They are, first, that in such connections as we have 
described, the escape of poisonous exhalations into dwellings is a cer- 
tainty; second, that they are at all times inimical to health, and may 
at any time be inimical to life. Are positive, absolute evils of this 
kind to be neglected ? Among the valuable services rendered to this 
city by Dr. Henry M. Bullitt, while performing the duties of Health 
Officer, were his earnest efforts to provide safeguards against the poi- 
sonous breath of open-mouthed sewers. Had his warnings and ad- 
monitions been properly heeded, the present demands for security 
against these evils would be comparatively trivial. Neglect has piled 
these imperative demands mountain high. The apparatus for breath- 
ing is the chief organization for the perfection of every vital force. 
This apparatus is not only very delicate about its food, but is very much 
more fastidious about the character of its supplies than the digestive 
apparatus. Professor Benjamin Silliman says, in his Principles of 
Physics: “If the air of a crowded apartment is conducted through 
water, so much animal matter is collected in the water as to occasion a 
speedy putrefactive fermentation, with a disgusting odor. The blast of 
air escaping from the upper ventilator of a crowded assembly room is 
so oppressive as to produce immediately the most distressing symp- 
toms.” Suppose this air is not carried off; that it does not escape 
through an upper ventilator, but is repeatedly breathed, can it fail to 
be most pernicious to health ? Alas, that people should have a vast 
deal to learn about as universal a usage as breathing. Professor Silli- 
man continues: “ While we instinctively shun all contact with unclean 
persons, and what we call dirt, even refusing a cup that has pressed the 
lips of another, and esteem all water not transparent as foul, it is mar- 
velous with what thoughtlessness we resort to crowded and ill-ventilated 
public places, and drink in the subtle poison exhaled from the lungs, 
skin, and clothing of every individual in the assembly. Especially 
when we remember that the digestive apparatus can select and assimi- 
late nutriment from food of a questionable quality, the lungs have no 
such power of selection, and can discharge their duty to the consti- 
tution only by a full supply of pure air. If the transparency of air 20 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
was troubled by exhalations of the lungs as water is by the washings 
of the body, no argument would be needed to secure attention to the 
importance Qf ventilation; and yet it is quite true that the bodily 
health suffers more from inhaling effete air than it could from drinking 
the wash alluded to.” We wish to impress this so that it may not 
easily be effaced from the memory. Dr. Guy, in his lectures in King’s 
College, on public health, quotes Fletcher as stating that “he had been 
in a Channel cruiser when the water for above a week was more fetid 
than the very worst bilge-water,” so that the men were “ obliged to sup- 
press their sense of smelling ” when they used it; and yet “their health 
was never better.” Fletcher adds “ that his ship, the Swallow, was or- 
dered three times up the Ganges in the very worst season ; when the 
thermometer stood at 89°, when an exposure for a few minutes upon 
deck wetted them to the skin ; when the dead bodies floated on the 
stream in such numbers that it was difficult to make a passage among 
them; and yet on all these occasions the vessel left the river without 
losing a man.” The lungs are not, in the least degree, tolerant of 
aberrations from the purity of their supplies. Professor Silliman says : 
“Headache, languor, uneasy respiration, nausea, faintness, and syncope 
are the results which always follow from breathing air contaminated 
with these poisonous exhalations” (carbonic acid gas), “even in very 
moderate quantity. Even two per cent, of carbonic acid, derived from 
breathing or combustion, may produce all the symptoms above descri- 
bed.” Think of the enormous percentage of accumulated sewer exha- 
lations that may suddenly find their way into dwellings, the evils of 
which must be far beyond those arising from two per cent, of carbonic 
acid. 
AUTHORITY AGAIN. 
In the March number of the Manufacturer and Builder we find such 
an excellent and perfectly correct description of the evil which we wish 
to impress on the Board of Health and the active attention of the peo- 
ple of Louisville, that we make full quotations from it. That periodi- 
cal says: 
“ The possibility of our residences becoming infected through exha- 
lations from sewers is a fact which engineers and builders seem to en- 
tirely overlook. While we are discussing the best means of discharg- 
ing and employing our solid sewage at the outfalls, we are thought 
lessly allowing the most insidious, subtlest part of the poison of the ON SEWERAGE. 
21 
gaseous form of it to enter unchecked into our very dwellings. That 
the sewage begins to give off gases as soon as it enters the drain our 
builders appear to entirely ignore. Its composition begins to be re- 
solved into its elements, gases of small specific gravity become liber- 
ated, and the liquid and solid portions roll to the lowest point of the 
drain. These light gases, among which is sulphuretted hydrogen—one 
of the most deadly—naturally rise to the highest points of the drain, 
and these points are the soil-pans of water-closets and the sinks. The 
Building News, in an exhaustive paper on the subject, says: 
“ Now, let it be considered that two bodies cannot occupy the same 
space at the same time. Supposing all these traps to be perfect in con- 
struction and always charged with water, the action is this: that when 
water is poured down a sink or a water-closet or from any other source, 
a volume of air—which in this case is loaded with seWer gases—must 
be displaced equal in volume to the quantity of water delivered from 
the drain. The quantity of water daily delivered into the house drains 
is about five cubic feet for every individual inhabitant. In the night 
time very little sewage flows down the drains, the drains being then 
chiefly occupied by air more or less loaded with the gases derived from 
the decomposition of the sewage. As soon as people become active of 
a morning, and begin to deliver water into the drains, the gases within 
them—always supposing the most favorable circumstances of the traps 
being perfect—become displaced by the more powerful action of the 
liquid, and again, supposing the traps to be perfect, they become com- 
pressed ; but it is a law of nature that all elastic bodies, such as these 
gases, re-act with a force equal to that by which they have been com- 
pressed. The cubical capacity of the drains and sewers is constant, but 
the quantity of sewage flowing down them varies from hour to hour of 
the day. The variation is so great that it is found that one-half of the 
whole quantity of sewage due to the twenty-four hours runs off in from 
six to eight hours, and at certain times as much as three times the aver- 
age hourly flow takes place. These fluctuations in the quantities of 
sewage cause constant compression and expansion of the gases in the 
drains. Now, water does not afford a complete block to the passage 
of sewer gases; it quickly absorbs them, and when the water has be- 
come saturated with them a slight increase of elastic force on one side 
of a trap is sufficient to disturb the equilibrium, and cause the gases to 
rise into the house on the other side. This action takes place when 
the traps are in the most perfect condition ; when imperfect, it is need- 
less to point out how readily sewer gas passes through them. 22 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
“ One or two imperfect water-traps are the only safeguards against 
the entrance of the deleterious gas, and these are too frequently worth- 
less, either on account of an undue force of the ascending gas, or be- 
cause of the thin layer of water that supervenes in the traps. In deal- 
ing with a remedy for the existing evil, the question arises, can we dis- 
pense with the evil altogether by removing the source of it? This may 
be done. 1st. By dispensing with indoor closets altogether. 2d. By 
using earth closets. 3d. By adopting some means of cutting off or dis- 
connecting the injurious means of the connection of the sewage effluvia 
and the house through the soil-pipe. The impracticability of adopting 
either of the former plans in a large town under present arrangements 
is too obvious to require attention. The remedy must be applicable, if 
possible, to existing houses, to be of any great immediate value. The 
disconnection of the closet or sink and sewer in any manner to prevent 
the sewage gases, always light and therefore ascending, from entering 
the house, is the problem to be solved. This may practically be effec- 
ted by vent-shafts or air-pipes, carried from the highest points of the 
traps or soil-pipes, either through a fire-flue or at the side of one above 
the roofs, so that the gaseous products should be carried away innocu- 
ously. The provision for the gaseous matter is not dreampt of in our 
present unscientific system; the gases are thus virtually compelled to 
escape through any unguarded channel or inefficient trap whenever the 
descent of the solid matter or the downward rush of water compresses 
it or displaces its natural volume. Ordinarily, such safety-room or 
vents may be served by the length of soil-pipe ; but whenever this gas 
is incompressible, by reason of the limited capacity of the drains or 
pipes, the traps are useless, and the gas finds its liberty through our 
closet-pans or up our sinks. Not only should the closet of every house 
be provided with a vent-tube of sufficient size, but the same provision 
should in all cases be made at the entrance of the sewer, or the sewer 
itself be ventilated at proper intervals by lofty shafts, so that the escape 
of this gas may be rendered easy under peculiar pressures or condi- 
tions, and at the same time relieve other houses. In the country, where 
cesspools are used, they should have such tubes carried up from them 
at the side of trunks of trees, etc. By this plan the descent of the 
drainage matter from the house could not be checked by the sewage 
gas, the latter being driven before it, instead of finding a passage 
through the descending or outrunning matter. There is a difficulty 
often in carrying a vent or air tube up a chimney, as fire-flues are' not ON SEWERAGE. 
23 
often near water-closets. In these cases it would be better to place the 
soil-pipes outside of the house if possible, its highest point being ven- 
tilated in the above manner, in a line continuous with it, the closet- 
trap inlet being introduced through an intermediate trough exposed to 
the air. By this means the ascending sewage gas would naturally take 
its straightest upward course, the closet-matter and flushing of every 
action of the water-valve helping to drive the gas up its appointed 
channel, instead of through an imperfect water-trap. 
“The main sewers should, on no account, have those objectionable 
and offensive open gratings adopted in many places in towns, which can 
not be sufficiently condemned, for though it may be urged that offen- 
sive gas passes off in such small quantities and is so readily diffused 
that it can scarcely be considered injurious, this is a fallacy, as any por- 
tion of it is injurious, and demands that it should be wholly removed 
to the region of the air where it can do no harm. The same scientific 
authority, Dr. H. Clark, F. S. A., of Russell Square, further says: 
‘ The use of vent-tubes is no new idea, but they promise adequate secu- 
rity against upward pressure of the gas, the drains being well-trapped 
in all other respects: 1st, by having a deep water trap at the outlet and 
close valves to the closets; these, as they now exist, have generally a 
very imperfect water-valve, easily overcome by any accidental upward 
pressure, and the pan, having usually a side tube to allow any overflow 
of water to pass away through the perforation at the upper part of the 
pan, affords also a free ingress of' gaseous matter when the pressure is 
sufficient to overcome the water in the bend of the pan-shaft.’ In- 
stead of the loose pan or dish at the bottom of the ordinary pans, there 
should be an accurately fitting flap to retain sufficient water above it; 
a similar expedient is recommended in regard to waste-pipes, which 
should have metal valves at their inlets to soil-pipes; these valves, be- 
ing counterpoised and holding just sufficient water to keep the ordinary 
soil-pipe connection with the trap, provide for only one condition, the 
outlet of the matter, and every time this takes place a portion of gas is 
forced aside or comes into collision, instead of having another and dis- 
tinct passage provided. By the means here proposed, or a similar ar- 
rangement, (by which the closet-matter and gas are both provided for 
without interfering with each other), all new closets, and even the old 
ones, may be constructed free from the errors that have lately been il- 
lustrated with such import. 
“ It can not be supposed that a thin layer of water in a trap can ef- 24 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
fectually prevent noxious smells from entering a house, for liquids ab- 
sorb gases, and the water in our closets and drain-traps is often satu- 
rated with the poisonous gas to such an extent that the air becomes 
contaminated by it. This is another reason why an improved sort of 
trap or valve is imperatively required in the existing arrangements. 
“It is probable that very few of our most intelligent citizens have 
ever reflected upon the possible distribution of deadly poison among the 
inmates of their dwellings and even their palatial residences from the 
common drain of the whole city population. 
“ It has generally been supposed that when the streets are kept clean 
and the sewers in good order, municipal prudence has nothing more to 
do. It is very certain that in the present atmospheric condition of our 
Eastern cities the epidemics of the season will make rapid strides with- 
out these sanitary precautions. But we need to look further. We 
have shown very clearly that the foul and disease-ladened air of the 
public sewer can and does obtain admission into our chambers through 
the soil-pipe, the bath outlet-pipes, and the pipes which connect our 
bath-rooms with the subterranean drain. 
“ It is very clear, too, that there must be a constant pressure of the 
sewer-air on the pan or trap of the closet, which must inevitably lead 
to an infiltration of the poisonous vapor into the house. If we suppose 
that the excremental matter which passes through the sewer in epi- 
demic seasons is capable of conveying disease, as we know it is, the 
most cleanly and elegant mansions on our finest avenues, and even our 
sumptuous suburban villas, are seen to be in direct communication with 
the most filthy and putrescent nests of disease in the worst tenement 
houses. 
“The open pipes in the houses (which are also introduced into every 
bed room), in performing their functions in removing waste water, are 
so many vents for the deadliest vapors confined in the sewerage. The 
foul air returns and insinuates itself into our houses by more than one 
process. A wind pressure, exerted on the open mouth of the sewer at 
a great distance from the house, or such a pressure on any street corner 
sewer opening, at once sends the infectious miasm into the internal at- 
mosphere of our dwellings. The increase of the specific gravity of the 
external atmosphere also forces the sewer air into our nostrils. Even 
the draft of chimneys in a tight building, and especially when it is 
closed up at night, must be fed and kept up partly through the nume- 
rous small pipes which connect with the general sewer drain. ON SEWERAGE. 
25 
“ As our London contemporary, Nature, suggests, the pneumatics of 
the private dwellings are quite as important as the hydraulics, and the 
dozen or more small pipes of sinks, baths, etc., should every one be 
made to empty, not directly into the sewer, but should be collected and 
£ allowed to discharge their contents into the open air over a trap com- 
municating with the house-drain, so that reflux of sewer gas into the 
house would be simply impossible.’ 
“We regard this suggestion as of unspeakable importance in the 
technical details of house-building, and especially of all flats, tenement 
houses, and hotels. A man’s home is of more consequence to him than 
the whole outside world, and if our modern science is worth anything 
it should bring itself to our hearths and firesides. The London Times 
well says of this matter: ‘ What a satire on the universal diffusion of 
knowledge, on the lectures of the Royal Society, on hundreds of scien- 
tific and educational institutions, and on all our new inventions and dis- 
coveries ! Here is the simplest thing in the whole world, which wanted 
only common sense, and nobody seemed to have thought of it—nay, 
we are not sure that our architects and builders will be thinking of it 
next year. It is far too simple and too deadly an affair.’ ” 
The fact cannot be too thoroughly engraved upon the memory of the 
people, that while thorough drainage of human habitations is an essen- 
tial element of health, the proper ventilation of sewers and house- 
draining pipes is quite as absolute in its exactions for health and secu- 
rity as drainage of the most perfect description. The sciences devoted 
to these two agencies, that are vital to the public welfare, are quite dis- 
tinct in their character. That department of civil engineering which 
provides for drainage is an old science. Under Augustus Caesar the 
sewerage of the Pontine marshes near Rome made the Carapagni di 
Roma one of the most beautiful spots in the Roman Empire. The 
utter destruction of the drainage has made the entire region one of the 
most pestiferous of the earth. In the past three hundred years not a 
solitary stranger has slept in it at night without dying. The progres- 
sive march of knowledge, the concurrent observations of all civiliza. 
tion, have created a new science, called ‘ sanitary engineering.’ It be. 
gins its work where that of the civil engineer ends. The greatest per- 
fectness of drainage is in no degree free from the necessity of the labors 
of this new science. In an address to the National Association for the 
SEWERAGE AND NO SEWERAGE. 26 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
Promotion of Social Science in England, Dr. Rumsey said : “In addi- 
tion to watering and draining towns, the engineer is now called upon to 
provide fresh air artificially, to ventilate not only buildings, but whole 
towns.” In Europe an immense amount of knowledge- on this subject 
has been gathered from facts connected with sewerage. A report was 
recently submitted to the British Association, the joint labor of a num- 
ber of the best informed men in England on this subject, in which 
these facts are announced : “But even in places where the water supply 
has been improved, where a system of sewerage has been adopted, and 
other measures have been taken with the object of getting rid of excre- 
mental refuse, the fact that the rate of mortality has not been sensibly, 
if at all, diminished, appears to point to some circumstance as yet insuf- 
ficiently guarded against, which still exercises a prejudicial influence. 
The imperfect or defective nature of the sewerage may in some cases 
be the cause to which this result is referable. But the part of the sew- 
erage system which most urgently demands attention at the present time is 
the ventilation.” [The italicising of this sentence is our work.] “ Gases 
of a poisonous nature are freely given off from liquid sewage in pas- 
sages above the sewers from deposits collecting in them and in the house 
drains. The gases naturally ascend the sewers, and find egress either 
into the streets of a town or into the dwellings by the means of the 
house-drains and otherwise. The means adopted for getting rid of 
those gases injury to the sanitary state of a town, or of the 
houses in it, are rarely such as to be effective, and the returns already 
obtained in reference to this matter sufficiently show that attention has 
not been directed to it in a degree commensurate with its importance.” 
When we state that Dr. Angus Smith was one of the committee who 
submitted this report to the British Association, we express to all 
scholars in sanitary science, and to all students of it, the immense value 
that belongs to the quotations we have made from the report. Dr. 
Smith has recently published a paper on Disinfection and Disinfectants, 
which has attracted a great deal of well-deserved attention in England. 
His facts are of the most weighty character, and should make a pro- 
found impression on the people of Louisville. We quote from an ex- 
cellent paper in Youman’s Popular Science Monthly for May, 1872, by 
William Eassie, a civil engineer, some of these facts. Mr. Eassie says: 
“For the purposes of this chapter, however, I can not forbear conden- 
sing the remarks of Dr. Angus Smith, with respect to disease generally. 
According to this authority, the classes of disease may be caused— ON SEWERAGE. 
27 
firstly, by gases easily diffused in air, such as carbonic acid, nitrogen, 
marsh gas, and others ; secondly, by vapors falling in cold air and taken 
up in fogs, volatile bodies in fact, that concentrate in cold temperatures, 
and not to be classed with gases; thirdly, by putrid or decomposing 
substances, that include with the hurtful gases named under the first 
head many organic forms, which, transferred to a suitable soil, are ca- 
pable of working havoc with life and health ; and fourthly, by those 
more organized bodies in various stages and ferments that have a defi- 
nite existence, and that multiply the diseases to which they are most 
allied, whenever they meet with suitable fields for propagation.” 
These are definite points : they are facts as well-known to men of 
science as indubitable truths, as much so as any of the axioms of math- 
ematics. On the subject of disinfection and disinfectants, we shall 
speak in another part of this report. 
In the quotation of the ‘Building News, we present to the considera- 
tion of the Board of Health one of the plans that have been suggested 
for securing people, whose dwellings are connected by drain-pipes with 
the public sewers, from the noxious gaseous and vaporous emanations 
of those useful conduits. They are exceedingly perilous, and, unfor- 
tunately, may first make their presence known in devastating and fatal 
sickness. It is impossible to be too guarded against the approach of en- 
emies that sound no trumpet for their warfare—that do not address 
any of the five senses. They make their desolations among the vital 
forces. 
The plans for the perfect disposal of the noxious exhalations of sewers 
and drain-pipes, which we quote from the Manufacturer and Builder 
for March, have some elements of usefulness in them. But great cau- 
tion is necessary in connecting the ventilating shaft of the drainage- 
pipes with chimneys or flues. What may seem to be a very small error 
theoretically in matters of this kind, may practically prove to be the 
source of disaster. It should never be forgotten that currents in air 
are the products of difference of temperature and variation of pressure. 
Professor Silliman says: “The perfect freedom of movement in air 
renders its fluctuations from these causes incessant. If the air was vis- 
ible, every candle, gas-light, stove, furnace-flue, and human body would 
be seen to be the center of a column of heated air, whose place was 
constantly supplied by other and colder particles. On the law of equi- 
librium of fluids, the ascending currents must induce others, descend- 
WHERE CAUTION IS NEEDED. 28 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
ing and horizontal, and thus a circulatory motion is imparted, even by 
a single lighted candle, to the whole gaseous contents of a quiet apart- 
ment.” Thousands of conclusive experiments demonstrate the truth of 
these statements. Dr. Silliman says further: “ Chimneys draw be- 
cause the products of combustion discharged into them are specifically 
lighter than the outer air.” * * Among the sources of reversed 
draughts are : “ When two flues open into one apartment, or two con- 
necting apartments, and there is a fire in only one flue.” Hence, the 
objection we have urged against connecting the ventilating apparatus 
of the sewers with any of the flues of a dwelling. The partnership 
may bankrupt health* Again: “ When a powerful fire exists in one 
part of the house, as the kitchen, for instance, without an adequate sup- 
ply of air from without, it wall draw the needed supply through the 
smaller flues in all parts of the house, reversing the draughts in them ; 
when (as in many old houses) the flues are so large that cold currents 
may descend in the angles, while a heated one ascends the axis, when a 
neighboring higher house or eminence directs, in certain states of the 
wind, a cold current down the flue.” 
REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 
Each of the scientific facts we have mentioned is of great importance 
in hygienic matters, and they can not be safely neglected in the venti- 
lation of sewers and drainage pipes. The abominable looking material 
that is often seen spread upon the streets in welling up the visible con- 
tents of sewers, should prepare the thoughtful mind for an estimate of 
the masses of invisible noxious agencies that are the inevitable products 
of the filthy substances drawn from the sewer3, which invisible masses 
we propose to draw up and disperse into the upper regions of the air; 
where, under the laws of elasticity and diffusibility that govern gases, 
their commingling properties, remote from the breathing organs, may 
render them harmless. To secure a draft through these ventilating 
pipes of the sewers, an Emerson ventilator, or as it is often called, 
ejector, is one of the best and most useful of all the methods known to 
us. The top is cone-shaped ; above it a disc of metal stands upon four 
substantial short pillars. The principle of its action is obvious. A 
current of air—the air being constantly in motion—strikes the cone, 
and rises so as to impinge upon the disc of metal; this accelerates the 
movement of the current, and causes a draft up the ventilating pipe. 
This excellent apparatus is cheap and is easily made. It is of the last ON SEWERAGE. 
29 
importance that every householder, whose building is connected with 
the sewers, shall see that the plan of ventilation is made perfect, so that 
there shall be no chance for failure, because all expenses for failures is 
money thrown away and security wasted, the result of which must be 
that sickness shall be produced. Those who desire perfect security 
against these evils will find great advantage in capping every flue or 
chimney, as well as the ventilating pipe of the drainage apparatus, with 
an Emerson ventilator. There are many of these excellent scientific 
contrivances about this city, and we have never heard of the failure of 
any one of them. One first-rate windy day in the spring or fall, when 
the chimneys, instead of drawing air upwards, reverse their action and 
draw sweeping gusts of wind downwards, and scatter soot and ashes 
over carpets, curtains, beds, and furniture, is more costly each time of 
this kind of draft than Emerson ejectors for every chimney of the 
house. They enable housekeepers to dispense with soot-bags, that be- 
ing the name of the means resorted to for corking up the chimney when 
the necessity for fires in them ceases for the season. The public au- 
thorities owe it to those who confide these interests to their keeping, to 
secure all the public sewers against the leakage of noxious gases along 
the surface, whence they crawl into contiguous dwellings. For the 
preservation of health and life, these are matters of the highest impor- 
tance. There seems to be a notion that apathy, indifference, and neglect 
are great inconveniences, but as a general rule there is inconvenience 
in being sick or in dying, and this is a matter of grave consideration. 
We know of no subject of greater moment that can be entertained bv 
a board of health; we cannot suggest anything that more intimately 
concerns the welfare and prosperity of the citizens of Louisville than 
the proper ventilation of the public and private drainage. 
THE DELUSIONS OF PRESENT SAFETY. 
Let no one take up the perilous delusion that past escapes are a 
guarantee of safety for the future. Some of the gaseous poisons are 
too uncertain as to the time and circumstances of their attack to be 
trusted very long. The restraining powers which limit their activity 
may be suddenly withdrawn, and then disaster may be as unexpected 
and sudden as the withdrawal. The vital forces are never free from 
insecurity while deficient or impure air enters the lungs. And if the 
dwellers in palatial domiciles are insecure from the gases of leaky 
sewers, what must be the fate of the poor in their wretched dwellings? 30 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
They have ills enough to contend with in their battle for life without 
having noxious gases from the poisonous nostrils of sewers added to 
the burden. And we feel that it is within the purview of this hygienic 
protest to urge upon the municipal authorities the inauguration of effi- 
cient means for preventing the growth of a monster evil connected with 
contaminated air—we allude to the overcrowding of human beings in 
dwellings and lodgings, workshops and manufactories, where the supply 
of air is altogether inadequate to the sustentation of even tolerable 
health. The evil is already in this city. Means should be taken to 
nip it in the bud, and to prevent its reappearance. If there is perfect 
propriety in the efforts of an individual to prevent a suicide when he 
has the power to do so, is it not perfectly proper for the city authorities 
to take efficient measures for preventing the evils of involuntary sui- 
cide ? This physiological crime of overcrowding inmates in habitations 
is more easily prevented than removed after it is rooted. In securing 
well-drained or dry, sun-lighted and well-ventilated habitations for the 
people, we materially diminish the statistics and mortuary records of 
consumption, a fact which sanitary tables place beyond any chance for 
controversy. If it is a wise and wholesome course for municipal legis- 
lation to provide measures for the removal of defective drainage, and 
of all evil things connected with it, is it not incumbent on the same 
legislation to see that other monstrous but preventable evils against 
health and life do not spring up in their place and keep up a criminal 
mortuary record, criminal because avoidable? The overcrowding of 
which we speak is one of the most probable of these evils, and should 
be curbed effectually. It is an evil that usually crawls silently and 
slowly into action. As property enhances in value, space becomes an 
article of active, competitive traffic, and the marts of fashionable man- 
ufactures crowd poor workmen and workwomen into working-places 
most wretchedly supplied with air and ventilation. There are now in 
this city slaughter-houses of this kind, in which sewing-girls are com- 
pelled to work almost at the starvation point of air-space. The battle for 
bread with these girls is one waged at the same time with disease and 
death, and the latter often becomes the victor in the strife. Should 
such outrages as these be permitted in a civilized, Christianized commu- 
nity? Dr. Hales calls pure air the “genuine cordial of life,” and, 
as Heaven gives it copiously and free of cost, why shall any one be 
permitted to stint the poor of their full supply? Can the municipal 
authorities justly turn their backs on evils, growing evils of this kind ? ON SEWERAGE. 
31 
How can they, as public servants of the people who confide in them, 
have any higher duties for recognition and performance than those 
which sanitary science joyously and fully accepts as its mission, a mis- 
sion which imperatively demands ceaseless activity, namely : “To pre- 
vent disease, preserve health, and prolong life—to maintain the whole 
people in their highest efficiency, for the labors of peace or the struggles 
of war.” The public authorities may rely on the Board of Health for 
all the aid that it can give in carrying forward these beneficent duties. 
But they are not confined to the municipal authorities, nor to boards of 
health. They -belong to every member of the community, and each 
individual should be faithful, zealous, and intelligent in the recognition 
and performance of these duties? When all work with a will, with 
fidelity and appropriate knowledge of the subject, and in harmonious 
action, there will not be a necessity to look down the vista of time for 
the coming good period, for it will be found that it has already arrived. 
While delivering the great truths of public and private hygiene, we 
should do our duty imperfectly were we to fail to try to impress upon 
the public mind the necessity of guarding against that prevalent error, 
which assumes that deodorizing and disinfecting are one and the same 
thing. It is difficult to find conceptions more utterly unlike one another 
than those conceptions. A thing may be perfectly deprived of odor, 
and retain perfect possession of its power of infection. There is no 
odor in the contagion of small-pox. A small-pox scab may be deodor- 
ized, and then be capable of giving the disease in its worst form. The 
garlic odor of burning arsenic has nothing whatever to do with the viru- 
lence of its poison, nor has the odor of illuminating gas anything to do 
with its luminous qualities. The foul odors of decayed animal struc- 
tures do not produce any known disease, while the most generally dif. 
fused and fatal of the pernicious gases is altogether without odor, color, 
or taste. Let no one indulge the perilous delusion that in removing 
odors from dangerous material he has thereby deprived it of its power 
to do evil, or that he has necessarily mitigated that evil power. Sani- 
tary science has extensive knowledge of deodorizing agents; its knowl- 
edge of disinfecting powers is very limited. We know that heat equal 
to one hundred and eighty-three degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale entirely 
disinfects the poison of small-pox, of the rattlesnake, and the cobra di 
capella, but we know of nothing else that will do this. Facts of a clear, 
COMMON AND DANGEROUS ERRORS. 32 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
undoubted character are much needed on the subject of disinfection. 
They are at present very scarce. During quite a number of years 
chloride of lime has been ranked as a disinfectant. Sanitary science 
now wholly discards it from any such agency. Additional experience 
with some of those that now enjoy favor in some quarters will, we are 
persuaded, consign at least a portion of them to the fate of chloride of 
lime as a disinfectant. Mr. Eassie, in the paper from which we have 
quoted, alludes to an article in a recent medical journal which refers to 
the Odyssey of Homer for the practice of disinfection. It is in the 
twenty-second book of that poem, and is described as the act of Ulysses 
immediately after he had disposed of the suitors of Penelope. Pope 
fails to give the fullness of the Homeric language, and we prefer quoting 
the Oxford translation. While still in his rags, Ulysses addresses Eu- 
ryclea: “ Bring sulphur, O old woman, as a remedy for ills, and bring 
me fire, that I may fumigate the palace.” She was ashamed of his 
mean appearance, and entreated him to let her “ bring a cloak or tunic 
for his broad shoulders, covered with rags;” but Ulysses impatiently 
replies: “First of all let me have fire in the palace,” and Euryclea 
brought fire and sulphur, “with which Ulysses well-fumigated the pal- 
ace, the house, and the hall.” As George William Curtis said of 
another matter,' how like an artesian well do the works of Homer bore 
into the sanitary science of antiquity. The method of fumigation used 
by Ulysses is still a potent agency in many cases. But, in the matter 
of disinfection and disinfectants, there is a simple and infallible method 
of safety far superior to the entire list of articles that are supposed to 
disinfect noxious materials. That simple method is prevention. The 
intelligent physician has in the salts of Peruvian bark a power over in- 
termittent fever that is as nearly infallible as anything in pharmacy for 
any disease, but common sense says that the prevention of the disease 
is far superior to the cure after even a single paroxysm. This is equally 
true respecting the diseases that spring from sewer gases. Prevention 
of sewer poison is immeasurably more beneficent than the most perfect 
cure of its causes of disease. 
THE FUTILITY OF CATCH-BASINS AND TRAPS. 
We can not too earnestly admonish the people against putting their 
trust in catch-basins, traps, or any device of the kind, unless there is 
with these contrivances a shaft-ventilation. We need no other fact to 
fortify this admonition than this: that the most perfect stoppage of ON SEWERAGE. 
33 
leakage of gases from the mouth of sewers does not prevent, but rather 
promotes, this leakage at every man-hole along the course of the sewer. 
About this there can be no kind of controversy. That is the only safe 
sewerage that provides for escape of noxious gases into the upper re- 
gions of the air, and fills their places in the sewers and drain-pipes with 
wholesome air. For the attainment of these objects, Mr. Lovegrove, 
from whose able paper we have already quoted, has devised an excellent 
plan for preventing the evils of sewer gases. It is excellent in provid- 
ing for ventilating tubes. The necessity for a good method is so im- 
portant that we give the suggestions of Mr. Lovegrove in all their full- 
ness. He says: “There must be provided 
“ 1st. A ready and proper outlet for the escape of the drain air un- 
der pressure. 
“ 2d. A means of supplying air to the drain to follow the outflowing 
water. 
“3d, Such a construction of the inlet traps as will effectually pre- 
vent the escape of drain air. 
“ The way in which these three principles may be applied is as fol- 
lows: The outlet-trap is fixed at or near the point where the drain is 
connected with the sewer, and is made in one piece, with a syphon- 
dip to shut off the sewer air, and an air-exit tube passing over the 
syphon-dip. Then, at the mouth of the air-tube, a light metal air- 
valve is placed, so as to open outwards from the tube into the sewer on 
receiving a light pressure from within. Thus, when water is discharged 
into the drain, or a decided difference of temperature exists, the pres- 
ure of the air is exerted on the inner face of the valve,awhich then opens 
and allows the drain-air to pass into the sewer. The syphon-dip, with- 
out the shackle-flap, is admissable at the outlet of a ventilated drain, as 
it is always charged with water. Then, at the several inlets are fixed 
valves to work freely, with syphon-dips behind them, excepting the 
water closets and scullery sinks. The valve shuts off the drain-air, 
whether there is water in the trap or not, and the syphon-dip prevents 
the escape of drain-air during the period of the flow through the up- 
per part of the valve. No amount of pressure from within the drain, 
or atmospheric influence from without, can affect the efficiency of these 
traps. Next, in any part of the drain (near the extremity is best), is 
placed an air-supply post, containing a light air supply valve, which 
opens inward to the drain on a light pressure, so that when the water is 
emptied into the drain (having first displaced air through the outward 34 
REPORT OE SPECIAL COMMITTEE 
air valve) flows out of the drain, it is followed by a supply of air 
through the air-supply post. The more water discharged into the drain, 
the more frequent will be the removal of air. In the application of this 
principle to a drain having inlets at a considerable elevation, in lieu of the 
air escape at the outlet traps, an air tube is carried from the highest point 
of the drain to a height as far as possible from the windows and the in- 
fluence of chimney down-drauylxt. The inlets are secured by the same 
mode as that just previously described, a common syphon at the outlet, 
and the air supply valve fixed near the outlet of of the drain. By this 
mode a current of air is obtained from the lower part, passing through 
the drain, and discharging above the roof. In many instances air supply 
is obtained freely through the valve-sink inlets. 
“ In the case of a house-drain connecting into a pipe-sewer, in order to 
obtain a ready access to the air-valve and syphon-dip, the air tube is 
continued on to the surface side of the dip, where it receives a box con- 
taining the air-exit valve. The air tube thence continues down to the 
outlet side of the dip, and the air is discharged into the sewer.” 
lovegrove’s plan reviewed. 
In this masterly paper, Mr. Lovegrove shows that he is thoroughly 
acquainted with the evils of sewerage, and the poisonous qualities of 
sewerage gases. His remedies, embracing, as they do, elevated shafts 
for ventilation, are of great utility. The only objection that we have 
to. the plan is based on its valves, which may get out of order, and the 
dependence placed upon water in the traps. This is very liable to fail- 
ure., and the first announcement of this failure may be serious sickness 
in the family. We have italicised the redeeming feature of the plan, 
in which an elevated ventilating shaft is commended. In that, Mr. 
Lovegrove says the hight of this shaft must be carried “as far as possi- 
ble from the influence of chimney down-draught.” The hight of this 
influence is unknown, and for this reason we have recommended the 
Emerson ventilator, not only for the top of the ventilating shaft of the 
sewer and drain-pipes, but for each chimney-top, in order to prevent 
“chimney down-draught.” The ventilating shaft should be of the 
same size as that of the inlet and outlet openings, and it must be recog- 
nized as an essential sanitary feature of sewerage and house-drainage. 
In the management of all sewerage and house-drainage two vital truths 
must be accepted and acted upon: First, that gases are almost abso- 
lutely irrepressible; which is proven in the fact that they permeate the ON SEWERAGE. 
35 
body of the cast-iron pipes that convey illuminating gas. Second, Jdiat, 
as the prevention of their escape from sewers and drain-pipes is well 
nigh impossible, the part of wisdom is to favor their escape, but under 
a controlling guidance that infallibly removes them from all possible 
chance of doing harm to the lungs. That city which supplies all of its 
inhabitants with full amounts of unadulterated air, which is very cheap 
and very free when labor or money is not expended in curbing its ac- 
tion, will have the most healthful population, the least of preventible 
sickness, the smallest death-rate. 
In order that ventilating pipes for the removal and disposal of nox- 
ious gases shall be used properly, we present a plan for this purpose, 
drawn, at our request, by Mr. Booth, of the City Engineer’s corps. 
This pipe, with an Emerson Ejector at the top, will be very effective in 
guarding dwellings from the noxious gases that, according to their char- 
acter, have been known to produce diptheria, typhoid fever, cholera, 
fatal diarrhoea, and various forms of wasting diseases. yen tila ting- Pipe. 
Soil Pipe ON SEWERAGE. 
37 
CONCLUSION. 
We have thus, to the extent of our power, reviewed the whole sub- 
ject intrusted to us by the Board of Health, and have given the re- 
corded observations of a number of masters in the various departments 
of the subject, in order that you may give them to the people of Louis- 
ville for their comfort and welfare. We felt compelled to notice some 
of the evils of adulterated air, apart from the adulterations made by 
sewer gases. They all belong to the same category, and demand equal 
attention. There are few cities that have more perfect means for secur- 
ing copious amounts of pure air for all their inhabitants than Louisville 
possesses. Nothing but a want of a sense of duty, put to active use, 
can deprive any citizen of this natural and vital boon. There is not 
an educational element for the duties of citizenship that is of greater 
utility, for public and private welfare, than that embraced in what is 
called public and private hygiene. Yet it is so sadly neglected, that 
its clearest and most valuable truths fall in stony soil that produces no 
fruit. In an able series of lectures, delivered by Dr. Gity, in King’s 
College, London, he says: “Hygiene is a very large and comprehen- 
sive science. It has to do with persons of every rank, of both sexes, 
of every age. It takes cognizance of the places and houses in which 
they live; of their occupations and modes of life; of the food they eat, 
of the water they drink, the air they breathe; it follows the child to 
school, the laborer and artisan into the field, the mine, the factory, the 
workshop; the sick man into the hospital; the pauper into the work- 
house; the lunatic to the asylum; the thief to the prison. It is with 
the sailor in his ship, the soldier in his barrack ; and it accompanies the 
emigrant to his new home beyond the sea. To all these it makes ap- 
plication of a knowledge remarkable for its amount, and the great va- 
riety of sources whence it is derived. To physiology and medicine it is 
indebted for what it knows of health and disease; it levies large con- 
tributions on chemistry, geology, and meteorology; it co-operates with 
the architect and engineer; its work commends itself to the moralist 
and divine, for,” Dr. Guy adds, “the destitution which attracts disease 
repels religion.” 
It will be a great gain to humanity when the universal mind of men 
determines to take nothing as true that is not proved by the rigorous 
rules of logic; when everything that concerns the welfare of mankind 
shall be a universal study for enlightenment. Is it too soon to begin 
this important work by investigations of hygienic facts and laws? They 38 
REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SEWBRAGE. 
vitally and intimately concern every human being from the time the 
first breath is drawn to the solemn scene when “the heavy dews of 
death cover the manly brow.” This science should be taught in the 
nursery, in the schools, and in the universities, until every one is thor- 
oughly equipped for the battle of life, for whoever enters upon that 
warfare, ignorant of the facts and laws of hygiene, enters upon the con- 
test unarmed against a power armed at every point. We earnestly 
commend the whole subject to the consideration of the Board of Health. 
We are respectfully, 
T. S. BELL, 
L. ROGERS, 
T. P. SHANKS.