MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND 
BROOKLYN. 
In the article on “ Municipal Sanitation in Washington and Balti- 
more,” published in The Forum for August, special attention was 
called to the differences between the death-rates of the white and of 
the colored race, and to the importance of taking these into consid- 
eration in comparing the mortality of different districts in those cities 
for the purpose of estimating their relative sanitary condition. In 
studying the vital statistics of New York and Brooklyn, the race 
differences in the white population of different districts are also of 
great importance. 
The figures of the Eleventh Census show that on June 1, 1890, 
New York had a population of 1,515,301, occupying 81,828 dwellings 
on 25,741 acres of ground, giving 58.87 persons to the acre, and 
18.52 persons to a dwelling. At the same time, Brooklyn had a 
population of 806,343, occupying 82,282 dwellings on 18,084 acres, 
giving 44.59 persons to the acre and 9.80 persons to each dwelling. 
New York was, therefore, much the more densely populated of the 
two cities, although a larger proportion of the business population 
lived outside the city limits than was the case in Brooklyn. Of the 
population of New York, 25,674 were colored, including 1,970 
Chinese. To distinguish race differences among the whites, the best 
means at our command is a classification by the birthplaces of the 
mothers. According to this, New York contained 334,725 Ameri- 
cans; 55,572 English and Welsh; 399,348 Irish; 19,627 Scotch; 
16,239 French; 403,784 Germans; 80,235 Russians and Poles; 9,647 
Canadians; 13,311 Scandinavians; 15,555 Hungarians; 12,287 Bo- 
hemians; 54,334 Italians, and 74,963 other foreigners, or persons of 
unknown race. New York has a larger Irish population than any 
city in Ireland, and, of German cities, only Berlin, Vienna and Ham- 
burgh exceed it in number of German population. Brooklyn in 
1890 contained 10,946 colored inhabitants; 268,097 Americans; 
50,379 English and Welsh; 196,372 Irish; 14,195 Scotch; 4,777 
French; 195,663 Germans; 7,581 Russians and Poles; 7,200 Cana- MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
347 
dians; 21,178 Scandinavians; 896 Hungarians; 205 Bohemians; 
12,454 Italians, and 16,400 other foreigners, or persons of unknown 
race. 
New York, therefore, contained a greater proportion of Irish, 
French, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians and Italians, 
than Brooklyn, while Brooklyn had the greater proportion of Amer- 
icans, English, Scotch, Canadians, and Scandinavians. The number 
of persons in most of these groups is large enough to make the death- 
rates of the different groups fairly comparable, especially if these 
rates are taken, not for a single year, but for several successive years. 
During the sixteen years from 1875 to 1890 inclusive, the annual 
death-rate of New York, excluding still-birtbs, varied from 31.3 to 
23.4 per thousand, having been highest in 1881-82, and lowest 
in 1877-78. From 1886 to 1890, it fell from 27 to 26 per thou- 
sand. During the same period, the Brooklyn death-rate varied from 
26.3 in 1875 to 21.0 in 1878; 25 in 1882, 22.6 in 1886, and 24.6 
in 1890. The mortality decreased in New York and increased in 
Brooklyn from 1886 to 1890, but was always lower in Brooklyn. 
For the year 1890, the death-rate of London was 20.8; of Paris, 
24.9; of Berlin, 21.2; of Vienna, 25.2; of Brussels, 22.3; all being 
much below the New York death-rate. If approximate life-tables be 
calculated for New York and Brooklyn for the year ending May 
31, 1890, it will be found that of a million white children born in 
Brooklyn, 511,049 would have been males, and 488,951 would have 
been females. If now these infants had been subjected throughout 
their lives to the same influences tending to produce death as were 
acting during the year referred to; at the end of the first year 386,- 
589 males and 387,182 females would have survived, and at the end 
of the thirty-fourth year 242,478 males and 257,433 females would 
have remained alive; that is, more than half the males would have died 
before they became thirty-five years of age. In New York, the number 
of male infants would have been 514,545, of whom 379,630 would have 
survived the first year, and 270,569, or about half, would have been 
alive at the age of twenty-five. The expectation of life of a white 
male infant at birth was, in New York, 30.32; in Brooklyn, 32.88; 
in Baltimore, 37.01; and in the District of Columbia, 39.20 years. 
At the beginning of the twenty-fifth year of life, the expectation of 
life of a white male in New York was 29.31; in Brooklyn, 32.04; 
in the District of Columbia, 34.50, and in Baltimor 35.82 years. 
Turning now to the death-rates in different wards and districts, 348 
MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
we find that in New York the annual mortality varied from less than 
fifteen to more than forty-five per thousand, and in Brooklyn from 
less than fifteen to more than forty per thousand. The causes of these 
great differences in the mortality cannot be fully ascertained from the 
statistical data at our command; but some important indications are 
discoverable. In Washington and Baltimore, a considerable part of 
the differences in different districts is due to the different proportions 
of the white and colored populations in them; in New York, a con- 
siderable part is due to the different proportions of Irish, Germans, 
Russians, Italians, etc., in the different localities. The high death- 
rate in both New York and Brooklyn is due largely to the high 
death-rate among the Irish, because of the comparatively large num- 
ber of this class of the population; although the death-rate of the 
Bohemians and Italians was higher than that of the Irish, because of 
the higher mortality among the Bohemian and Italian children. For 
persons of fifteen years of age and upward, the average annual 
death-rates daring the six years above referred to were as follows: In 
New York, Irish, 28.0; colored, 23.6; Scotch, 21.9; English, 20.8; 
Bohemians, 20.3; French, 17.9; Germans, 17.0; Canadians, 16.7; 
Americans, 15.9; Scandinavians, 13.4; Italians, 12.3; Hungarians, 
8.5; Russians and Poles, 6.21. In Brooklyn, Bohemians, 31.8; 
Irish, 22.7; English, 17.0; Scotch, 16.4; Germans, 15.5; French, 
14.4; Canadians, 14.3; Americans, 13.9; Scandinavians, 9.1; Ital- 
ians, 7.9; Russians and Poles, about 5.4; Hungarians, 5.2. These 
great differences in race death-rates are of much interest and im- 
portance, and they go far toward explaining the comparatively low 
death-rate in certain crowded tenement-house districts, as for exam- 
ple in the seventh, tenth and thirteenth wards in New York, which 
are inhabited largely by Russian and Polish Jews. The low death- 
rate of the Jewish race has been known for a long time; it does 
not fully appear in these figures, because a considerable number of 
those whose mothers were born in Hungary and Germany are of this 
race, with low death-rates. If it were possible to separate them, the 
death-rate of the Germans would stand at a much higher figure. 
This low death-rate of the Jewish race, under circumstances of 
poverty, overcrowding, want of fresh air, and uncleanliness of various 
kinds, is not only a matter of great scientific interest to the physician 
and sanitarian, but it is of great sociological importance. It must 
not, however, be supposed that the unsanitary conditions of tenement- 
house life have no effect upon the Jews. Comparing the death-rates MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
349 
of tlie Russians and Poles with those of more than sixty thousand 
Jews of the better classes, as given in Census Bulletin No. 19, we 
find that for persons under fifteen years of age the death-rates were, 
for the Russians and Poles in New York City, 28.67; for the Jews 
throughout the country, 9.90. This last figure is probably too low; 
but it is perhaps safe to say that the death-rate of the New York 
tenement-house Jewish children under fifteen years of age is double 
that of Jewish children of the same ages throughout the country 
living under more favorable conditions. 
The heavy death-rate of Irish adults in New York is so important 
in the study of the sanitary conditions of the city, and of means to 
improve them, that a few more figures are given, even at the risk of 
wearying the reader. The death-rate of married men from fifteen to 
forty-five years of age was for the Irish 23.7, and for the Germans 
13.1; and of married women of the same ages, for the Irish 23.9, 
and for the Germans 10.8. For single men from fifteen to forty-five 
years of age, the death-rate was for the Irish 20.9, for the Germans 
11.0; and for single women of the same ages, for the Irish 10.1 and 
for the Germans 5.0. This means that for these ages the death-rate 
of the Irish was nearly double that of the Germans for both the 
married and single of each sex. Taking persons of forty-five years 
of age and upward, the death-rate of the married men was for the 
Irish, 44.0, for the Germans, 36.9; of the single men, Irish, 82.8, 
Germans, 65.6; of the married women, Irish, 44.2, Germans, 25.0; 
of the single women, Irish, 57.2, Germans, 46.8. At ages under 
forty-five, therefore, the death-rate of the married was greater than 
that of the single, while above that age the reverse was the case. 
If upon a map of New York City be indicated the average annual 
death-rate of each ward and sanitary district during the six years 
ending May 31, 1890—as has been done for a special report, soon to 
be published, made to the Superintendent of Census, by whose 
permission certain data given therein are used in this paper—it will 
be seen that the heaviest death-rates occurred in the low-lying water- 
side districts of Wards 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 18, 20 and 22, and in portions 
of Wards 12, 14 and 15. In the districts under twenty feet in aver- 
age altitude, the death-rate was 31.5; for the children under five 
years of age, 118.6. In the districts from twenty to forty feet high, 
it was 28.3; for children under five years of age, 110.6. In the dis- 
tricts from forty to sixty feet high, it was 24.8; for children under 
five years of age, 100.6; and in the districts from eighty to one 350 
MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
hundred feet high, it was 17.9; for children under five years of age, 
74.5. The same gradation is found in Brooklyn. But the ancient 
topography of these two cities is of special interest in connection 
with the death-rates of certain districts. The old marshes and 
streams, which have been filled in or covered so long that very few 
remember their existence, still indicate their effects on the mortality 
of their ancient sites, especially in the death-rates from malarial 
fevers, pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases, as will be seen by compar- 
ing the shaded maps with the old map in the report mentioned above. 
The relations between density of population and death-rates in 
different districts in New York are complicated by the differences in 
the race and age distribution of the population in these districts, 
which require careful consideration to avoid the fallacies that the use 
of. the mere gross rates would inevitably lead to. Some of the most 
crowded districts are occupied by Jews having a very low death-rate, 
or by a population in which the number of adults is relatively large, 
and give a lower death-rate than those in which the number of chil- 
dren is proportionately greater. If we take the native-born, of 
native-born parents, or the Americans, we find that the death-rates 
are: in the districts having less than one hundred persons to the 
acre, 21.8; in those having from one hundred to two hundred to the 
acre, 31.0; in those having from two hundred to three hundred to 
the acre, 31.1, and in those having more than three hundred to the 
acre, 43.1. It would be an error, however, to conclude from this 
that the increased density of population, alone produced the increased 
mortality. The native-born Americans who are found in the crowded 
tenement-house districts are those who have failed of success because 
of physical weakness, intemperance, indolence, etc.; they are largely 
the degeneres of our people, and in a tenement-house district their 
death-rate, and especially the death-rate of their children, is usually 
higher than that other race, except that of the Irish for the 
adults and that of the Italians for the children. 
What are the causes of the heavy death-rate among the Irish? 
The most prominent are consumption, pneumonia, and alcoholism and 
its consequences, in the form of diseases of the arteries and of the 
digestive organs and the kidneys. In each 100,000 persons of each 
race living in New York during the six years ending May 31, 1890, 
consumption caused annually 774 deaths among the colored, 646 
among the Irish, 329 among the Germans, 325 among the French, 205 
among the Americans, and 98 among the Russian and Polish Jews. MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
351 
In Brooklyn during the same period the corresponding rates were, 
colored, 531; Irish, 453; Germans, 296; French, 253; Americans, 
181; and- Russians and Poles, 77. For all England, the death-rate 
from consumption in 1890 was 168.2 in 100,000; in Dublin it was 
390 in 100,000. These are terribly significant figures, and it is evi- 
dent that the enormous mortality from consumption among the negroes 
and the Irish is not due solely to poverty or overcrowding. During 
the same period, alcoholism caused, in each 100,000 persons of each 
race in New York, 31 deaths annually among the Irish, 10 among 
the Germans, 9 among the Americans, 6 among the colored, 3 among 
the Italians, and 1 among the Russians and Poles; and Bright’s dis- 
ease caused 142 deaths among the Irish, 67 among the Germans, 54 
among the Americans, 27 among the Italians, and 18 among the 
Russians and Poles. For all England, the death-rate in 100,000 
from alcoholism during 1890 was 7, and from Bright’s disease, 25. 
On the other hand, the death-rates from measles, scarlet fever, diph- 
theria, and other children’s diseases are comparatively low among the 
Irish and high among the Americans. 
Both New York and Brooklyn have well-organized health depart- 
ments, which employ a large number of inspectors, and the tenement- 
house class of the population is as carefully looked after as it is in 
any city. Each city has a sufficient, though not a superabundant, 
supply of good drinking-water, which there is no reason to suppose 
has conveyed specific causes of disease. During the six years ending 
May 31, 1890, the average annual death-rate from typhoid fever in 
100,000 of population was, for New York 24.27; Brooklyn, 23.13; 
Baltimore, 40.17 ; Washington, 75.55. Both New York and Brook- 
lyn are sewered cities, but many of the New York sewers are of 
faulty construction and in places are too level, or are leaky and pol- 
lute the soil; nevertheless, there is no evidence that the condition of 
the sewers in any locality has had any special influence upon the 
death-rates, except in so far as the soil-drainage is influenced thereby. 
The average annual death-rate in 100,000 of population from malarial 
fever was 24.62 in New York and 32.62 in Brooklyn, being spe- 
cially high in the low-lying waterside districts. The corresponding 
rate in Baltimore was 41.51, and in Washington 44.44. Each city 
has fair hospital accommodation for cases of contagious disease, and 
a disinfecting plant at the command of the health department. The 
death-rate from diphtheria and croup has increased within the last 
fifteen years; during the six years ending May 31, 1890, it was, 352 
MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
for each 100,000 of population, in New York, 181.63; in Brooklyn, 
164.42; in Baltimore, 80.13; in Washington, 59.64. The corre- 
sponding death-rate from scarlet fever was 52.19 in New York, 42.48 
in Brooklyn, 13.11 in Baltimore, and 21.69 in Washington. Diph- 
theria, diarrhoeal diseases, consumption and pneumonia, taken to- 
gether, gave an annual death-rate of 11.8 in New York and of 9.8 
in Brooklyn per thousand of population, and all of these are more or 
less preventable diseases. 
It is a question of great practical interest and importance as to 
how far the defective cleansing of the streets, which at times prevails, 
has an influence upon the death-rate. That accumulations of decay- 
ing organic matter in the streets tend to increase the prevalence of 
certain diseases, especially when these accumulations become dry and 
pulverized and are blown about in the form of dust, may be accepted 
as a fact; but it is at present impossible to demonstrate it by statis- 
tics. The death-rate from diseases of the respiratory organs is great- 
est in New York in January and March, and a large proportion of 
these diseases is due to dust-borne micro-organisms; but cold also 
has its influence, and at present we cannot estimate the relative im- 
portance of the two, though we can control the dust of the streets 
much more easily than we can control temperature and winds. 
The death-rates of certain low-lying districts in New York and 
Brooklyn can certainly be diminished by engineering methods directed 
toward securing better soil-drainage and less soil-pollution, and this 
is true especially of the malarial death-rates. It seems probable that 
to effect a substantial lowering of the mortality in the great majority 
of those districts in which it is more than twenty-two per thousand 
annually, it will be necessary to make a careful study of race peculiar- 
ities—with special reference to the liability to such diseases as con- 
sumption and pneumonia on the part of the Irish adults, and to 
certain other forms of disease on the part of the German and Italian 
children—with a view to devising special means of prevention, 
adapted to the habits and customs of these different peoples. For 
example, if we take the average death-rate of a thousand children 
under fifteen years of age for the six years ending May 31, 1890, we 
find that it was for the Bohemians, in New York, 82.6, in Brooklyn, 
90.9; for the Italians, in New York, 76.4, in Brooklyn, 53.6; for 
the Scandinavians, in New York, 57.3, in Brooklyn, 45.5; for 
the Irish, in New York, 50.9, in Brooklyn, 43.8; for the Germans, 
in New York, 47.0, in Brooklyn, 44.3; and for the white Ameri- MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN. 
353 
cans, in New York, 54.0, in Brooklyn, 45.8. The heavy death- 
rate among the Bohemian children was due largely to diphtheria, 
diarrhceal diseases, and convulsions; that among the Italian children 
was caused by measles, diarrhceal diseases and diseases of the lungs, 
which last caused twenty-four deaths per thousand among them in 
New York, while the corresponding rate for Americans was 10.0; for 
the Irish, 9.6; for the Germans, 8.5; and for the French, 6.9. 
In one race, the food seems to be a prominent cause of extremely 
heavy death-rates in infancy and childhood; in another, foul air ap- 
pears to be specially pernicious. Scarlet fever is much more fatal 
among English, Canadian and American children than it is among 
the French and Italians. Tubercular meningitis is twice as fatal 
among the Bohemians as it is among other nationalities. This is not 
the place to discuss details of this sort, and I give these few speci- 
mens merely to show why it appears to me that one of the most 
important steps which can be taken toward lowering the death-rates 
in New York and Brooklyn is to obtain accurate information with 
regard to the death-rates of the different races in different parts of 
these cities, and the causes of the great differences which will be 
found in them. The health departments possess a part of the infor- 
mation requisite, in the form of the records of deaths; but they do 
not possess the corresponding information, with regard to the living 
population which furnishes these deaths, to enable them to calculate 
the death-rates in the details which are required to settle the difficult 
questions which arise. They must know for each unit of area which 
they select, whether it be ward, district, or tenement-house, not 
merely the number of inhabitants, but the number of each sex, of 
each race, of each of certain groups of ages, as for example, under 
one, under five, from five to fifteen, from fifteen to forty-five, from 
forty-five to sixty-five, and from sixty-five upward. This informa- 
tion should be obtained by the municipal authorities at least once in 
the interval between the United States censuses of 1890 and 1900, 
and it would be best to date it on January 1, 1895. Such a munic- 
ipal census, with the compilation of the data, would cost the city of 
New York about one hundred thousand dollars; and if the work 
were properly done, it would be the best investment of that amount 
of money which the city could possibly make. 
It is probable that a considerable part of the extremely heavy 
death-rates from consumption and pneumonia in New York is due to 
certain houses and apartments that contain an unusually large num- 354 
ber of the micro-organisms which cause these diseases; for the ma- 
jority of cases of pneumonia appear to be due to micro-organisms. 
A room in which there have lived two or three persons affected with 
consumption, who have taken no precautions to disinfect their sputa, 
becomes an infected room. The dust containing the spores of the 
bacillus of tubercle is scattered in the air by the processes of sweep- 
ing and dusting, and much of it settles on the ledges over windows 
and doors, on the beds, on the walls, to be again displaced by air- 
currents or dusting, and some of it to be inhaled. A room in which 
there has been a case of scarlet fever, or of diphtheria or spotted 
typhus, is carefully cleansed and disinfected. But one in which 
there have been a dozen cases of consumption is not thus treated, no 
matter how dirty it may be, since the existing laws and regula- 
tions do not require it; and public opinion as yet would hardly 
justify the health department in demanding and enforcing it. 
If the records of the Registrar of Vital Statistics for the last six 
years were examined for all. the deaths from consumption which have 
occurred in New York in the second, fourth, fourteenth and fifteenth 
wards, including the deaths in hospitals of persons coming from these 
wards, and locating each case by street and number of house, I have 
no doubt that the death-record of certain houses for consumption 
would be found to be ten or fifteen times greater than that of others, 
and that certain foci of infection might thus be located with consid- 
erable precision. The record could be carried back only a few years, 
because it has not been customary to charge the deaths occurring in 
hospitals to the houses from which the patients came. The practical 
difficulty in the way of obtaining such definite, accurate information 
as is required to deal efficiently with the foci of infection of con- 
sumption, pneumonia, and diarrhoeal diseases, is one of expense. 
One object of this paper is to explain to intelligent citizens, not 
only of New York and Brooklyn, but of all other large cities, that 
this detailed and classified information about deaths in different local- 
ities, at different ages, from different causes, in different races, is 
desired not merely to satisfy the idle curiosity of a few speculative 
philosophers or physicians, but to locate the great leaks through which 
the health, energy, life and money of the community are being 
wasted, in order that the remedies may be applied in the right direc- 
tion, and at the right spots, and that the cost and labor of really 
practical, useful municipal sanitation may thus be made as small as 
possible. John S. Billings. 
MUNICIPAL SANITATION IN NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN.