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           REPORT  OF  THE  COMMITTEE

                          ON THE

INTERNAL  HYGIENE  OF  CITIES.
                 INTRODUCTION.

                  BY DR. THOMAS MILLER,
                       WASHIUGTON, D. C.

  At the second annual meeting of the Quarantine and Sanitary
Convention, held in the city of Baltimore, in April, 1858, the
following resolution, reported by  the  Business Committee, was
adopted, viz:—
  "Resolved, .That a committee be appointed to report on the
Internal Hygiene of Cities, and  present the same, at the  next
meeting of the Convention, with particular regard to the follow-
ing points:—
  " 1. A complete and efficient system of registration of births,
marriages, and deaths, with particular reference to cities, and the
necessary  connection of such a system with sanitary measures.
  "2. Upon the subject of disinfectants, their character, effects,
and benefits, in connection with sanitary measures.
  " 3. Upon  the  importance of  an  ample' supply of water, an
adequate sewerage, and the proper disposal of the offal of cities.
  " 4. Upon the importance and  economy of sanitary measures
to cities."
  In compliance with this resolution  the committee was appoint-
ed, consisting of—
        Thomas Miller, M. D.,  of  Washington, D. C.
        E. M. Snow, M. D., of Rhode Island.
        W. C. Van Bibber, M. D., of Baltimore.
        R. D. Arnold, M. D., of Georgia.
        John  H. Griscom, M. D., of New York.
        Henry G. Clark,  M. D., of Boston.
        Jno. Bell, M. D., of Philadelphia.
       1 
  !vi<2TV                          2

            Immediately after the adjournment of the Convention the Com-
f.;^At.   mittee met, to devise some plan whereby a complete report might
'•'"-/v. 2 be obtained.   The most practicable  plan suggested  during their
         deliberations—the one  best calculated to promote the object for
         which the Committee had been appointed, and  the  one they se-
         lected—was to refer the several topics detailed in the resolution
         to the individual members of the committee.   By mutual agree-
         ment, then, the gentlemen were to have submitted to their chair-
         man separate reports  upon all the subjects, in the following
         order:—
           E. M. Snow, M. D., on "A complete and  efficient  system  of
         registration of births,  marriages,  and deaths," &c. &c.  (First
         classification  in the resolution.)
           W.  C. Van Bibber,  M. D., on Disinfectants,  &c.  (Second
         classification.)
           R. D. Arnold,1 M. D., on "Vaccination as  preventive of vari-
         ola, and the value of revaccination, with a view to the enactment
         of laws for the enforcement of general vaccination and revaccina-
         tion."
           Jno. H. Griscom, M. D., on Water, sewerage, offal, &c. (Third
         classification, &c.)
           H.  G. Clark,1 M. D.,  on " Some detailed and specific plan for
         regulating the internal  sanitary condition  of cities,  which shall
         embrace all the subjects which may properly come  within the
         province of preventive medicine."
           Jno. Bell, M. D., on " The importance and economy of sani-
         tary measures to cities."  (Fourth classification.)
           As  chairman of the  Committee, I deeply  regret  that all its
         members have not presented their reports ; and at this late day
         it will be impossible for  me to  make other provision  for the  sub-
         jects submitted to the  gentlemen who have thus failed.   The
         report must therefore be incomplete.
           The subject which is  the first division of the  resolution, viz.,
         a system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths,  &c,
         and also the subject of vaccination and revaccination, with a view
         to  its  enforcement  by  legislative enactment, are unavoidably
         omitted from  the  report now submitted.    The pressing engage-
         ments which have constantly occupied the time of Dr. Snow, who
         was to  have reported on the former subject, have prevented him
         from preparing a paper; and although nothing has  been  heard
         from Dr. Arnold, to whom was referred the subject of vaccina-
         tion, «&c, it is presumed that  he  too has  been  prevented from

          1  The  subjects assigned to Drs. Arnold and Clark were added to those
         specified in the  resolution before  quoted, by a vote of the Convention, at a
         subsequent period.  The remaining topics are those embraced in the original
         resolution reported by the Business Committee. 
3
fulfilling his trust by circumstances beyond his control.  These
topics are of the deepest interest to the Convention, as well as
to the community at large, and the peculiar qualifications of the
gentlemen who were to have submitted the results of their expe-
rience and investigation makes the failure more to be regretted.
   The separate reports upon all the other points of investigation
I am happy herewith to present to the Convention.
   They  have  been prepared  by the  authors (whose names are
attached to their respective reports) with great care  and ability,
and it is to the individual exertions of these gentlemen that the
Convention  and  the  country are indebted for the large amount
of valuable material contained in their reports.
   Had not the failures occurred to which I before alluded, and
had the  report  of  this Committee been presented  complete, it
would have better  promoted the object of the Convention; but,
partial as it is, on it will doubtless be based a system of sanitary
or hygienic regulations highly creditable to the gentlemen whose
views are hereinafter expressed, and  applicable not only to the
larger cities and  towns of our country, but  also to the rural dis-
tricts.
   It is not my design, in this introduction to the report, to enter
into a discussion, either general or specific, of the subjects em-
bodied in the  detailed accounts which follow.   Time would not
permit me to do so, had I  the inclination.   But  I  cannot pass
the  matter by without a word of admonition in  regard  to  the
necessity of reform in the direction the  Convention  is now look-
ing.  Let us take warning from  the  disastrous consequences
which resulted from early  inattention to this all-important sub-
ject of internal  hygiene in the larger  cities  of the Old World.
Let us  endeavor to  avoid  those fatalities  by the lesson  there
taught,  and go to work  in  earnest and  with  system, before  the
same effects fearfully tell us that we also have remained too long
in idleness.   Let us  adopt  measures to  impress upon the public
mind the importance and value of accurate  and  efficient  regis-
tration;  of the use of disinfectants; of suitable drainage; of the
abundance of pure air and water; of encouraging  vaccination,
and the  other sanitary measures which  in the wisdom of this
Convention have  been brought forward for minute investigation.
While we admit that much may be done  by a  properly regulated
quarantine system  in the way of  preventing and arresting  the
progress of pestilential diseases, we must not overlook the opinion
of scientific and accurate observers that  more benefit may  result
from the proper observance  and enforcement of internal  hygienic
regulations in our  larger cities than ever  has resulted, or can
result, from the unaided quarantine.
   Pertinent to this point are the following remarks  from Dr.  E. 
4
 D. Fenner, a distinguished physician of New Orleans, and high
 authority on matters of hygiene:—
   "The numerous experiments with quarantines for the last half
 century, enforced by governments far more  rigid than our own,
 would appear  to  show that the benefits to be  obtained  by such
 measures are extremely limited, and that they cannot be  safely
 relied on to avert the disastrous effects of pestilential  diseases;
 while the accumulated observations of wise, patient, and philan-
 thropic men, during the same period,  appear to prove most evi-
 dently that wherever amelioration has been effected in  the public
 health it was mainly due to local improvements in sanitary police.
 It follows that such  improvements are  of vital importance to-the
 public weal, and  therefore  demand the serious consideration  of
 those who are intrusted with the reins  of government.   If it be
 right and proper to  invest our rulers with the power to maintain
 peace  and good  order  in  society, to administer justice, punish
 crime, and defend the country against foreign invasion, is it not
 equally right that they should also have the power to search out
 and remove the causes of disease, and, as far as possible, to pro-
 tect the people against the ravages of pestilence?
   Most certainly it is.  The fact is a plain one, admitting  of no
 contrariety of opinion.  But when we admit that so much benefit
 might result to the inhabitants of our country by an improvement
 in and the  more  rigid  enforcement of hygienic  laws,  and that
 it is highly proper for our rulers to protect the lives and health
 of the people  from  the devastations of epidemic as well as en-
 demic diseases, the question naturally arises:  Is a reformation in
 this particular  practicable?  That many difficulties stand in the
 way, we must admit; and yet we trust there are none so formi-
 dable as to  defy the  teachings of  science, and  the  enforcement
 of well-devised laws, in surmounting them.  But what can the
 Quarantine  and Sanitary Convention  do  in  enforcing hygienic
 laws?  It has no legislative authority to enact laws, nor  executive
 power  to enfprce them ; but it can do much in discovering where
 the fault lies, and in  pointing out some remedy.  The  very first
 movement for promoting this desirable reformation devolves  upon
 this Convention ;  and I am happy to believe  that its members
 have no disposition to shun their duty and responsibility in the
 matter.  It is  for us  to furnish a plan of practicable, systematic
 sanitary regulations, which will  cover all the defects in the laws
 upon this subject, as they now  exist, and which will be, as far
 as possible, uniformly applicable to cities' in  all sections of the
country.
   I  should have been glad to give a review or synopsis of the
 separate reports  now presented to the  Convention, by which it
 might  be aided in  the preparation of a sanitary code;  but it is 
5
now too late for me to devote to the subject the  requisite  time
and attention ; and as the report of the Committee, as a whole,
is incomplete, the synopsis would therefore be of less use.
  When the Convention, has adopted a plan, and recommended
it to the authorities of the cities as the most perfect one which
their  delegates, as  a collective  body, could select, its duty will
have  been performed.  But not so with the members  as indi-
viduals.   It  becomes their duty to  use  every proper  means  to
urge  upon the rulers and the  people the importance of adopt-
ing at once  these precautionary measures to secure the popula-
tion of  our cities against the dreadful scourge of pestilence.  As
stated before in these  introductory remarks, the people, also—
the masses—must be impressed  with the danger of neglect and
the blessings of action in this matter. They must feel the benefit
to accrue to them individually,  and then, instead of conferring
with neighbors as to how far the  health laws of a city may be
violated without  the  perpetrator incurring the  penalty of  such
violation, men  will  be found endeavoring, in  every way, to co-
operate with the law-maker and law-officer in abating nuisances
and enforcing  sanitary regulations.
   In  the  city which I have the  honor, in part, to represent, the
want  of this co-operation of the people generally is sorely felt
by  the  authorities;  and, as a result of the  indifference of the
latter in regard to  action, they are daily suffering  from causes
which might easily be removed.   Their complaints, however, are
constantly heard about what they  conceive to be  the  faults  of
others—the officers of the corporation. 
REPORT UPON DISINFECTANTS.

         By W. 0. VAN  BIBBER, M. D.
     Having been honored  by the  Quarantine and  Sanitary Con-
   vention at its meeting upon the  30th of April, 1858, in  Balti-
   more, by  the appointment, as one of a committee  to report upon
   the subject of " disinfectants, their character,  effects, and bene-
   fits," I beg leave, in discharge  of the duty thus assigned and
   accepted, to submit as follows:—
     In approaching the subject your committee  determined not to
   compile an abstract of what has already been written, and was
   easily accessible to all, but if possible to present something new,
   or at least make some suggestions for future trials.
     For this purpose we were kindly furnished,  by  Dr. Miller, the
   chairman of the committee, with  a printed  circular, showing the
   object  of the convention.   This was addressed to scientific gen-
   tlemen in this country and  in Europe, together with the follow-
   ing letter.

     Dear Sir : I take the liberty of addressing you upon a subject
   which  you will find sufficiently explained in the annexed circular.
     In order that I may make  the report with  some  hope of in-
   creasing the  information  now before  the world upon the subject
   of disinfectants, it is necessary for me to request the assistance
   of those  distinguished gentlemen of  science who  have given
»,  especial attention to substances which may be used for this pur-
   pose.
     I  would much have preferred  that the duty had been given
   into abler hands, but as it is, if in the course of a few months, I
   can  find subject-matter sufficient  for a report to my countrymen,
   it will be a  pleasure to  me to  give to those who may furnish
   me with such matter, the most ample credit for their labors.
     If you  can offer any suggestions, or give any information upon
   this subject, you will  not only confer a favor upon  myself, but
   also upon the body in whose behalf I act in soliciting the co-
   operation of  your experience in the investigation of  a subject  of 
7
so much interest, and whose importance demands so much atten-
tion."
   More than  forty of these circulars were  sent, twenty-two  of
which were addressed to surgeons of the U. S.  navy and six to
U. S. army surgeons.   The remainder were transmitted to  emi-
nent scientific men  of  this country and  in Europe.   Circulars
were also sent through the kindness of  the  bureaus at Washing-
ton, to the governments of England, France, and Russia.
   The committee availed themselves of this mode of procuring
knowledge of disinfectants, with the hope of obtaining  thereby
more original ideas than can now be found in the different ency-
clopedias and articles upon  the subject  which  are  evidently a
continuation the one of the other.
   The following replies have been received :—
   1st. Letter from  Campbell Morfit, M.  D., of New York.  (See
Appendix A.)
   2d.  From Dr. Sheridan Muspratt, F. R. S.,  who referred the
committee, in an especial manner, to the article " Disinfectants,"
in his recently published, highly useful, and interesting  Diction-
ary of Chemistry, as being " one of the  most complete articles
ever written upon the subject." Its length, as it appeared in the
encyclopedia, of course precludes its presentation entire in this
report.   But we hope  the following  concise abstract which  is
appended will be found interesting and useful.  (Appendix B.)
    3d. Dr. A. Tardieu, of Paris, sent to  us, in  reply, a pamph-
let entitled Rapport sur la valeur comparative de certains  Pro-
 cMSs de Disinfection,  for a translation of which into English
 the committee and  the Convention are indebted to the  kindness
 of Dr. Wm. Grier,  U. S. N.
    The pamphlet is  submitted entire.  In the opinion of the com-
 mittee its value does not so much depend upon  the facts deduced
 as upon the theories of the action of certain disinfecting agents,
 and for  the minute  detail of the manner in which ^experiments
 were conducted.  Believing as we do  that science is  yet  upon
 the threshold of knowledge upon the subject, a study of careful
 experimentation is  of the first importance  towards our  advance-
 ment."1  (Appendix C.)

   1 We were informed by Dr. W. Whelan, U. S. N., that a single report upon
 the nitrate of lead was the  only paper upon the subject to be found  in the
 Naval Bureau.   No other replies were received which we were authorized to
 use. 
8
                        PROPOSITIONS.

   From the answers received to our circulars, and from the nature
of the subject, we would arrive at the following  conclusions :—

   I.  The "character" of disinfectants must vary according  to
a great variety of circumstances.

   II. Each communicable  disease has its  peculiar " materies
morbi," and its own terms of communicability.

   III.  The same being true for each epidemic  and  endemic
disease, fair reasoning and analogy would preclude the supposi-
tion that there can exist in nature, or be secured  by science, a
general or universal disinfectant.   As well might we expect to
discover a "panacea."

   IV. It remains to be  proved  whether deodorizing  substances
are likewise disinfectants proper.

   V. Although facts in many well known instances (as at Mont-
faucon  near Paris) have shown that men living in  the midst
of decomposing animal and vegetable substances, and thus  sur-
rounded with offensive gases, are not thereby rendered unhealthy;
and also that many well substantiated cases are known  of the
most deadly epidemics and  endemics prevailing, where  neither
the senses nor scientific investigations  could  detect  any change
in  the  surrounding air.  But  yet these singular  phenomena
should not by  their speciousness induce the belief that offensive
gases are not deleterious to mankind, and should not be removed
if possible.

Propositions concerning classified diseases for which disinfect-
                     ants might be used.
   The registration reports of  England classify causes of  deaths
under 107 heads, of which only 16 will  admit of the application
of " disinfectants,"  and your committee deetm it  indispensable to
enter thus practically and  analytically upon the  subject, as a
general article upon " disinfectants" would be equally unprofit-
able, vague, and unscientific.

   VI. It  is sufficient to state now and here that the  diseases
fatal to any considerable number  of persons, and by universal
consent admitted to be communicable from the sick  to those  in
health,  are, variola (smallpox),  typhus  (ship, jail,  or  spotted)
fever, and rubeola (measles). 
9
   Class 2d.  Those also fatal to a considerable proportion of in-
 dividuals attacked, but whose nature as regards  their commu-
 nicability from the sick to those in health is still a mooted point,
 are,  cholera, yellow  fever, scarlet  fever,  and some forms  of
 dysentery, erysipelas, and diphtheritis.
   Class 3d. The communicability of parotitis (mumps); pertussis
 (whooping-cough); varicella  (chicken-pox);  the contagiousness
 of the venereal diseases, and  scabies (itch), is universally ad-
 mitted, but none of these are frequently  fatal  when  uncompli-
 cated.
   Plague and glanders are thus far but little known.

                  Propositions for Glass 1st.
   VII.  Prevention  of crowding,  ventilation  and  cleanliness
 combined, are as certain a preventative (disinfectant) of typhus
 fever, and perhaps of  cholera as vaccination and  re-vaccination
 are of smallpox.  For rubeola (measles) no disinfectant as yet is
 known.

   VIII. It is well known that the poison  of epidemics is not
 perceptible to the senses nor, as yet, to science.  This is true for
 influenza, cholera, rubeola, epidemic variola, parotitis, &c.  There
 is a wide-spread, popular  association  between offensive noxious
 emanations and  yellow fever, their exact relationship, as cause
 and effect, remains to be investigated.
   It  is true much  filth and offensive gases  are to be found  in
 many towns, and on shipboard, even in hot weather, without the
 production of yellow fever, and instances directly the converse
 as frequently occur.

           Propositions for the 2d Glass of Diseases.
   IX. When a  portion  of the crew of a vessel, as  a man-of-war,
 cruising in the yellow fever zone, and it may be whilst the vessel
 is anchored in a port where this disease then exists as an  epi-
 demic, are  attacked  with yellow fever, the  rule  adopted  is  to
 change the location of  the vessel; that is, to put to  sea.   This
 change of location does not check this disease so certainly as is
 the case with some other diseases.  To account  for this, one or
 all of five things must exist.
   1st. Either the vessel contains within its circumscribed section
 of space some air or articles holding  the materies morbi of the
 disease ; or, 2dly. Those having been  poisoned by it whilst in the
 port,  are variously affected as regards the period of incubation ;
 or 3dly.   It is directly communicated from the sick to those in
 health ;  or 4thly. The general  atmosphere of the  vessel is  poi-
soned by the continued presence of the sick ; or  5thly. It had a 
10
 spontaneous origin in the vessel, and the local causes still exist ;
 or, all these causes combined assist in carrying  on the disease.
 The same  may be  said for a  merchant vessel.   The same  may
 be the case with a seaboard or inland city or town ; the motions
 of the atmosphere, and the flight of the  citizens, corresponding
 in some measure to the change of location of the ships.
   An agent which will destroy the poisonous  atmosphere in the
 ship  if it  exists, or which, being inhaled  by  those  already poi-
 soned, will destroy in them the poison, and which, being inhaled,
 will give to those not already poisoned, complete security against
 the disease, is unknown ; in a word, a disinfectant for yellow
fever is a desideratum.

   X. The admission and knowledge of the fact that no disin-
 fectant for diseases of this class exists are at once the origin and
 the cause of the continuance of quarantine.

   XI. Without  arguing  the  question concerning  the  importa-
 bility and communicability  of cholera  and yellow fever,  it is
 sufficient  to say, that if such danger can be avoided  by  free
 ventilation or  otherwise, mankind should have the benefit of the
 doubt.

   XII. If the deliberations of this  Convention are of any value,
 or more  properly  of sufficient value, to  have their conclusions
 disseminated amongst the learned in every port upon this small
 planet, then we  may expect  to begin  at  the " causa causans,"
 and render quarantine  restrictions much less  onerous than  they
 have ever been heretofore, by a timely application of the natural
 disinfectants.
   For this purpose, your committee upon  disinfectants  (con-
 cerning their  effects and benefits  to sanitary measures), would
 recommend the two following regulations:—
   1st. Let it be the duty of the officers of the port where a ves-
 sel is lading, to see that such  vessel and freight are in a proper
 hygienic condition before she is loaded ;  and  let a certificate of
 this be a portion  of the papers to  be  presented at the port of
 entry.
   2d. Let the officers of the vessel show upon the log, the length
 of time which windsails were set to ventilate the  hold and every
 part of the vessel;  the amount of  canvas used for such windsails,
 and the force of the wind whilst they were set.
   These data, together with the condition of the vessel, crew,
 and cargo, upon arrival, will greatly assist the quarantine officers
 of the port of entry.   This will be  applying  the great natural 
11
disinfectant of ventilation at the time, when, and as it should be
applied.

   XIII. For scarlet fever, influenza, parotitis (mumps), pertus-
sis (whooping-cough), and  those  forms  of erysipelas, dysentery
and diphtheritis, which are believed by some to have a local cause
in the imponderables, your committee have  no reliable disinfect-
ant to offer.
                  Propositions for Class 3c?.
   XIV. For the venereal diseases the laws  of quarantine cannot
be enforced, although for this country (America), and the South
Sea Islands, they are greatly needed.   But for domestic disin-
fection,  your  committee  would  call attention to the increased
facilities for vaginal irrigation, with pure water, by means of the
various convenient gum-elastic syringes. The use of these instru-
ments is as easy as the opening  and shutting of the hand, and
they pour a continuous stream  of water  into the very focus of
contagion.

   XV.  Scabies (itch) should  be  a disease for quarantine investi-
gation at  every port  throughout the earth where  immigrants
arrive, and no better  disinfectant is  known than the  external
treatment by  sulphur, according to medical laws and principles.
 These, of course, demand hospital means, and appliances, and
 delay.
   Concerning plague and glanders, we decline offering  any sug-
 gestions.

    PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING THE  DISINFECTION OF  THE AIR
            WITHOUT REFERENCE TO SPECIAL DISEASE.

   I.  The only plausible theory  to account  for the phenomena of
 epidemic diseases is, that their causes  exist in what is known in
 physics as  the atmosphere.   Allowing for  currents, and for  the
 rise and fall of the atmosphere from alternations of heat  and cold,
 the best authorities suppose that terrestrial animals  make use of
 a stratum of it in sustaining life, to the height of from 60 to 200
 feet.
   Can this area be disinfected?
   The idea, at first, seems almost an abstraction, yet facts prove
 conclusively that in some instances it  can.   Facts do  not go so
 far as to prove this directly,  in the case of epidemics proper,  but
 they do in the instance  of a class  of diseases  known in  the etiology
 of medical science as  "miasms,"  of  which remittent and inter-
 mittent fevers are the  effectst and cultivation, or the building of
 towns, with drainage, the natural disinfectants alluded  to. This 
12
should at least be encouraging for the future, and would lead us to
ask again:  Can this area be disinfected within certain bounds; say
for example, five m'iles square ?   This would cover the area over
which the poison of yellow fever was spread in Norfolk in 1855.
The average.motion of the atmospheric air being only about six
miles per hour, would favor the practicability of this idea, pro-
vided a proper disinfecting agent was known.  But  we would not
have it  prominently advanced that the use of disinfectants,  as
destroyers  of  poison,  should always be held  secondary to the
prevention of disease.  Preventive medicine consists in the anti-
cipatory employment  of the  natural disinfectants.  (See Appen-
dix B.   Abstract from Dr. Muspratt.)

   II. The  salubrity of air  of towns   differs  from that of the
country as  22  differs from 34.  That is, where an individual has
the chance of  obtaining the age of 22 years, in the air of a town,
he would have an equal chance  of living to the age  of 34 years,
in the air of a salubrious country residence.   The same compa-
rative difference exists in vegetable life.

   III.  The impurities thus far found  in  the  air of  towns are,
(according  to  Dr. Angus Smith), an increased quantity of car-
bonic acid  to the amount of  0.049, sulphur acids.  An absence
of ozone, increased acidity, and a greatly increased  amount  of
organic matter (an increase in  Manchester, England, according
to the same authority), as  9 is to 22.

   IV.  It is not to be  supposed, that this difference  of the atmo-
sphere  of towns from  its condition of estimated purity in country
localities, is not a mode of infection upon a large scale, nor is it
unreasonable to. hope that science may be able to find some disin-
fectant.

   V. Planting trees and increasing the amount of vegetable life
in towns, may  act favorably in decreasing the  excess of carbonic
acid.   An  admixture of lime  with the burning coal,  where  this is
used in great excess (as in Pittsburg),  may remedy the escape  of
sulphur acids.   But your  committee are indebted to Dr. Angus
Smith for this  idea, and like himself, we must end with the mere
suggestion, leaving future observations to  test its usefulness.
The increased  acidity  of the air of towns is supposed  to depend,
in great part, upon the sulphur acids.

   VI.  Dr. Morfit's letter  concerning the manner in which ozone1
may be used as  a disinfectant, as well  as how  it may  be formed 
13
in a  small way, is suggestive.   But observations upon this sub-
stance are still in limine.

   VII. It is to remedy the vapors containing organic matter, for
which disinfectants have been principally sought.
   When we reflect that every cesspool, privy, alley, filthy vacant
lot,  garbage  cart, or vessel containing garbage,  is constantly
adding to the amount of organic matter in the air of  a town, it
is clear that the  evil is to be  remedied by speedy removal  of
these things, and increased facilities of washing the surface clean
with pure water.
   But it is impossible to remove  them immediately, either  in
towns or from on board  ships.   Hence the necessity for disin-
fectants.

           PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING DEODORIZERS.

   I.  Your committee do  not hold that these substances which
absorb or alter offensive gases, are  on that account disinfectants
(according to  the  definition given), yet in the medical police of
large cities a cheap deodorizing  agent for night-soil, and  street-
soil, is greatly needed, if not absolutely for  the health  of the
citizens,  at least for their comfort.  And as almost always hap-
pens, places of  deposit of these  matters are  for  convenience
made at all  points  of the  compass around cities or towns,  it
follows that  as their gaseous emanations  are wafted  back into
the inhabited districts according to the direction of the  winds,
therefore, any substance which will retain or change these offen-
sive gases, must be acceptable as an article of comfort, if not of
health.
   Articles which  are cheap will always for this purpose  have a
preference.
   Your committee have not personally experimented  with coal-
ashes, but  we would suggest this article upon the following au-
thority :—
   Dr. John Fonerden, having charge of the Maryland Hospital
upon the outskirts of the city of Baltimore, was much annoyed
by the odor from several places of garbage and night-soil imme-
diately in the  neighborhood of the hospital.   Having complained
to the Board  of Health, he induced them,  upon several occa-
sions, to  make a personal inspection of  these places of deposit.
At the time of their visit they were completely inodorous.  Dr.
Fonerden found  that  the  men were  constantly  on the alert to
find  out when the Board were  about to make their inspection.
They would then cover the pits with coal-ashes, and the deodori-
zation was complete. 
14
  Thomas  Baynes, at Harris' creek, near Baltimore, manufac-
tures poudrette, &c, from night-soil, street-soil, dead animals, &c.
He  receives at his place of  deposit, 100 cart loads per  week of
night-soil, buys street-soil from the  city to  the  amount of  300
loads per week.
  He has experimented with deodorizers.
  According to him, muriatic acid is a complete deodorizer, but
is too expensive.
  Sulphuric acid, in the proportion of 1 part to  100,  is a feeble
deodorizer, and also too expensive.
  Lime does not deodorize.
  We were shown a sample of his poudrette. It had no unpleasant
smell.
  It consisted of night-soil mixed with coal  ashes and charcoal.
The charcoal he  obtained from the whiskey refiners, at a cost of
from $1 to  50 cents per cart load.   He dries the charcoal before
using it.   These are the proportions used.   To three  cart loads
of coal ashes, add one of charcoal.   To  fifty cart loads of night-
soil, add one cart load of the above mixed coal ashes and charcoal.
  He  thus returns to  the land  what would otherwise be lost.
The sales from his establishment amount to $23,000 per annum  ;
nothing being used but what is thrown in waste from  the city.
Thus, coal  ashes, now a useless and waste article, may be turned
to great value in and around large  cities and towns where coal
is used as a fuel.   It is rejected by agriculturists, and is used in
no branch of manufacture, consequently its only cost is that of
securing and transportation.  By preserving it  dry during the
winter  for use in  summer, it would  have the great advantage of
cheapness over any other deodorizing (disinfectant?) article now
in use.

  II.  The  sawdust, from pine wood especially,  and from other
woods in a  less degree, has the property of absorbing and retain-
ing the ammoniacal gases, and we have found it of  great advantage
and comfort, for this purpose, when used in stables in large cities.
Since it has come somewhat generally into use for  this purpose
in Baltimore, its price has advanced from 0 per  cart load to 75
cents.
  There are a great number of patent deodorizing agents which
answer a good purpose, such as  Coutaret's, now  being experi-
mented with in  New York,  and  about to be experimented with
in Baltimore; and Prof.  Darby's, which has a great celebrity
in Alabama, where it is manufactured, and many others  to which
our attention has been called.  But as they are  being pushed
forward to  public notice by  their inventors,  and  as many of the
constituents of disinfecting substances, as well as their principles 
15
of action, have been so ably explained in the  articles herewith
submitted from the accomplished chemists, Drs. Morfit, Muspratt,
and M. Tardieu, we will refrain from further comment and pro-
ceed at once to a few

                  CONCLUDING PROPOSITIONS.
   I. Scepticism upon  this, as  upon many other subjects of an
obscure nature, is to be avoided.  Simply because a solution does
not meet every requirement, it is not proper, therefore, to check
inquiry, and view the entire matter as useless.
   It is by disseminating what is known, as well as by a candid
avowal of what is unknown, that science may expect to eradicate
many injurious practices and superstitions.
   The burning of tar in the ill-ventilated steerage of the steamer
Austria, was the cause of  death  of  many valuable persons, and
the means thus employed is pronounced, by an advanced science,
to be as useless as, in this dreadful catastrophe, it proved danger-
ous and fatal.   There is no good or rational  project, based on
the best experience,  that  does not  struggle against prejudice,
vague  theories, and ignorance, before the  world  at large can
secure the benefit of it.

   II.  In this report we have endeavored to present the subject
of disinfectants from the point of view from which it is observed
by the  chemist.  That is,  those  who, by chemical laws,  explain
the changes which take place in gases or vapors, not recognizing
the difference between deodorizers and disinfectants, and secondly,
from the stand-point of the physician, suggesting  the difference
which  should be drawn between deodorizers and disinfectants of
disease.
   The  desire  of your committee has been to  cover the whole
ground.  1st. To  state  briefly what is known ; and 2dly, to
draw attention to points which  are important, and not yet settled
by science.

   III.  If the  distinction  between the  deodorizers of offensive
gases,  and  disinfectants of disease be a proper one, future  ex-
periments will be conducted upon a  new basis. 
APPENDIX.
                                A.
         LETTER IN REPLY FROM  CAMPBELL MORFIT, M. D.
                Chemical Laboratory, No. 19 East Twelfth Street,
                       near University Place, New York, Feb. 5, 1859.
Dr. W. CHEW VAN BIBBER, and the Members of the  Sanitary Committee of
          the United States Quarantine and Sanitary Convention.
  Gentlemen : The following notes are offered as a reply to the circu-
lar which you addressed to me several months ago :—
  As the subject of disinfectants bears directly upon those conditions of
the atmosphere  which  involve  the  necessity of sanitary measures, it
becomes  me to preface this paper with a reference to atmospheric air in
its normal  constitution, that  being  the prime  medium through which
disease is propagated by molecular and gaseous  poisons.   Chemists have
determined this constitution to be of oxygen 23.015 and nitrogen 76.990
parts by  weight, together with three to six-thousandths of carbonic acid,
and a proportion of aqueous vapor varying with the location and meteoro-
logical circumstances.  Except from accidental causes, and which only
produce a deviation from these proportions within  narrow limits, the air,
in its integrity, is uniformly of the same composition as above expressed.
So  long  as this constitution  remains undisturbed,  atmospheric air is
wholesome and invigorating to animated nature, and in itself  a powerful
disinfectant of vitiated air.  But when, on the other hand, matters dis-
tinct from  its normal  constituents are sensibly present, they depreciate
its healthfulness and purifying qualities.  Ozone, however, which is more
or less developed by certain electrical changes, is not to be considered a
foreign element, but an allotropic condition of the oxygen.   Indeed, it
is truly normal to the extent of one ten-thousandth part; and in  that
proportion, as will be noted hereafter, it augments essentially the health-
ful influence of the atmosphere.
  The vitiation of atmospheric  air is produced by various agencies; and
upon the kind and degree of this vitiation its unfitness for human respira-
tion depends.
  Foul air has several prime sources.  One is in the overcrowding of apart-
ments, by which means an  accumulation of carbonic acid gas takes place,
while, at the  same time, organized matters are  exhaled from the person
through the lungs and skin; and these are particularly poisonous when the
person is diseased.  Another source is the putrefaction of organic matters. 
17
When animal and vegetable matters are exposed for a certain period to
moist air at warm temperatures, putrefactive fermentation is induced, and
such products as water, carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, sulphuretted
hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, hydrosulphuret of ammonia, and bi-
sulphuret of carbon are evolved, together with highly organized molecules,
which, in their extreme development, are most probably animated.   In
hot and warm climates, they always exist to a greater or less degree in
the air of  the chambers of the sick and of the dwellings of the untidy
lower classes.  They result, too, from personal uncleanliness, the  accumu-
lation  of offal, the stacking of putrescent matters  in  cellars and streets,
from stagnant waters, and from imperfect drainage.  All are injurious in
their effects upon the human system; but those which most promote dis-
ease are the  organized molecules, the  sulphuretted  and phosphuretted
hydrogen gases and the hydrosulphuret of ammonia.  In a general sense,
they are termed collectively miasm; and if, as happens in certain instances,
there should be no accompanying odor to herald the miasmatic presence,
it exerts its mysterious power upon human health  in  the most  insidious
manner.
   The miasm, so noxious per se, acts also  as  a ferment, and however it
may have.originated, has  the faculty of operating upon the contiguous
atmosphere and  producing such a catalysis or change in the  elements of
that atmosphere as to give rise to an infection.  The air of hospitals, of
ships,  and  ill-ventilated apartments, from  being  contaminated with the
breath and emanations of the  inmates, is especially  sensitive to  this
catalysis, and from such  causes the diffusive power of the poisonous
molecules may render a local disease general.
   To disarm the atmosphere of this influence for evil, we  must remove
the  miasm or pabulum by which it promotes disease and  widens the
sphere of its virulence.  This is  to be accomplished by attacking it with
agents which  will transform it  into innocuous products.  Such agents
are chemical and styled disinfectants, because  they wholly transmute the
poisonous  miasm, whereas deodorizers,  in contradistinction, such as em-
pyreumatic and essential oils, fumigations and the like, merely mask the
bad odor without reaching the true spirit of evil which may pervade the
air.
   The sulphuretted and phosphuretted elements of the miasm constitute
effluvia,  and though very  injurious to health, are  doubtless secondary to
the organized inodorous portion in their baneful influence.  Consequently,
no disinfecting substance is fully efficient which does not destroy or sub-
stantially modify the latter, and, at the same time,  decompose and de-
odorize the former.
   For that reason, with  the  exception of Labarraque's liquid, the sub-
stances which, from time  to time, have been proposed as disinfectants do
not  wholly accomplish  the object, since the  decomposing action which
they exercise  is restricted to the effluvia. Thus, for example, Le Doyen's
liquid (solution of  nitrate  of lead) abstracts the sulphur and phosphorus
of the i_fases and consolidates them as inodorous sulphuret and phosphuret
of lead,"while the nitric acid eliminated from the lead salt combines with
the ammonia and fixes it as inodorous nitrate  of ammonia.
  Burnett's liquid  (solution of chloride of zinc) is  even less efficacious in
        2 
18
one respect, since its action does  not extend to the free or uncombined
sulphuretted hydrogen  gas.   It  has, however, eminent  antiseptic  pro-
perties and  arrests putrefaction even more promptly than nitrate of lead
when the decaying substance is brought into immediate contact with it.
I use the term antiseptic in its true technical sense as designating those
agents which, while  preventing  putrefaction, and  even  arresting decay
when it has begun, do not  by their action effect the chemical decomposi-
tion  of the substance.
  Ellerman's fluid (a mixture of perchloride of iron with pyrolignate of
the sesquioxide of iron) acts  like the preceding liquids by decomposing
the sulphuretted gases.   The pyroligneous acid, being antiseptic, imparts
that quality to the compound which it forms  with the oxide of  iron.
  Caustic (slaked lime)  is rather a deodorizer than a disinfectant, though,
in a  measure, it plays also the role of .the latter. It absorbs and neutral-
izes the carbonic acid  and sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen, and
by its antiseptic properties retards and  even arrests putrefaction.   On
this account, it is a  cheap and useful agent for admixture with animal
and other matters in a state of putrescence.
  Charcoal is eminently antiseptic, and to a certain degree it exerts also
a disinfecting power.  This latter is owing to the porosity of the charcoal,
which gives it a very great capacity for absorbing gases.  Hence its direct
action is only mechanical;  though when miasmata become stored in  the
pores of the coal, there  is a secondary and chemical action promoted by
intimate contact of the  former with the air condensed also  by the char-
coal.   In this way energetic  oxidation  of the  mephitic  contents of  the
coal ensues to  a greater or less extent.   The  charcoal itself  exerts no
decomposing or chemical action;  for, if after having absorbed  the  mias-
mata, it is gently heated, within a reasonable interval, they are  given  out
unchanged.   On this account  charcoal, though  it may justly hold a lead-
ing rank  among deodorizers,  cannot be considered as really  deserving
the high reputation as a disinfectant, which many chemists seem disposed
to concede to it.  Yet, alone, and as a  deodorizing admixture for fecal
matters it  performs a  faithful  service, while  it is very useful even in
infected atmospheres, when employed as an auxiliary to ventilation or
chlorine.
   A neat, though comparatively  expensive, preparation,  which possesses
great advantages as a deodo-disinfecting agent, is  the per-manganate of
potassa, (KO,Mn307).  It  gives off its abundant  store of oxygen most
freely to organic matters,  and many kinds  of gas, and destroys  them
without leaving any odor.  It is only necessary  to expose it in thin strata
of damp powder upon broad plates, and to renew it as soon as its original
purple-red color becomes black.   Its oxidizing  action upon the infected
atmosphere  is  exerted  with   remarkable promptitude.   Dr.  Smith, of
London, has proposed the  use of this salt as a  means for measuring the
quantity of putrescible matter in  the air, and the instrument for the pur-
pose, he calls a sepometer.  It  acts simply in showing how much of the
per-manganate  is decomposed  by a given volume of air.
   Of all disinfectants, that which holds a foremost rank, except, perhaps,
ozone, is chlorine, either in the  state of free  gas  or  combinations with
soda or lime as hypochlorites of those bases. 
19
  Chlorine acts not only chemically upon the gases proper, but also upon
the organized molecules of the miasm.   From both  it seizes  hydrogen,
and thus kills the latter while it decomposes and deodorizes the former.
Its penetrating  quality enables  it also to reach  the  miasm  in the most
secret recesses.  In my own experience I have known it to clear a typhoid
atmosphere of its infection almost  immediately.   Its most familiar form
is  that  of " chloride of lime." or " bleaching salt," so  largely used in
calico works  and manufactures.   Upon being spread  out, it attracts  car-
bonic acid from the air, and that acid in combining with the lime to form
carbonate, causes the gradual development of  chlorine.   Labarraque's
chlorinated  liquor  is a corresponding salt of soda, and a much more
elegant  compound, which gives  off chlorine by the same rationale as the
bleaching salt.  A dilute solution of either forms a most efficient liquor
for washing infected clothing.   The  objections  to be urged against the
use of chlorine  in the chambers of the sick on  account of its irritating
action upon the respiratory organs are  scarcely tenable  when  the hypo-
chlorites are  the sources from which it is  evolved;  then  it is given off too
feebly and slowly to be deleterious in that aspect.  Indeed, in the febric
atmosphere of certain of  the  hospital wards, injurious  exhalations accu-
mulate  so rapidly, that it becomes  indispensable to generate the gas in
larger quantity.   To accomplish this economically with the least incon-
venience to  the health and personal comfort of the patient, hydrochloric
acid is made  to fall upon the common black peroxide  of manganese.  The
latter decomposes the former by abstracting its hydrogen and eliminating
gaseous chlorine.   A very simple form of apparatus for this purpose, and
which is  as  near as may be  self-acting,  accompanies this  report.  The
annexed drawing too will explain  its mode of operation, and  show that
the evolution of the gaseous chlorine is completely under control.
   C is the bottle which contains the pxide of
manganese.   Passing into it, through the cork
stopper, is a glass pipette.  The bulb, B, of the
pipette holds the hydrochloric  acid.  By pres-
sure on the cap A, which is of India rubber, the
air within is condensed, and  on dipping the
end of the pipette  into the acid, and then re-
moving the  hand  from  the  cap,  the bulb be-
comes  filled.  In the same way, when  it is
required to put the  apparatus into action, it is
only necessary to press gently on the cap.  The
acid falls dropwise  on the  manganese, and the
chlorine thus generated escapes into the air
through the  holes a a a, in the stopper.
  In all cases, however, a most indispensable and potent auxiliary to dis-
infecting substances is ventilation.  Indeed, in ordinary instances, it alone
 
20
suffices, for by keeping  the miasm  sufficiently diluted with constant ac-
cessions of pure air, its  tendency to harm is neutralized.
  Pure air exerts a twofold action ; first, mechanically by its currents in
dispersing the miasm, and, as above mentioned, in preventing its becoming
concentrated ; and second, chemically, by means of its oxygen and ozone.
The latter is powerful in its effect upon the organized and gaseous poisons
of the atmosphere.
  Atmospheric ozone is oxygen electrified.   It is a subtle invisible sub-
stance, which betrays its presence, when concentrated, by a pungent and
peculiar, disagreeable odor.   It is produced, naturally, in  the air  during
a thunder storm, and whenever an  emission of the  opposite  electricities
occurs.   So also it may be made artificially by bringing together oxygen
and electricity in their  nascent state, as will be described  presently.   It
is said to be the means  by which the natural equilibrium of oxygen in
the air is maintained  against the disturbance which  would otherwise be
induced by respiration,  combustions, and oxidations, generally going  on
upon  the surface of  the earth.  One very interesting  fact with  regard
to it, as a disinfectant, is its usual absence from inhabited dwellings, hos-
pitals,  and badly ventilated apartments.   Moreover in malarial districts
it is said the  air is either wholly deficient in ozone, or else contains it in
the least appreciable quantity.   It must be marked, however, in qualifi-
cation of its beneficial meteorological influences, when existing in  the air
in the normal  amount  before  given, that it  begins to assume  baneful
properties as  soon as it attains  to double that  proportion.   Indeed in  its
very concentrated form, it is highly inflammatory in  its action upon the
mucous membrane, and otherwise deleterious  to the  human system.   A
means of detecting its presence and  measuring its constant intensity in
the air becomes therefore very desirable, and that we have in the recently
devised ozonometer of Dr.  Lankester.   This  instrument consists  of two
small rollers inclosed in a box,  and  moved by  a clock-work arrangement;
a strip of smooth paper  prepared by saturating it with a solution of iodide
of potassium and starch is  made to revolve over the  roller to the length
of an inch per  hour.  Twenty-four inches pass over in a day,  and thus
register by the  color acquired on  exposure,  the  intensity of the  ozone
influence for every hour.   An  average can be deduced from the maxima
and minima tints.
  The rationale of the behavior is as follows :  The ozone acting upon the
iodide of potassium  sets free the iodine, which, in its turn, reacts upon
the starch,  and imparts  the  characteristic  violet-blue coloration.  As
standards of comparison, there  should be a chromatic scale, or graduated
series of tinted  papers,  each representing a certain proportion or degree
of ozone, as predetermined by careful tests and  observations.
  The test paper should be exposed in the shade, and out of the way of
volatile exhalations, for  these latter, and the  sun's  rays, cause  false  in-
dications.   So, too, the  traces  of nitric acid,  generated in the air at cer-
tain times and under certain meteorological conditions, might  prove a like
source of error.  It is for these reasons that Houzean is now  making the
subject his special study, with the view of devising an ozonoscopic method
which will be free from objection; and results already published by him
show that complete success  will soon reward his labors. 
21
   When the instrument indicates a deficiency of ozone, as  it may do in
the apartments of the sick, the sign  naturally suggests the  propriety of
using a remedy.   This remedy is not difficult to be applied, for it is only
necessary to  pour some water into  a broad and shallow plate, immerse
sticks of phosphorus to half their length in it, and  leave the whole  ex-
posed in the apartment to be disinfected.   As the vapor of the phosphorus
is given off, it combines with a part  of the oxygen of the air, becoming
hypophosphoric acid, which is immediately absorbed  by the water; and
the disengagement of electricity, incident to the chemical  combination,
produces the ozonization of the remainder of  the atmospheric oxygen.
The ozonometer will show when a sufficient quantity has been generated.
   In conclusion, I must not omit to  mention the freezing mode  of disin-
fection, now so much  in vogue for purifying ships, and  which,  more
properly, should have been discussed when I treated  of ventilation.  It
is a tedious, inefficient, and  expensive method.  Tedious because it  re-
quires at least a month, inefficient on account of its imperfect action, and
expensive for the reason that a very considerable consumption  of ice is
indispensable.
   A reduction  of  the temperature to a low degree does not permanently  '
affect the effluvia or organized molecules of the mephitic air.  Whatever
action does take place is only temporary; for putrefaction and animation
are merely suspended by the intense cold produced; and when the quies-
cent particles awake from their repose on the recurrence of warmth, they
may, other circumstances being favorable, resume their tendency to pro-
mote  disease.  It is more than  probable that the good  effect attributed
to the use of ice in disinfecting ships, is justly due to the protracted ven-
tilation  which their holds undergo while empty and during the long period
of freezing cold to which they are subjected.   Even under the most favor-
able circumstances, and apart from the considerations just noted, extreme
cold is not always an antiputrescent, for Dr. Kane, in his last arctic voy-
age, observed that the flesh of the reindeer became sensibly tainted at a
temperature as  low as —4° F., and there are other  similar instances on
record.   A positive disinfection  and simultaneous  deodorization can  be
much more readily effected, in less than a week and at the cost of  a few
dollars,  by the judicious use of chlorine gas and solution of  lead salt.
              llespectfully submitted by,
                            Your obedient servant,
                                          CAMPBELL MORFIT.
                                 B.

ABSTRACT OF  THE ARTICLE "DISINFECTANTS," IN THE CHEMISTRY,
  THEORETICAL,  PRACTICAL, AND  ANALYTICAL, AS  APPLIED AND
  RELATING TO THE ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.
          By Dr. Sueridan Muspratt, F. R. S. E.  Vol. i. p. 556.

  Antiseptics and deodorizers are  included in the enlarged signification
of the word "disinfectants."   Burning dead bodies and other substances,
drying them by means of heat, or washing with pure water, were among
the  earlier important methods of disinfection. 
22
  No infection is known without the presence of some putrefying agent.
It is from this  " stand-point" that a view of the opposite, or disinfection,
is taken.
  A state of the atmosphere in which  organic matter does not exist can
scarcely be imagined,  and has  never been found.   When  this organic
matter comes from  healthy bodies, it is found to be injurious if allowed
to collect; when emanating from unhealthy bodies, it must communicate
disease much more readily.  Solids and  liquids, when causing diseases,
must be removed; but it is against vapors that the use of disinfectants is
to be principally directed.
  Acids and  other  substances were used as disinfectants before ventila-
tion.   After ventilation  was  used, it was proposed to  medicate the  air
intended for respiration.
  Innumerable facts show that disease really arises in and around dwell-
ings and ships.  The last chapter in the history of cleanliness has  been
by no means  arrived  at; the  subject seems to grow as  civilization ad-
vances, and as  man becomes more  intellectual and refined in his organi-
zation, he appears to suffer most from its neglect.
  Natural Disinfectants.—The atmosphere is a great disinfector, partly
by its removal, with its currents, of contaminating matter, and partly by
its power of oxidation.   In ventilating, it is advisable to admit only the
purest  air.  It is generally safer to take air into a building  from an ele-
vation  of ten  or fifteen feet; or, if taken from a lower elevation, especially
not to  contaminate  it by drawing it through a damp cellar  or  from the
back of the house.
  Water is the next great disinfectant employed by nature.   Being essen-
tial to  eremacausis, it is likewise  the greatest corruptor.  It is a disin-
fecting agent by the simple act of washing.   Each shower of rain brings
down floating organic substances and diffused gases.   It is the only fluid
that will communicate to the skin  the feeling of freshness;  so much is
this generally esteemed,  that it stands in the  language as a  very type of
vigor and beauty.   Each stream and river removes  its tribute of sub-
stances capable of decomposition.   The  ocean bears the decaying mate-
rial further from  land, mingles  it with purer water, washes  it,  dashes it
about in the air, and thus produces  oxidation and purification.  In  all
cases where water will remove  the soil, it ought to be  regarded  as the
most agreeable and efficient disinfectant.
  Soil is  another great disinfectant, and, in conjunction with air  and
water,  is the most efficient of all.   Organic and  putrid substances sink
into  its porosities in solution and mixed with air, and thus become forcibly
oxidized.  Water  impregnated with  every impurity, in sinking through
it, is filtered,  and is only deleterious where the abundance of animal mat-
ter is more than can be acted on by the soil.
  Light is another  natural disinfectant.   It gives life, but in what man-
ner no one can say.   Air, water, land, drainage,  and light, are disinfect-
ants, to a great extent, under the control of man.
  Heat and  cold  are likewise  disinfectants,  partly  natural and partly
artificial.  Albumen coagulates  at 1403 F., and the ice-buried animals of
the north show the antiseptic properties of cold. 
23
   The artificial production of extremes of either may be used as disin-
fectants.
   Artificial Disinfectants.—Acids  are  preservatives of organic matter;
pyroligneous acid very much so.
   Tannic acid and other astringent substances are disinfectants.
   Charcoal, as an absorber of gases, is a disinfectant, of which wood-char-
coal has the highest  absorbent power.   It is likewise a powerful oxidizer
of gases.   It should not, on  this account,  be  mixed with substances
intended for fertilizers.   These principles of action recommend it to ex-
tensive use where the evolution of gases is the source of impurity.
   Gum resins (of which camphor has been most strongly recommended),
benzoin, storax, olibanum, amber, mastic, cascarilla, and* other  bodies of
similar nature,  have  been used to some extent  as disinfectants.   Their
theory of  action is unknown, and efficacy doubtful.
   Sugar is an  antiseptic, as is shown by its preservation of fruits and
meats.
   Anything which  excludes the  atmosphere is  a preservative  from de-
composition, and hence  a disinfectant.
   Metallic salts are disinfectants.   The nitrate of lead (Ledoyen's), chlo-
ride of zinc (Sir William Burnett's), chloride  of manganese (Mr. James
Young's), sesquichloride of iron (Ellerman's), chlorinated lime  or  soda
(Labarraque's),  have all been usefully employed as disinfectants, and
have virtues, as such, as chlorine  compounds.
   Chlorine, when used as hypochlorous acid, is more energetic.
   Chlorine, by liberating the nitrogen in a gaseous state, by breaking up
albuminous, ammoniacal, and cyanogen compounds, prevents eremacausis,
and  thus acts as a disinfectant.
   Nitrous acid (Dr.  Carmichael  Smith), sulphurous  acid (Dr. Angus
Smith and Mr. A. McDougall), variously compounded with salts of mag-
nesia and  a few per cents, of carbolic acid, being a fine, white, dry pow-
der,  is, in the opinion  of Dr. Muspratt,  doubtless far superior to any
disinfectant hitherto  fabricated.
                                 c.
 REPORT ON THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF CERTAIN METHODS OF
                           DISINFECTION.
                     By MM.  Tardieu and Cazalis.
   The Director of Public Aid, having been solicited by two manufacturers
of disinfecting  fluids, determined, in 1856, to  appoint a  committee to
make experiments at the Salpetriere, upon the comparative value of their
compounds.  This committee, originally composed of MM. Bouchardat,
Maipenet, and Tardieu,  was afterwards  modified by the introduction of
M. Cazalis in the place of M. Maipenet, who was called to duty in another
hospital, and of M. Fermond in the  place of M. Bouchardat, who, over-
loaded with numerous occupations, could not attend to the experiments
with all the care that was desirable.
   The two liquids which were  to be submitted to these comparative trials
were, 1st, the disinfecting fluid of M. Ledoyen, and '2d, the antimephitic 
24
liquid  of M.  Larnaudes;  but we  may here state  that we  were  able
to compare them simultaneously with the method of disinfection of M.
Krammer, already for some time in use at the Salpetriere, and  with the
best disinfectant of all—chlorine, in combination with the alkaline bases
of lime and soda.
   Before entering upon the details of the experiments which we made,
it is proper to premise, that the number of substances which  have been
tried as  disinfectants is  very considerable; that empirics, without any
knowledge of chemistry, have composed  the most heterogeneous mixtures,
quite incapable of attaining the object  they had  in view;  that  some of
them only attempted to conceal offensive odors by the use of  volatile or
aromatic substances, whilst  others made use of gummy and fatty mate-
rials, which, being  spread  over infectious  matters, confined the volatile
substances contained in them, and hindered them from spreading in  the
atmosphere: and, finally, that scientific  chemists, who understand that it
was necessary to decompose offensive or deleterious  emanations, are the
only persons who have rendered real service to public hygiene.
   We  will not here give a history  of all the methods, patented or not
patented, which have been  proposed as means of disinfection.   We will
confine ourselves to stating in a general  manner—
   1st.  That the volatile acids—nitric, muriatic, acetic, &c.—may in some
cases act efficaciously by neutralizing  animalized ammoniacal  matters.
They have often been successfully employed in purifying large inhabited
buildings.
   2d.  That nitrous and sulphurous acids produce excellent  effects, in
certain cases, by deoxidizing organic substances.
   3d.  That chlorine and the alkaline hypochlorites, the best disinfectants
known, decompose  all organic matters by uniting  with the hydrogen
which they contain.
   4th. That  the  alkalies—such as potassa, lime, soda, ammonia, &c.—
act by  their power of neutralizing the carbonic and hydrosulphuric acids,
and, perhaps, other volatile organic  acids whose composition is unknown.
   5th. That  certain soluble salts whose metallic bases  have a strong
affinity for sulphur, and form insoluble  sulphurets, act efficaciously upon
sulphuretted hydrogen and the hydrosulphuret of ammonia, both of which
are very  deleterious.
   6th. That  in all cases ventilation is indispensably necessary whatever
means  be employed.
   Since the discovery of chlorine, it may be truly said that no  new dis-
infectant has  been found; for all the methods put in  practice since that
epoch are evidently applications only of principles long before known to
chemists, and  are limited  to the neutralization of  ammonia  and the
decomposition of hydrosulphuric acid  gas  and  the  hydrosulphuret of
ammonia.  For this reason, the soluble salts of iron, zinc, copper, man-
ganese, and lead, or even  the oxides of these  metals, which are Very
cheap,  have been lauded with  almost equal success.   But, it must be
observed that, in this respect, the salts are superior to  the oxides, because
the  latter are altogether incapable of saturating any ammonia  either
already formed or resulting from the decomposition of the hydrosulphate
of ammonia.   On  the contrary, the  acid  of  the salt being  capable of 
25
neutralizing the ammonia resulting from this decomposition, the employ-
ment of the salt is, in almost all cases, to be  preferred; and yet even
then, as we shall  see  farther  on, the whole of the ammonia  cannot  be
neutralized.
   It would seem, at first view, that nothing could be easier than to com-
pare a number of disinfectants and  decide which of them possessed the
greatest  efficacy.   But when we  enter upon  a  course of experiments,
numberless difficulties are found, which ought  to render us cautious in
forming a decided opinion.   These difficulties arise from the fact that  we
possess no  reagents capable of detecting odors other than those of sulphu-
retted hydrogen and ammonia; and  that the sense of smell, upon  which
we must rely for  the detection  of all others, cannot  distinguish with
accuracy the numerous kinds and  degrees of odors, nor appreciate clearly
the changes produced in the air by the use  of different disinfectants.
Then again, offensive odors are caused by so great a number of different
substances, and their composition is so little known, that,  setting aside
sulphuretted hydrogen, sulphuret of ammonia, ammonia, and a  few others,
our iguorance of their chemical nature may be  said to be complete.
   This difficulty, which is  almost insurmountable, occupied  our  minds
incessantly; but, by varying our experiments,  and  changing the circum-
stances in which they were made, we have arrived at  a solution which,
if not perfect, approaches, at least, as near as possible to the truth.
   All our  experiments have  been made-—
   1st.  Upon sewers and privies.
    2d.  Upon fecal matters.
    3d.  Upon the air of infected wards.
   4th.  Upon putrefying animal matters.
   5th.  Upon animal  matters easily putrescible, but not in  a  state of
          putrefaction.

            A.  EXPERIMENTS UPON SEWERS  AND PRIVIES.

   For some time the privies and sewers at  the  Salpetriere had been
special  objects of disinfection by the  process of  M. Krammer.   This
consisted of the application of a liquid the basis of which was a  salt of
iron, and their condition was thereby perceptibly improved;  but,  never-
theless, it  must be said that there  were some  privies, particularly those
of St. Leon, so offensive that persons who entered them were seized with
a  feeling of disgust which frequently caused nausea.
   In this  state of affairs, we successively made use of  the means  which
we are about to mention.  But as these privies opened into a  sewer which,
starting  from the Cour Lassy, crossed the St.  Charles building in  order
to reach that of St. Leon, in passing before the church, we  were obliged
to include  in  our operations not only the sewer in its whole extent, but
also all the privies which opened into it.1
1 There are nearly 1000 persons in these buildings. 
26
                  Disinfection by Ledoyen's Liquid.
   Ledoyen's liquid consists of a solution of about twenty-five pounds of
the crystallized  nitrate of lead in twenty-two gallons  of water.   This
liquid marks 12° on the areometer.
   To effect the purification of the  sewer and the privies opening into it,
M. Ledoyen sent a  man every day for nearly a  month.  This  man
expended daily upwards of two gallons of the liquid, more or less diluted
with water, which was used  in  washing the floor, seats, and basins, as
well as the walls.  Hence the liquid, in running down, spread over the
interior and lower walls of the privies, and finally found its way into the
sewer.
   From the first day, there was a perceptible improvement in the privies
of St. Leon, and they could  be entered without the feelings of disgust
we have already mentioned.   This improvement, however, did not  last
twenty-four hours; for, the operation having been performed between 8
and 9 o'clock in the morning, the good effects only lasted until 5 or 6 in
the evening; more or less, according to the wind, state of the weather, &c.
We may say that  the  method  of  M. Ledoyen  is next  best  to  that by
the chlorides—the best of all those which we have employed.
   The objection which has been made to this method, that it causes the
formation of a certain quantity of sulphate of lead, which leaves a white
stain upon the floors, is of little consequence, as the stain can be easily
removed with  a little  pure water.    Another objection,  that it leaves  a
coating  of black sulphuret of lead upon the metallic  basin and  other
places, is equally trivial; but  one much better founded is, in our opinion,
its incapability of  absorbing all the ammonia of privies—an important
subject, which we will consider further on.

               Disinfection by the  Liquid of Larnaudes.
   M. Larnaudes is the inventor of  a liquid  which he calls antimephitic,
with which  we  made  similar experiments.   This  liquid, whose  exact
composition has never been  communicated   to  us, although frequently
promised, appears to  be formed of a solution  of sulphate  of zinc to which
a little sulphate  of copper has been added, in order to make it a patent-
able article.  Now, neither the sulphate of zinc nor the  sulphate of cop-
per ought to be considered as  a  new disinfecting agent, for the sulphate
of zinc  had been  employed as such long before M. Larnaudes by Siret,
Gagnage, Regnault, Solmon, &c, and the sulphate of copper, which was
first used by  Paulet, has the great inconvenience  of being  ten  times
dearer than  the sulphate of iron without its being more efficacious.   But
whatever may  be its composition, M. Larnaudes  had the same sewer and
privies to purify as his competitor.1  A man was  sent  every day  for a
month to effect the purification by  means of  his antimephitic fluid;  and,
although this was perfectly accomplished, the results which we  observed
were far less extraordinary than the persons who were  interested  in  it
asserted them to be.   At  the very outset, we perceived  a serious incon-
venience which Ledoyen's fluid did not present.   At the  moment  when

  1  It ought to be  remarked that Ledoyen's liquid, having been previously
used, their condition was not so bad. 
27
it  was used, a metallic, coppery  taste was  perceived in the fauces, so
distinct that persons ignorant of the composition of the liquid  readily
recognized it.   Besides this coppery taste, the  styptic taste of the salts
of zinc was also perceived,  which the same persons compared to the taste
of ink.
   Although this  taste was  so distinct, and the sweet and astringent taste
of the salts of lead was not at all  perceptible  when Ledoyen's fluid was
used, it cannot be attributed to the greater volatility of the salts of zinc
and  copper.  We are inclined to think that it was owing to the manner
in which the fluid of Larnaudes was used.   The person employed by him
took particular care to sprinkle and diffuse the liquid as much as possible.
Thus, it was observed that the walls were more freely moistened, and the
floors, seats, and  basins kept cleaner and  better washed than in the pre-
vious proceedings of M. Ledoyen.  Now, in this free use of the liquid,
a  certain portion of it  was mechanically  carried  into the atmosphere by
currents of air, and, entering the back  of  the mouth through the nostrils,
produced there the sensation of metallic  adstriction of which we have
spoken.
   It might be  supposed that, after this extreme cleanliness, the liquid of
M. Larnaudes  would have  had a more marked  and persistent effect; but
it was not so;  for the purification having been completed between 8 and
9  o'clock  in the  morning, the offensive odor,  which had entirely disap-
peared, returned  anew  about  midday, or  a little later.   Now, we have
seen that,  with Ledoyen's  fluid,  the bad odor did not return until 5 or
6  o'clock  in  the evening.   It  appears,  therefore,  that the  effects of
Larnaudes's liquid last  only four or five  hours, and those of Ledoyen's,
eight  or nine  hours, which is  nearly double.   The latter has also, the
advantage of being somewhat cheaper.
   Experiments which were made in the privies of the Conciergerie with
Larnaudes's liquid leave no doubt of the rapidity with which it destroyed
the offensive odors prevailing  there, but it must  be added that the quan-
tity  of liquid employed was truly enormous.

               Disinfection by the Hypochlorite of Lime.
   Having always on hand  the hypochlorite of lime (dry chloride of lime),
we naturally thought of using it in the same places in which the  liquids
of Ledoyen and Larnaudes had  been employed.   With this view, about
seven and a half  pounds of the dry chloride of lime were mixed with ten
buckets  full of water.    Four  buckets full were then decanted in  such a
manner  as to  have the liquid sufficiently clear for washing the floors
without  whitening them.  The residue of the chloride, well mixed with
the remaining  six buckets  of  water, was thrown  into the  privies in such
a manner as to spread over their interior  walls  as extensively as possible.
This proceeding  was repeated daily for  nearly  a  month.   The  results
observed were  that, for  the first  few days, as soon as the liquid was used,
a thick cloud of white vapor appeared, owing to the formation of a  certain
quantity of hydrochlorate of ammonia; but gradually this vapor lessened
in quantity, so  that in a few days it was scarcely  visible.  The  formation
of this vapor was  above  all  extremely abundant  in the privies of St. Leon,
which we have said were the most offensive.  In the course of a few days, 
28
however, the vapors  there were not  more abundant than  in  the other
privies.
  We may hence conclude, it appears to us, that, although these places
were purified, first, by the method of Krammer, second, by that of Le-
doyen, and third,  by that of Larnaudes, they still contained, either in
their atmosphere  or  in  the  stones or porous  materials of  their walls, a
large quantity of  ammonia which the chlorine attracted or sought out,
thus producing the muriate of ammonia above referred to; and that if,
afterwards, similar but  less abundant vapors were observed, they were
due to the fact that new quantities of ammonia were daily  evolved.   It,
consequently, appears that, whilst the ammonia of the privies disappeared
almost completely under the use of chlorine, little or none  wa3  absorbed
by the disinfectants previously used.
  In  other  respects, the effect was nearly the same as when Ledoyen's
fluid was used; that is to say, when  the purification was effected at 8 or
9 o'clock in  the morning, the offensive odor did not return  until 5  or  6
in the evening.  The  price of this  disinfectant is somewhat  less  than
that of Ledoyen's, and considerably  less than that of M. Larnaudes'.
But it is an important consideration that the odor of  chlorine itself is
quite strong; that it is even suffocating when it exists to any great extent
in the atmosphere;  that it is disagreeable to  many persons, first,  by an
unpleasant odor, and then, by its  irritating action upon  the respiratory
organs.   Besides, it  exerts a corrosive action  on all the metals, and for
these reasons it  has fallen into  disfavor as a disinfecting agent.  We
think,  however, that, with proper care, it may be employed so  as  to
avoid, in a great measure, all these inconveniences.
  We must not omit the following fact, which we regard as conclusive.
During the time that the purification of the privies and sewers was going
on,  by the three methods of Krammer, Ledoyen, and Larnaudes, the men
employed in keeping the sewers in order perceived little or  no change in
the air of these places;  but as soon as the chloride of lime was used they
perceived so great an improvement that, without  having been informed
that a change had been made, they came to inquire what had been used,
and to request that it might also be employed in the other  sewers.
  We will finish  this part of the subject by remarking, that, in order to
maintain a constant  purification in the above-mentioned privies, &c, it is
necessary to use Ledoyen's fluid and  the chloride of lime twice in the 24
hours, and the liquid of Larnaudes at least three times in the same period.


               B. EXPERIMENTS ON FECAL  MATTERS.

  The experiments we have made upon  fecal matters are quite as conclu-
sive as those we have just reported upon sewers and privies.
  We took  two  casks, in each of which we placed  about 22 gallons of
feces mingled with urine.  Into one of  them we introduced a pint and a
half of the liquid of Larnaudes, and into the other 1\ pints of Ledoyen's
fluid.  After having mixed these as intimately as possible  with the con-
tents of the casks, we found that in both of them the odor of sulphuretted
hydrogen had completely disappeared; but a strong odor of ammonia still
remained.   It was difficult to decide by the sense of smell which of the 
29
two was  most efficacious.  We accordingly resorted  to the  use  of test
papers imbued with acetate of lead and reddened  litmus.   These were
introduced into the casks without touching their contents.   At the end
of two hours the reddened litmus paper was restored to its original blue
color, but the lead paper remained perfectly white.
   We allowed the casks to remain undisturbed for nearly two months, to
ascertain whether or not the sulphuretted hydrogen would be reproduced.
At the end of that time the test papers were reintroduced, and we found
that the lead paper remained white,  but the litmus paper regained its blue
color  in the space of half an hour in both casks.
   In  order to judge of the action of these liquids upon the total extinc-
tion of ammonia, we added respectively to each of  the casks the same
quantities as  before.  After having been well shaken up, they were co-
vered over, with pieces of reddened litmus paper placed in the empty
spaces.  An  hour  afterwards  the pieces of paper were restored to their
primitive blue color.   Finally we added to the casks double the quantity
of liquid previously employed,  and, notwithstanding this very large addi-
tion,  the litmus paper was turned blue at the end of an hour; with only
this difference, that the paper in the cask containing Ledoyen's fluid was
a little less blue than the other.  We  here stopped these  researches, as
we were convinced that the complete neutralization of the ammonia by
these proceedings would be altogether  too expensive.
   The foregoing experiments did not appear to us sufficient for forming
an opinion as  to the  merits of these  two fluids in decomposing the sul-
phuretted hydrogen contained  in fecal matters.  We therefore took two
other casks, and placed in them 22 gallons of  feces and urine in equal
portions of 11 gallons each.    Into one of  them was thrown three quar-
ters of a pound  of Ledoyen's  fluid, and into  the other half a pound of the
liquid of Larnaudes.  After mixing  them thoroughly a notable diminution
of the hydrosulphuric odor was perceptible, but the gas  had not been
absorbed to such an extent as to prevent the lead paper from  being black-
ened  at the end of a few hours.  The next day similar quantities of the
liquids were added to the casks; they were then shaken and covered over,
lead  papers having been previously placed in the empty spaces.   After  a
few hours both papers were found blackened,  but with this difference—
very  slight, indeed—that the paper from the cask containing the liquid
of Larnaudes was a shade darker than the  other.
   These experiments sufficed to convince us that the liquid of Larnaudes
was a little inferior in the intensity of its action upon sulphuretted hydro-
gen to that of Ledoyen.
   To complete these experiments, and compare the preceding with the
other disinfectants  in our hands, we repeated  them with the chloride of
lime  and the perchloride of iron.  We mixed one pound of chloride of lime
with  3£ pints of water, and added  it to 22 gallons of fecal matters.  We
also added to another cask, containing the same quantity of  similar mat-
ter, a liquid composed of half a pound of liquid perchloride  of iron, half
a pound of muriatic acid  of commerce, and enough water to make  the
solution equal to two pints.  On adding this to  the fecal matter contained
in the cask, so much effervescence was caused by the evolution of carbonic
acid  from the carbonates contained therein, that it  was necessary to add 
30
it very gradually.  When this had subsided, and the two casks were well
shaken, so as to mix their contents, papers imbued with lead and reddened
litmus were placed in  them, and they were covered over.   The  papers
were examined every hour.  At the end of the first hour the litmus paper
had hardly changed color.   In three hours it was perceptibly blue ; but
it was necessary to wait seven hours to have the papers as blue as those
which  had only remained an hour in the casks in which Ledoyen's and
Larnaudes' liquids  had been  tested.   As to the lead  paper, it was still
white at the end of two hours in the cask containing the acid perchloride
of iron, but slightly darkened in that containing the chloride of lime.
  It follows from these observations  that, as  regards the decomposition
of sulphuretted  hydrogen, the chloride of lime is  quite as efficacious as
the liquids of Larnaudes and  Ledoyen, whilst its cost is somewhat less
than either of them.  With respect to ammonia, it absorbs a much larger
quantity, but, notwithstanding, a considerable  amount of it remains un-
affected.   The acid perchloride of iron  disinfected  the same quantity of
fecal  matter about  as well as any of the other articles employed, and,
being much cheaper, might  be employed where economy is an object.
We must, however, observe  that  there are objections  to it, which it is
proper to mention.  First, it is a very acid compound, which cannot  be
safely  confided  to the  hands  of everybody; second,  the acid may not
only in the course of time injure the stones of the buildings in which it
is used, but it may also destroy the texture of cloth or linen accidentally
touched with it; and, finally, the  abundant effervescence which it causes
may in some circumstances render its use inapplicable.
  For the purpose of ascertaining the quantities of chloride of lime and
acid perchloride of iron necessary to cause the total disappearance of the
ammoniacal odor, we added to the casks already submitted to their action
the same quantities as before.   At the end of 24  hours the reddened
litmus was faintly tinged with blue in the cask containing the salt of iron.
On the contrary, that  containing the chloride of lime was  turned com-
pletely blue, but it required  the whole 24 hours to effect this  result.
  It is thus shown that of all the  means employed  for the disinfection of
fecal matters, the acid perchloride of iron, prepared in the manner above
mentioned, is the most efficacious  and economical in its action upon free
ammonia, as well as upon sulphuretted hydrogen and  the hydrosulphate
of ammonia.

       C.  EXPERIMENTS UPON THE AIR OF INFECTED WARDS.

   The experiments which we are about to report were made  in many of
the wards of the Salpetriere;  but those made in the wards of St. Cecile
and St. Rosalie, of the  section of incurables, where are found, particularly
in the last, patients  affected with cancerous and cutaneous diseases, ap-
peared to us the best tests for determining the comparative value of the
liquids of Ledoyen and Larnaudes and the hypochlorite of soda.
   It  is much more difficult than one would suppose to be assured of the
action of a non-volatile disinfectant upon  the vitiated air of a ward.  This
is owing to a variety of causes.   The organ of smell, by which  only  we
can appreciate  the difference of odor following the use of a disinfectant, 
31
is not always able to fulfil this office with exactness, either because it can-
not perceive accurately the different degrees of odor  before, during, and
after a process  of purification, or because  it does not retain a distinct
memory of the odor existing before the operation when it afterwards
attempts to ascertain its progress.  On the other hand, the odors are so
diverse, the miasms so abundant and complex in such a ward, that it is
altogether  impossible for a single disinfectant to cause all of them to dis-
appear.
   Some idea  of the  composition of the vitiated air of such a place  as
the ward  of St. Rosalie may be formed, by recollecting  that patients
affected with  cutaneous diseases  give  out  sulphuretted  hydrogen, car-
buretted hydrogen, phosphoretted hydrogen, hydrosulphate of ammonia,
carbonate  of ammonia, carbonic acid gas, nitrogen, &c, to  which must
be added the odors—whose nature is unknown—arising from the suppu-
ration  of ulcers, and  also the peculiar odors from the stomach and intes-
tines, from the breath, from the  perspiration—composed of formic, acetic,
butyric, and sudoric acids, and, above all, the indescribable odor emanating
from the bodies and clothes of the aged who people these establishments.
We can then form a  conception of the  number of materials upon which
a disinfectant must act in order to effect the restoration of the air of such
a ward to a wholesome condition; and we are almost irresistibly impressed
with the conviction that no known disinfectant is sufficiently powerful to
solve so difficult a problem.
   MM. Ledoyen and Beaulavon maintain that their liquid is very effica-
cious in the purification of infected wards.  They  report a number of cases
in which this liquid was perfectly successful.  We must say, however,
that we have not been as fortunate in our attempts as those patients have
been who have not hesitated to  address to these gentlemen letters of the
most favorable character, or who have given certificates attesting the good
effects which they have obtained from its use.
   A serious objection to this liquid as  a disinfectant for wards is, in our
opinion, the fixed nature of the  disinfecting  element, so that, instead of
seeking out  miasms  in  the atmosphere, in  order to destroy or combine
with them, the miasms are obliged to seek out and come into contact with
the liquid before any favorable change can take place in the air of the
ward.
   M.  Ledoyen  accounts for this action "at a distance" by the principle
of Berthollet, that when a certain  space contains different gases, having
no chemical action upon each other, each one expands uniformly through-
out its whole  extent in such a manner as to have a constant elastic force
in every part of the space occupied, and that independently of the relative
quantities  of the gases forming the mixture.   Hence it follows, says M.
Ledoyen, that if in a chamber containing hydrosulphuric acid gas there
is a certain point  at which this gas, in passing, will be destroyed by form-
ing, as in  this  instance, a sulphuret of lead, the equilibrium of the gas
disappears, and a movement immediately takes  place to restore the uni-
formity of tension.   Consequently, the liquid continuing to act, all the
hydrosulphuric acid will in a very short time come in contact with it, and
be decomposed.   The  theory is correct, and perfectly accounts for the
action of a fixed  disinfectant upon matters which are very volatile and 
32
diffusible, like hydrosulphuric acid gas.   But we are far from believing
that it requires so short a time as M. Ledoyen  asserts.   Indeed, he has
not himself relied upon this alleged promptitude of action; he having en-
deavored to increase as much as possible the absorbing surface of his disin-
fectant.  Accordingly he conceived the excellent  idea of multiplying the
surfaces of action of his liquid by fabricating certain cloths, to which he
has given the name of hygrometric sanitary cloths.  These, hung up in
infected  wards, are, of course, more efficacious than the simple liquid.
They  are rendered hygrometric by means of a certain proportion of nitrate
of lime,  which, being very deliquescent, preserves the  cloths  constantly
in a state of humidity, very favorable to the chemical combination of sul-
phuretted hydrogen with the salt of lead, which  forms the basis of his
liquid.
   Nevertheless, in spite of these precautions, which in some  cases may
be of  service, and in spite of the theory  to which we have referred, the
use of these  cloths did not furnish results as satisfactory as could  have
been wished.
   In  the wards of St. Cecile and St. Rosalie, of the section of incurables,
MM.  Ledoyen and Beaulavon hung up one of their disinfecting sanitary
cloths at the foot of every  bed.  After their application it was with diffi-
culty  that the sense of smell could detect the least improvement, notwith-
standing the  greatest care was taken to discover  any change that might
have  taken place.   In vain,  for a whole month, we entered  the wards
every morning  before  the windows were  opened; in vain we alternately
removed and replaced the cloths: no change was perceptible to our olfac-
tories.
   The reason of this  is,  beyond  a doubt, that the  liquid acts  only upon
a small number of unpleasant odors;  and  also because  its  action upon
miasms,  or rather  the phenomenon  of the absorption  of gas  by a  fixed
agent, is not as instantaneous as M. Ledoyen supposes. Here is an experi-
ment  in  physics which shows the manner in which Ledoyen's fluid acts,
we will not say upon miasms, but upon sulphuretted hydrogen, supposing
for a moment that the oxygen of the air has no share in its decomposition.
If we take a bell-glass, the contained air of which has been rendered hu-
mid by a layer  of water at  the bottom, to such a degree that a hair hygro-
meter indicates 100°  of  humidity, and replace the water by a substance
having a strong affinity for this fluid, such as dry chloride of calcium
or  concentrated sulphuric acid, the index of the instrument will, after a
time,  mark 0°.  Consequently the fixed body will have absorbed the whole
of  the aqueous vapor, a phenomenon very analogous to that  which ought
to take place between  the prepared cloths and the vitiated air of the above-
mentioned wards.   But  to arrive at 0°—that  is to say, to the point at
which the index of the hygrometer stops at the point of  maximum dry-
ness—requires  not less than 15 or 20 days. If, then, this length of time
is required for a body having a great avidity for moisture  to absorb all
that is contained in the  limited space of  a few  cubic  inches, the  same
length of time, at least, must be necessary for  these cloths  to absorb all
the sulphuretted hydrogen of an apartment containing many hundreds of
cubic feet, admitting  even that  there  is no source present from which it
is continually evolved. 
33
  The motion of the air in  the wards does, no doubt, favor the contact
of the miasms with the cloths, but never to such an extent as to produce
the instantaneousness of action  described by M. Ledoyen.   Besides, ex-
perience proves this.
  We admit, then, that the cloths of MM. Ledoyen and  Beaulavon have
disinfecting properties to a certain extent, but we  are  far from thinking
that they have all the efficacy, and especially the quickness of action, which
is claimed  for them.  A little detail is necessary to explain clearly our
opinion of these cloths.   In a multitude of cases it is sulphuretted hydro-
gen which  renders the air offensive, but in these cases  we must take into
account the action of the oxygen of the air upon this gas.  We know, in
fact, that it is readily decomposed  by oxygen, which unites with its hy-
drogen to form water, and liberates  its sulphur, which is  comparatively
inodorous.   Thus, in some circumstances, the improvement which took
place may have been attributed  to the action of  these cloths, when it was
really caused by the oxygen of the air.  Again,  the action of these cloths
is necessarily limited by the quantity of the nitrate of  lead they contain,
the metal of which can only absorb  a determinate quantity of sulphur.
   For example, we  know that each  cloth, having  a length of about two
yards, and a breadth of something less than one, contains nearly an ounce
and a half of pure nitrate of lead;  consequently nothing  is easier than to
calculate the amount of  sulphuretted hydrogen  which  it can decompose.
It is only necessary to state the  following formula:—
                   2000.801 : 213.162 :  : 720^:  X

           Now, 213-16 x 72° = 7670, hence x =  76.70.
               '    2000.80           '
  Thus 720 grains of nitrate of lead, in  being transformed into a sul-
phuret, absorb a weight of sulphuretted hydrogen  equal to  76.70 grains;
and this quantity once  absorbed, the cloth becomes perfectly inert.  It
must also be remarked that this action, in itself feeble  on account of the
fixity of  the salt, decreases in proportion as it  approaches the  point of
saturation.    We  can now see how it is that these  cloths are  without ap-
preciable action, when employed in wards in which a constant  source of
disagreeable odors exists.  Farther  on we will  point  out  circumstances
in which their efficacy is much more evident.
  Notwithstanding all this, we do not doubt the good faith of the inven-
tors.  We are persuaded that they have allowed themselves  to be deceived
by the moral influence which the mere  presence of these cloths  has ex-
ercised on the minds of some persons.
  Thus,  after having satisfied ourselves that no change  had been made
in the air  of the wards by the  use  of these cloths, we interrogated  a
number  of the sick.   Some  of  them said  that they  perceived  a great
difference, whilst others  detected none whatever.   The  presence of the
cloths was therefore sufficient  to make some persons believe that a percep-
tible improvement had followed  their use.

            1 Equivalent of nitrate of lead.
            2 Equivalent of hydrosulphuric acid.
            3 Number of grains of nitrate of lead  in the cloth.
       3 
34
   It was quite otherwise with the next means of disinfection, which we
employed in the same wards.
   This consisted simply in placing at the foot of each bed a small earthen
pot containing about four ounces of hypochlorite of soda.   Although we
cannot say that the purification was complete, it was easy for us, as well
as for the sick and their attendants, to  perceive that the air was rendered
infinitely more respirable than it had been  by the use of the above-men-
tioned cloths.  We  continued the  use of  the  hypochlorite of soda  for
fifteen days, and the result was always the same ;  that is to  say, the
sense of  smell easily recognized the favorable  change which had  taken
place in the air of  the wards.
   At the end  of that time we allowed  the wards to remain in their ordi-
nary state for some days.   We then made  an  attempt at purification  by
means of  the liquid of M. Larnaudes.   But we may say at once that it
wa9 impossible to detect the least improvement from  its use.   Further,
it  is difficult to conceive how such  improvement could  be possible;  for
Larnaudes has not, like Ledoyen and  Beaulavon, provided a means of
offering a large surface  of action for his fluid.   We could, therefore, only
place at  the foot of  each  bed a small pot containing the antimephitic
liquid; and as this agent is entirely fixed,  it is obnoxious to the same
objection we have made to Ledoyen's fluid—slowness of action.
   In these experiments, as in those upon fecal matters, we made use of
two  reagents,  lead and  litmus.   The  lead paper  was  prepared  with a
mixture of acetate  of lead and acetate of potassa, for the purpose of ren-
dering it more hygrometric, and thus favoring the chemical action of the
gas.   These papers were  placed  in different parts of the wards before
the commencement of the experiments.  At the end of  15 days the lead
paper was slightly  tinged, brownish yellow.  The reddened litmus paper
was obviously changed  to  blue.  After the  use  of the cloths of Ledoyen
and Beaulavon for the same length of  time, the lead paper was  scarcely
less discolored, and the litmus paper was turned as  blue as before.  The
liquid of Larnaudes did not at all prevent the discoloration of the lead
paper, or the change of the litmus from  red  to blue ; on the contrary,
when the chloride of soda was used, no appreciable change of color could
be noticed in the papers, at the end of 15 days.
   It follows from these facts that  the chloride of soda was infinitely more
efficacious in the purification of these wards than the liquids of Ledoyen
and Larnaudes.  It is easy to account for  this.  Chlorine has  the pro-
perty,  not only of decomposing  sulphuretted  hydrogen,  phosphuretted
hydrogen, ammonia, and volatile hydrogenized  organic matters, by uniting
with their hydrogen, but  the  hydrochloric  acid which results from this
combination has also the  power  of neutralizing a certain quantity of
ammonia.  Besides, chlorine being volatile, soon pervades the whole  at-
mosphere of an apartment, and thus seeks out the mephitic gases it is
intended  to decompose.   This explains the  great difference we have ob-
served between the action of  the hypochlorite of soda and the two other
disinfectants, above all, its greater promptitude.
   The hypochlorite of soda possesses another advantage;  the hypochlor-
o.us acid is gradually set free  by the combination of the  carbonic acid of
the air with the soda.  The air is thus deprived of a certain proportion 
35
of its carbonic acid, and the hypochlorous acid, not being able to exist in
a free state without decomposition, is resolved into chlorine and  oxygen.
The oxygen unites with a portion of the sodium of the chloride of sodium
which always exists in  the hypochlorite, and a  new quantity of  chlorine
is set free.   Thus we have two sources of chlorine :  1st, that derived
from the hypochlorous  acid; 2d, that which was in combination with the
sodium.   In this  way everything turns to the benefit of the respiration.
   Chlorine, it is true, should not be in excess in the atmosphere, in order
to avoid irritation of  the  organs of respiration; but our experiments in
the wards of St. Cecile  and St. Rosalie prove that this can be easily done.
Persons entering the  wards from the fresh  air did not even suspect the
presence of chlorine, and the sick  instead of experiencing any embarrass-
ment of respiration, according to their own expression found  the air " less
thick."
   We must add, however, that Ledoyen's fluid, employed with intelli-
gence, may be of great service in  sick wards.   It has been used for a
long time at the  Bicetre in the  St. Victor  and St. Praosper  wards;  and
all the attendants, including the director and surgeon, agree in regarding
it as one of the best disinfecting agents.  Great care, indeed, is taken to
keep the liquid constantly in all the close-stools, and the chamber utensils
are always washed with the diluted liquid.   The inconvenience of having
all these vessels incrusted with a dark layer of sulphuret of lead is amply
compensated by the advantage  of  having  the air of the wards free from
odor, and consequently in a good hygienic condition.   We visited these
wards twice, and  each  time we perceived the advantage of this system.
   These wards, however, are far from resembling those of the Salpetriere
in which we  made our experiments.  At the Bicetre, the wards, relatively
to the number of sick, are spacious; they  have been lately repaired  and
can  be easily ventilated.   All the  utensils  used by the sick are emptied
as soon as used, and consequently the offensive  odors which they give out
are only transient. In  these respects there  can  be no comparison with the
wards of the Salpetriere to which we refer.   They are  of very ancient
construction, afford less space  relatively to  the  number  of sick, and are
less easily ventilated.   Moreover,  the  greater  number  of the patients
being  either cancerous, or affected with cutaueous diseases, there is an
incessant  production of bad smells  which cannot be easily dissipated; and
some of these are certainly unaffected by the cloths  of  Ledoyen  and
Beaulavon.
   Lastly,  the antimephitic  liquid of Larnaudes was also  used  at the
BicCtre.   The director, who took the trouble of  attending  personally at
these processes, in order  to judge  for himself of their  relative value, as-
certained that it was  inferior  to the fluid of Ledoyen.   We  will see,
farther on, that it is possible to explain this difference, although,  a priori,
it would seem difficult.   Nevertheless, this does  not hinder the liquid of
Larnaudes from being  a very good  disinfectant, as is attested by certifi-
cates signed with honorable names. 
36
                                 D.

       EXPERIMENTS UPON ANIMAL MATTERS IN A STATE OF
                           PUTREFACTION.

   The  conditions in which the liquid of Ledoyen and his sanitary cloths
 appeared to us to act with  undoubted efficacy, were those which consisted
 in their  application to sources of infection perfectly known and  circum-
 scribed ; for then they could be restricted, so to speak, in an inclosure
 having  its walls thoroughly imbued with the disinfectant.   Under these
 circumstances the mephitic odors, in passing out of the inclosure, being
 obliged to  come in contact with the flisinfectant, must be decomposed, if
 they are of such a nature as to be acted upon by the nitrate of lead.
   Thus dead bodies taken to the  Morgue in an advanced stage of decom-
 position  have rapidly lost their  bad odor by being washed freely with
 Ledoyen's  fluid.  The same result has  been attained  by enveloping the
 bodies in the sanitary cloths, or  simply in cloths impregnated with the
 fluid.  Yet, if in a majority of cases this liquid can be employed without
 inconvenience in the preservation of dead bodies, there are some in which
 its use is rigorously interdicted;  for  example, cases in which a toxicolo-
 gical investigation is required for judicial purposes.
  One of  the  best applications of Ledoyen's fluid consists in its  em-
 ployment as a dressing to wounds or ulcers of an offensive character.   In
 many cases all unpleasant odor  has  been confined to the  dressings by
 covering them with a cloth wet with this liquid.
  In the same manner, foul and offensive dressings, &c, in  a  state of
 putrefaction shut up in chests or boxes and  covered with  the sanitary
 cloths of Ledoyen and Beaulavon, have  been prevented from diffusing
 any disagreeable smells.
  It can now be understood, after what has been said, that if we are situ-
 ated near a source of offensive emanations, from which there is only a
 single or a limited number of openings, it will be sufficient to place one or
 more of these cloths in such a position that the gas in escaping is obliged
 to pass through them, for us to have  the almost certain assurance that
 no more unpleasant odors need be feared.
  In such  circumstances these  cloths  are very useful. They are  free
 from the inconveniences which the use of  the hypochlorites might pre-
 sent, and the  fixed nature  of the disinfecting salt, which is an objection
 to its employment for the purification of an inhabited apartment, becomes
 an advantage, because, being used in the open air, there is  no reason to
 fear that the purity of the air which is respired will be affected.  The
 use of the hypochlorites would, perhaps, in such circumstances, be at-
 tended with the inconvenience of  furnishing more chlorine than might be
requisite, which, by its volatility and irritating properties, might produce
 some  embarrassment  in  the  play of the respiratory organs.  MM.  Le-
 doyen and Beaulavon possess many certificates attesting the  efficacy of
their sanitary cloths  in circumstances more or less analogous  to  those
which we have mentioned.
  As to  the liquid of Larnaudes, it possesses, we think,  in these respects,
properties nearly the same as Ledoyen's.  But, as M. Larnaudes did not 
37
use his liquid  in  the form of hypometric cloths, we have not been able
to test it in exactly the same way, and cannot, therefore, speak with cer-
tainty.
   M. Ledoyen is of opinion that his fluid is very useful as a dressing in
gangrene, cancer, &c.   He says that it  ought to be used more or less
diluted with water according to the degree of irritability existing, and that
if at the first dressing the pus is of  a bad quality it should be employed
at its ordinary strength, and that for the  subsequent dressings it ought to
be gradually diluted with one, two, three, four,  five, and  six  parts  of
water.   It is  observed that the first dressings are usually blackened by
the formation of sulphuret of lead, but  this tint gradually disappears in
proportion as the  process of healing progresses.   Some  respectable phy-
sicians of hospitals have found it  useful in such cases, but we must say
that it was not always the experience of M. Cazalis, at the  Salpetriere.
This physician  is  of opinion that there are cases  in which its use might
bo dangerous on account of the metallic  salt which it contains.   Besides,
we obtain equally  good results with the  hypochlorite of  soda, which has
the advantage  of not  discoloring  the wounds or  ulcers to  which  it is
applied.

E. EXPERIMENTS UPON ANIMAL  MATTERS  EASILY PUTRE8CIBLE, BUT
                NOT IN  A STATE OF PUTREFACTION.

   In view of the  greater  or less  permanence of the purifications made
with the  agents above named,  and, particularly, as we  were influenced
by the idea of M. Ledoyen, that the nitrate of lead  alone possesses the
curious property of  preventing  the  putrid fermentation, it became our
duty to ascertain  if this  salt really possesses this property to a greater
degree than the other disinfectants.
   Although  it has  been known for a long time that various substances
have the  power of hindering or retarding  the putrefaction  of organic
matters, we determined to submit  to comparative trials the principal dis-
infecting agents at our disposal, in  order to  ascertain their relative effi-
cacy in this respect.
   With  this view we selected milk and urine, substances that putrefy
with remarkable facility.
   On Sept. 26th,  we took six bottles, in each of which we placed 250
grammes of pure fresh milk.  In one we added  1.505  gr. of nitrate of
lead; to the second, 0.807 of sulphate  of iron;  to the  third, 0.S95  of
sulphate of zinc;  to the  fourth, 1.558 of sulphate of copper, quantities
that represent the half of the chemical equivalents of the metals forming
the bases  of the salts employed.    To the other two bottles we added dry
chloride of lime (hypochlorite), and  to  the  other, hypochlorite of soda.
But, as it was difficult,  considering the variable composition  of these
bodies, to know the exact quantity necessary to represent an equivalent
of chlorine, we thought  it sufficient for our present purpose to place in
them a quantity representing an equal cost, and for that  reason we added
to one  of the  bottles  0.5 grammes (about 8 grains) of the chloride of
lime, and to the other 5 grammes  (about 78  grains) of chloride of soda.
   These substances, well  mixed with the milk, were left undisturbed for 
38
four months.   At  the  end of that time, we observed that the milk was
curdled, and only had the smell of sour milk that had been kept two or
three days in ordinary weather;  but no odor of putridity could  be de-
tected.  It had, nevertheless, disengaged a little gas in the course of the
experiment which we had not time to analyze, but it appeared to us to
be more or less abundant according to  the  salt  employed.  Every time
we opened the flasks to ascertain  the progress  of the experiment, those
which contained the nitrate of lead, the sulphate of iron, and the sulphate
of copper,  gave only traces of gas, but those holding the sulphate of zinc
and the hypochlorites of lime and soda gave out much more,  which was
easily known  by the explosive manner in which the corks flew out when
the  bottles were opened.   Indeed, the  hypochlorite of  soda  furnished
•such a quantity that a  portion of  the contents  of the bottle was thrown
out by the effervescence.   It is  proper to state  that the bottles were left
unopened for ten days towards the end  of the experiment.
   It might be supposed that the lactic acid, which is formed in milk,
caused the disengagement of carbonic acid, by acting upon the  carbonates
of lime and soda always mingled, more  or  less, with  the hypochlorites.
But  this  explanation could  not apply to  the same phenomenon in the
bottle containing the sulphate of zinc.  This  salt, perfectly  pure  and
crystallized, could not give rise to a similar reaction.
   Although these  experiments,  in view of  the  chemical reactions  that
take  place between milk and these different salts, leave  much to be de-
sired, they show that their action is nearly the same in rendering it im-
putrescible, yet, nevertheless, a difference is  observable as to  the forma-
tion of gas.
   This difference is much  more marked in similar experiments made with
urine instead of milk.  Six bottles, each containing 850 grammes of fresh
human urine, were  furnished with the  respective quantities of the  same
salts as in the  previous experiments, and left undisturbed for about the
same length of  time, care  being taken to  open them  every day to ob-
serve the progress of the experiment.
   For fifteen days  there was no appreciable bad  smell, and we  left the
bottles for some days without opening them.  We then remarked a slight
difference  of odor,  which increased so  that, at  the end of three months
from the  beginning of  the experiment, we  noticed the following results.
Unfortunately, these are difficult  to describe,  for words cannot clearly
express the differences of odor we  recognized,  although they were clear
enough to the sense of smell.
 With chloride of  lime,  precipitate grayish white; odor of urine nearly nor-
                          mal, slightly ammoniacal.
   "      "      soda,  precipitate none, or a little cloudy; odor aromatic,
                          rather agreeable, recalling that of muriatic acid.
   "  sulphate of copper, precipitate chestnut-brown; odor approaching that
                          of normal urine, but slightly disagreeable.
   "      "      iron,  precipitate gray, slightly greenish; odor disagreeable.
   "             zinc,   precipitate gray, slightly reddish; odor disagreeable,
                          stale,  disgusting.
   "  nitrate of lead,   precipitate white; odor very similar to  the preced-
                          ing, but stronger.

    These  different odors appearing to us to be ammoniacal, we  endeavored 
39
to discover the relative quantities of ammonia existing in them.  With
this view, we attached pieces of strongly reddened litmus paper to the
corks, and, having replaced these in the bottles, allowed  them to remain
for twenty-four hours.   At the end of  that time, we perceived that the
test papers had acquired different tints, which we will arrange  in order
from red to blue :—

          Sulphate of copper,  red, almost normal.
          Chloride of soda,    scarcely perceptible violet shade.
          Sulphate of zinc,     violet shade.
          Nitrate of  lead,      decided violet.
          Sulphate of iron,    deeper violet.
          Chloride of lime,    very deep violet.

   If it were desirable to express these different shades of color more defi-
nitely, it might be done by dividing  the interval  between the  two ex-
tremes into  100  parts, making  the  normal  red  100 and  the blue 0;
thus—
          Sulphate of copper      .    .     .     .  = 90 to 100
          Chloride of soda
          Sulphate of zinc
          Nitrate  of lead
= 85 "	90
= 70 "	80
= 40 "	50
= 20 "	25
= 5 "	10
          Sulphate of iron
          Chloride of lime
   These numbers,  of course, are  only approximate, but they show more
distinctly than mere description the different shades of color.
   Let us add that the specimens treated by the chloride of lime, although
preserving almost perfectly its natural odor, was  the  only one that per-
mitted the formation of  microscopic vegetation, apparently belonging to
the class of fungi, and having the appearance of white mould.  This may
be easily conceived when we remark that these vegetables are particularly
developed in situations where decomposition is going on, and where there
is, at the same time, considerable formation of ammonia.1
   It  evidently follows from the  foregoing experiments  that, if all the
above-mentioned salts  prevent the putrefaction of milk, the sulphate of
iron, the sulphate of zinc, and the nitrate of lead,  hinder the putrefaction
of urine only for a short time—more particularly the two last  named.
Now, it must be remembered that the sulphate of zinc is the salt that forms
the basis of the antimephitic liquid of Larnaudes, and the nitrate of lead
that which constitutes  the disinfecting liquid of M. Ledoyen.    What,
then, is the cause of the  differences we observed between the action of
the liquids  of Krammer, Ledoyen, and Larnaudes, in our experiments
upon the disinfection of sewers and privies?  We shall  endeavor to account
for them in the general reflections which follow.

  1 Since the presentation  of this report, the specimens of urine treated with
chloride of soda, sulphate  of zinc, and sulphate of iron, have exhibited simi-
lar vegetations, but at very different intervals of time.   They appeared about
a month after the commencement of the experiment in the bottle containing
the chloride of lime ; in  two and a half months  in that containing chloride
of soda;  three months in that holding sulphate of iron ; and within the last
few days, after three and a half months, in that containing sulphate of zinc.
There is nothing as  yet to  indicate  the  occurrence of a similar phenomenon
in the flasks holding sulphate of copper and nitrate of lead. 
40
  We will first  state, however, that we also made comparative trials of
the liquids of Ledoyen  and Larnaudes, upon  the flesh of animals, and
satisfied ourselves  that anatomical specimens,  preserved for at least  six
months, had not contracted the least bad smell in  either of them.
GENERAL REFLECTIONS.
   We have said in another place, that  all the salts having a metallic
base capable of forming an insoluble sulphuret may be  indiscriminately
used as disinfectants; for their oxides not only seize upon sulphuretted
hydrogen to form water and a sulphuret, but they also decompose  hydro-
sulphate of ammonia, which is always found wherever sulphuretted  hydro-
gen and ammonia  coexist, as in  cesspools, privies, &c.   The  oxide acts,
as we have said, upon sulphuretted hydrogen, and at the same time the
acid of the salt unites with the ammonia to form a less volatile  compound.
This affords an explanation of the total disappearance of  the hydrosul-
phuric odor, when the disinfectant is in sufficient quantity, and when
circumstances favor its effectual action.
   As, in general, it is the hydrosulphuric acid or the hydrosulphate of
ammonia that  it is  necessary to remove, or rather to  decompose, the
problem is reduced merely to one of economy.  Now, if we reflect that
an equivalent of hydrosulphuric acid, or hydrosulphate of ammonia, always
requires for its decomposition a quantity of a salt containing an equivalent
of metal, it is  not difficult to calculate, approximately, which salt can be
most advantageously used in an economical point of view.   But, to ren-
der this clear, we must enter into some  chemical details.
   The metals  which serve  as  the bases of the salts employed as disin-
fectants are most usually  iron, manganese, zinc, copper, and lead.  Now,
equal weights of these metals do not absorb an equal quantity of sulphur,
and, consequently, do not decompose the same quantity  of  sulphuretted
hydrogen or hydrosulphate  of ammonia.  This  may  be otherwise ex-
pressed by saying that the chemical equivalent of  one metal is higher or
lower than another; for example—
The equivalent of lead
copper
zinc
manganese
iron
= 1233.50
=  791.39
=  403.00
=  345.89
=  339.21
Which means to say that, the equivalent of sulphur being = 201.10
1233.50 lbs. of lead will be required  to absorb 201.10  lbs. of sulphur'
but only 339.21  lbs. of iron will be  necessary to  form, with the  same
amount of sulphur, a corresponding sulphuret.  The same quantity of
sulphur requires 791.39 lbs. of copper, 403 lbs. of  zinc,  and 345.89 lbs.
of manganese.  Hence it appears that, at equal prices, lead would be the
most expensive and iron  the cheapest.  But copper, lead, and zinc are
much dearer than iron, and, consequently, iron has the advantage in every
respect.
  The same reasoning may be applied to the acids in combination with 
41
these metallic  oxides.  The acids which salify the metals employed as
disinfectants are usually the nitric, sulphuric, and muriatic.  Now,

      The chemical equivalent of nitric acid is          .  = 677.30
             "         "       sulphuric acid is .    .  = 501.10
                       "       muriatic acid is       .  = 452.12

Which means, expressing these equivalents by pounds, that whilst 677.300
lbs.  of nitric acid, or 501.160 lbs. of sulphuric acid, are required to neu-
tralize a quantity of oxide of iron containing 100  lbs. of oxygen, only
452.120 lbs. of hydrochloric are required for the same quantity of oxide
of iron.  It follows, of course, that, at equal  prices, the hydrochloric acid
would be more economical than sulphuric acid, and much more so than
nitric acid.   But  nitric acid is more expensive than  an equal weight of
either of the other two acids;  consequently, the most economical disin-
fectant  is constituted by the union  of iron with sulphuric  or muriatic
acid.
   Moreover, as 1233.500 lbs. of lead, in the ordinary state  of  things,
only absorbs 100 lbs. of oxygen to form the oxide of lead, the oxide can
only decompose a quantity of  hydrosulphuric acid, or hydrosulphate of
ammonia, capable of yielding 201.160 lbs. of sulphur to form a sulphuret
corresponding  in  composition to  itself.  Iron, on  the  contrary, passes
easily into the  state of peroxide, and 339.210 lbs. of the metal can absorb
150 lbs. of  oxygen.  Consequently,  this  quantity of  metal, in the state
of a salt, would require a  quantity of sulphuretted  hydrogen, or  hydro-
sulphate of ammonia, capable of affording 301.740  lbs.  of sulphur, in
order to form a sulphuret corresponding to the sesquioxide of iron.  But
it is not altogether thus, for it is seldom that all  the  iron of a salt is in
the  state of peroxide, and ordinarily we only  obtain by its decomposition
a sulphuret corresponding  in composition to the  magnetic oxide of iron,
formed of two equivalents of  the  protosulphuret and one of the bisul-
phuret.  It is  none the less true,  however, that three equivalents of the
persalt of iron  decompose four equivalents of sulphuretted hydrogen and
hydrosulphate  of ammonia, whilst three equivalents of a salt of lead can
never decompose more  than three equivalents of the  same bodies.  Ad-
mitting  equal  weights and costs, there  would  still  be,  in  reality,  an
economy of one-fourth in the use of the persalt of iron in preference to a
salt of  lead.
   From the preceding reasoning, we perceive that there are three  sources
of economy in favor of the perchloride of iron,  to wit: 1st, economy in
metal;  2d,  in  acid; and 3d, in the proportional quantity of sulphuretted
gas  which it decomposes.
   An important  point of the subject to which we would call the attention
of those interested, is the manner in which  hydrosulphuric acid is pro-
duced.   The formation of this gas in fecal matters may have two different
origins, viz: 1st.  Combination of hydrogen—formed,  during the  process
of digestion, from  alimentary  matter—in a nascent state, with the sul-
phur regarded as a constituent  of albuminous substances.  2d.  Decom-
position of  the soluble  sulphates found in the solid and liquid aliments.
In fact, under the influence of a certain degree of heat, and in presence of
organic matter, the soluble alkaline sulphates are readily transformed into 
42
sulphurets, the odor of which is so characteristic.  Sulphates, therefore,
should never enter into  the composition of a disinfectant; for the sul-
phuric acid, in abandoning its oxide, will enter into combination with  the
alkaline bases contained  in fecal  matter;  and, little  by little, the new
sulphate, under  the influence of organic matters, will be converted into
an alkaline sulphuret, which will continue to give out the hydrosulphuric
odor.   It is because inventors have neglected to recognize this principle,
that their  proceedings, at  first  successful  in  disinfecting  fecal matters,
have frequently failed in securing  that permanence of action which is so
desirable.
  On this account, obviously, the  method of Ledoyen  presents a marked
advantage over the others.   Indeed, the salt that he employs is not only
not a  sulphate, but it is,  also, a  salt of lead which decomposes the alka-
line sulphates, forming the  insoluble  sulphate of lead, on which organic
matter has little or no effect.  Thus, whilst the greater number of  disin-
fectants only decompose the hydrosulphuric acid  already formed in fecal
matters, without destroying  the soluble alkaline  sulphates,  which, ulti-
mately decomposing, continue to emit a bad odor, the  nitrate of lead, on
the contrary, reacts at  the same  time on  the  sulphuretted  hydrogen
already formed  and upon  the sulphates.  In  destroying all  the causes
that produce sulphuretted  hydrogen, the liquid  of Ledoyen has neces-
sarily a permanence of action which other  disinfectants,  not acting in an
analogous manner, do not possess.

                           CONCLUSIONS.

  In  order to condense, as much as possible, the principal facts contained
in this report, we recapitulate as follows:—
  1st. In the disinfection  of sewers and privies, we only experimented
with  the liquids of Krammer,  Ledoyen, and  Larnaudes, and with the
chloride of lime.   This last body is incontestably  the best; after it comes
the liquid  of Ledoyen, equal, as  regards permanence of action, to  the
chloride of lime, and  double in  this respect to the liquid of Larnaudes.
This last, notwithstanding, acts very well.   All of them, however, with
the exception of chloride of lime,  act very feebly in removing  ammonia.
  2d. By our experiments  directly upon fecal matters,  with the various
agents at our disposal, we  established that, at equal cost, they acted effi-
caciously in the following order, commencing with the best:—
                       Acid perchloride of iron.
                       Hypochlorite of lime.
                       Ledoyen's liquid.
                        Larnaudes' liquid.

  We have shown the inconveniences which  attend  the use of  the acid
perchloride of iron and the chloride of lime.  They have, however, the
advantage, in common with Ledoyen's fluid, of not introducing sulphates
into fecal matters.  On account  of the inconveniences referred to, the
liquid of Ledoyen will be preferred in many cases, though it is more ex-
pensive, and has little effect upon  the ammonia of privies.
   3d. Chlorine, in the form  of hypochlorite of soda, succeeded best in
removing unpleasant odors  from the air of wards.  Ledoyen's fluid, even 
43
employed in the form of his sanitary cloths, did not succeed in purifying
the air of the wards of  St. Cecile and St. Rosalie.   Although, theoretic-
ally, it should have produced  some effect, none whatever was perceptible.
The real cause of  this  difference is, that chloride is volatile, and, being
diffused in the air, decomposes  not  only hydrosulphuric  acid, but also,
beyond a doubt,  other odorous organic substances.   Then, again, the
nitrate of lead not being volatile, it is necessary that all the contaminated
air should come into contact with  it, in order  to lose its sulphuretted
hydrogen alone;  for, if there  are other odors present, we cannot conceive
how it can possibly affect them.
   4th.  If the  object is to  act on a source  of deleterious emanations of
small extent, the offensive odor of which is, above all, due to sulphuretted
hydrogen, the sanitary cloths of Ledoyen and Beaulavon are certainly the
best means to adopt.   The air in escaping must pass through the cloths,
and lose its sulphur in its contact with the  nitrate of lead.  The non-
volatility of the salt is here  a precious advantage, because we are sure
that the  air is  not charged with it.  Whereas, with  the use  of hypo-
chlorite of soda, we are exposed  to respire a certain quantity of chlorine,
which, not  being neutralized  in the atmosphere, might prove injurious
to the respiratory organs.
   5th.  The greater or  less permanence of these agents, induced us to try
their bases upon fresh  animal matters, for the  purpose of ascertaining,
comparatively, their power of preventing or retarding decomposition. The
general result was, that all of them  prevented the putrefaction  of milk
for at least four months;  that the liquids of Ledoyen and Larnaudes pre-
vented  the putrefaction of muscular  flesh  for at least  six months; that
urine was preserved longer in its normal  state  by sulphate of  copper,
chloride of lime, and chloride of soda, than by the sulphates of iron and
zinc, and the nitrate of lead;  and that these last salts particularly did
not hinder urine from  having a  very unpleasant odor at the end of two
months.
   6th.  Finally, in the  general reflections,  we discussed the question of
economy, which, in short, is in all respects favorable to the chloride of
iron.  We demonstrated  that  the sulphates are, of all the salts, the least
adapted to produce a  permanently good  effect, the alkaline sulphates
formed during their action being liable, in  presence of  organic matter, to
enter into decomposition, and thus reproduce the evolution of sulphuretted
hydrogen.  Ledoyen's  fluid has the advantage of not introducing sul-
phates, and also  of decomposing any sulphates  that may  be present, by
forming an insoluble sulphate of lead, upon which organic matters have
no effect. 
REPORT  UPON   SEWERAGE.

 By JOHN H. GRISCOM, M. D., of New York.
  In his artificial condition of civilization, there are two classes
of circumstances which  affect the  health  of man.   1st. Those
which are found exclusively within  his domicile; and 2d. Those
which are more particularly operative without his dwelling.  To
the former class belong the various  impurities of the atmosphere
derived  from  respiration, combustion, and exuberant moisture,
the quality of  food, the clothing, and personal cleanliness.   In-
cluded in the  latter, or  extra-domiciliary causes of disease, are
terrestrial emanations, meteoric  changes, and  the  influence of
those matters,  which having been cast out from  the dwelling, are
suffered  to undergo decomposition in its vicinity.
  To me has been assigned the duty of reporting upon "the im-
portance of an  ample supply of water, an adequate sewerage, and
the proper disposal of offal."
  The first of these  objects  of inquiry,  water, belongs  to  both
classes of circumstances, i. e., the internal and external domi-
ciliary.   Used as a beverage,  for cooking, for bathing, for wash-
ing, and cleansing generally, it pertains to the internal affairs of
the household,  as a means of cooling the atmosphere, of absorb-
ing free  gases, of cleansing the ways, and of removing filth, its
applications  are chiefly external, and  in  this direction, though
more extensive as regards area,  they are less important  than in
their indoor  relations.
  Of the vast importance of an ample supply of water for family
use, an impression may perhaps be best formed  by imagining the
horrors of a drought, in  contrast with the comforts of an abund-
ance of  this  element furnished unstintedly; and the measure of
the comfort  and health of a people,  or even of a single household,
may be  judged by the approach to  one or  the  other of these
extremes, of the water afforded to,  and used by them.  There is
nothing  extravagant in the conjecture, that in many of the very
crowded portions of cities, where dwellings rise to the height of
five or six stories, up to  which it is  impossible, by hand labor, to 
45
carry an ample supply of water, that there, suffering and sickness
from the  deficiency are  marked  and decided, while nearer the
ground, the inhabitants  being  better  able  to observe rules  of
cleanliness, and to use it more freely in  every way, are  on this
account less prone to evils of many kinds.
   Water should be second only to air  in abundance and acces-
sibility, as the  poorest  has  no excuse for  self-privation of air,
nature pressing it upon him with the force of fifteen pounds  to
the square inch, and he having only to expand his chest to receive
it, so should water be accessible to every one, the poorest  more
especially, simply by the opening of a  valve, that there might
be no excuse for its neglect.  Stephen Girard and John Jacob
Astor could have made no better disposition of their wealth than
to have given the waters of the  Schuylkill and the Croton  to
their fellow citizens without price.
   Passing to the subject of sewerage, we have to  observe that
terrene exhalations in rural localities are a well-known cause  of
various diseases, which  need  not be here  enumerated.   From
this cause every  city should and  can  be,  made almost wholly
free.  However vicious may be the  soil upon which a city stands,
a  thorough system of paving and sewerage  will  prevent the
natural exhalations, and obviate the diseases which will other-
wise flow from  them.   But however well paved  and sewered a
city may be, whereby its natural  exhalations are obviated, the
formation of artificial marshes above the  stones of the pavement,
and beyond the reach of the sewers, by  the accumulation of the
offal of men and  animals, is equally bad, if not  worse.   The
marsh miasm of new countries which produces intermittent, re-
mittent, and bilious fevers, the scourges  of uncultivated regions,
is  the result of vegetable decomposition only, but if to this  there
be added a large proportion of animal matter, and  the  exhala-
tions of the combined decomposition arc  suffered to invade our
dwellings and surround us continually, the  intensity of the ma-
larious poison is redoubled, and in addition  to  the diseases just
mentioned, we  have diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, typhus fever,
and a general depression of the vital powers, which renders every
other disorder  more  dangerous.   Of  such  a  character is the
miasm of  a city of uncleaned and unwashed  streets, where the
debris of the kitchens and  manufactories are allowed to accumu-
late on the surface, exposed to the decomposing influences  of
the air, the sun, and the rains, and where the  fecal  emanations
of the inhabitants are preserved in sinks and cesspools.
  If even the tidal waters of such a magnificent sewer as the
river Thames are  insufficient to  relieve  the city of London  of
the pernicious effects of its vast amount of animal and  vegetable
debris and exhalation, how clean soever its surface may be  kept, 
46
how much  more offensive and deleterious must be  the compound
animal and vegetable malaria from these same materials  stagnant
upon the surface.   They form artificial marshes more dangerous
than the Pontine.
   "The sewerage of large towns and cities  consists of refuse
animal matters, of the excrementitial discharges of the inhabit-
ants and myriads of the lower animals, of  the blood and animal
fluids from  slaughter-houses, knacker's yards, and tan pits, of
the foul and contaminated waters from gas  works,  factories, and
other establishments, and of refuse vegetable matters in a state
of decomposition from public markets and  other places."1   The
combined amount of these matters is estimated at seven  cubic
feet (about fifty gallons) per diem, for each individual, which for
the city of New York, with a population of 700,000, rises to the
daily average  of 35,000,000 gallons, and  annually to the as-
tounding quantity of twelve billions seven hundred and  seventy-
five millions of gallons (12,775,000,000).
   To descant upon  the necessity of the immediate  and thorough
removal  of  this prodigious mass of  waste  animal,  vegetable,
mineral,  and gaseous matter, which,  were it possible to  concen-
trate it daily, in separate deposits, would require for each day, a
reservoir fifty per cent, larger than the Croton distributing reser-
voir on Murray Hill, N. York City; to descant upon the  absolute
necessity of an immediate removal of these  immense  masses  of
poisonous matter far away from the precincts  of human lungs ;
to discuss the fearful results which would follow their retention—
would seem to be a work of  supererogation ;  and yet  we find
even intelligent citizens and legislators almost everywhere, doubt-
ing, hesitating, and procrastinating.
   To all such we commend earnestly, and in the pure  spirit  of
patriotism,  the following passages from the recent  able  work on
Hygiene, before quoted.   The  remarks  there made, though
written  for  the  metropolis of  Great  Britain, are equally appli-
cable to New York,  Philadelphia, or any other large and  crowded
city.
   " In all  large cities  and towns there are plague spots where
fever of  the intermittent, remittent, or continued form always
prevails in greater or less intensity.   There  are  districts and
localities in  our modern Babylon which are ever  remitting  the
poison which generates  typhus fever ; there are certain squares
and streets, nay, particular houses, the inmates of  which, family
after family, for a long  series of years, have been  the victims of
typhus fever, though the districts in  which  they are situated are
airy, and the soil dry.
1 Hygiene, by Dr. Pickford. 
47
  " Open and imperfect sewers, faulty, superficial, choked up, and
overflowing drains, imperfect traps of cesspools and water closets,
a filthy condition of the earth's surface, together with intramural
burying grounds, slaughter-houses, and slaughtering-cellars, and
the conversion of tidal rivers into cloacae maximse, are the fruitful
sources of fevers, diarrhoea, and dysentery, in all congregations,
on any one spot, of great multitudes of human beings.
   " There is probably no subject so complex, so incalculably diffi-
cult to grapple with,  especially if it be how to apply a remedy,
as the drainage  and  sewerage of large overgrown  cities.  Yet,
we must perceive, that unless this be efficiently done, an ultimate
limit  is set by the hand of man himself to dynasties, to peoples,
and to nations.   The air we breathe,  loaded with  carbonaceous
matter, sulphurous, and  sulphuric  acid,  sulphate  of  ammonia,
and sulphuretted hydrogen, is deprived, by the absence of vege-
tation, of the revivifying  principle  oxygen, and is hence less
fitted  for the necessary changes of the  blood   effected  during
respiration.  The earth which we tread under  our feet, loaded
with the ashes of our forefathers, and rich with  the remains  of
animal and vegetable matter  of ages  long gone by,  saturated
with  putrefying  contents of myriads of cesspools  and  leaking
sewers of our own day, emits,  at certain seasons  of the year,
the poisonous emanations which generate  typhus, diarrhoea, dys-
entery, and  cholera; whilst the waters  of our  principal tidal
rivers, converted into open common sewers, teem with pestiferous
exhalations, charged  with the germ  of  disease, or the messenger
of  death.  If, under these favoring  conditions, a pestilential
epidemy invade  our shores, it finds us  an unprepared  and easy
prey.
   "■ The government  of every  State and nation  would do wisely
to appoint  a minister of  public health,  whose  duty it  should  be
to superintend  and watch  over the  health of the community at
large, to see that  due ventilation is observed in all  large and
public buildings, and  in the dwellings of the poor;  to ascertain
that  the water  is  pure,  and its  supply  ample; to prevent  all
noxious and unwholesome trades and manufactures being carried
on within a given distance from towns  and dwellings; to prohibit
intramural burial grounds, slaughter-houses,  and  slaughtering-
cellars ; but, above all, to lay down, and  carry out, an effectual,
efficient, complete, and  common-sense plan of drainage and
sewerage for every town and city.
   " Were  the fearful consequences which result from the repre-
hensible practice of  converting  our rivers into open common
sewers but thoroughly understood, and properly understood, and
properly estimated  by the public,  no expenditure of "time  or
money would be deemed  too great to put an end, by penal enact- 
48
ment, to a system so disgusting, so revolting, and so destructive
to the  health  and lives of the community at large ;  but  more
especially of those whose avocations necessitate their  daily and
hourly exposure to, and residence in the midst  of, its pernicious
influence.
   "Unless this monstrous and suicidal evil be stayed, London will
ultimately become the hot-bed of plague and pestilence, and will,
as a consequence, be depopulated  and  deserted, and  numbered
with the cities of  the world which have been.   Then, perhaps,
may be fulfilled the prophetic visions of Yolney, of Walpole, of
Shelley, of MaCaulay,  'when London shall be  an habitation of
bitterns, when  St. Paul's and  Westminster Abbey shall stand
shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an unpeopled marsh;
when the piers  of Westminster Bridge shall become the nuclei
of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the shadows of their broken
arches  on the  solitary stream ;' or, with Macaulay, ' when tra-
vellers from distant regions shall in vain  labor  to decipher on
some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief;  shall
hear savage hymns  chanted to some misshapen idol  over the
ruined  dome  of our proudest  temple;  and shall see  a single
naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the  ten  thousand
masts.' " 
REPORT  ON THE IMPORTANCE  AND  ECONOMY OF
          SANITARY  MEASURES  TO  CITIES.

            By JOHN BELL, M.D., of Philadelphia.
   This is one of  the  subjects  to which  the  Committee on  the
Internal Hygiene of Cities has been specially instructed to direct
its attention.  It is that on which, in the division of labor, I am
required to be the reporter.   The  materials for the purpose  are
ample, and it  only requires the labor of selection and  arrange-
ment, to make them available for immediate instruction and guid-
ance in the work of sanitary  reform.  History, notwithstanding
its imperfect notices of the real condition  of the people of  the
different countries whose progress it professes to narrate, fur-
nishes, when read  and  studied in a proper sense, large contribu-
tions.   More especially is this true with regard to contemporary
records, which, while they manifest awakened attention to exist-
ing evils, point out at  the same time the  means of amelioration
and improvement.  In the  use to be  made of the  knowledge
obtainable  from so many different sources, and to be  brought to
bear in aid of sanitary reform, it will be safer to incur  the charge
of iteration rather  than of failure to impress the public mind with
the vast importance of  the questions involved in the  discussion,
and with the pertinency and force of the  facts adduced in eluci-
dation of principles.   We must  not imagine that a knowledge of
sanitary matters, possessed by a small number of intelligent and
inquiring  minds, is at all indicative either  of the knowledge or
the zeal of the public at large.  Our reform, like every other that
has been successful, requires iteration, and  again iteration.
   The mere mention of ancient Egypt suggests to the minds of
all  readers her  pyramids and  obelisks, with their hieroglyphics,
the splendor of Thebes and  Memphis,  the  superstitious observ-
ances of her people in  their  alleged worship of animals, and of
their embalming the dead, both  of their own and the brute kind.
The annually overflowing and fertilizing Nile, with its innumera-
ble canals  for  irrigation, is also a  theme for admiration.   But
      4 
50
 the wise sanitary measures which secured  health  to the inhabit-
 ants, and their protection from pestilence,  by a system  of irriga-
 tion and methodical distribution of the waters of the great river,
 and the practice of  embalming the dead, under religious  sanction,
 are scarcely deemed to  be worthy of notice by  the historian ;
 certainly they are  not impressed  on  the minds of the  youthful
 student in such a manner as is called for, both by the importance
 of the facts themselves,  and as suggestive  of the duty of a gov-
 ernment to exercise unceasing vigilance in  all matters that relate
 to public hygiene.   Unless the process of converting  the dead
 bodies, not only of  men  but of animals also, into  mummies had
 been in a great measure universal, it would have been hard  to
 prevent  putrefactive exhalations  from continually filling and
 poisoning the air, owing to the difficulty, not to say impossibility,
 of securing deep and permanent burial for the dead in  a land
 like  that of  Egypt, the soil of which is  undergoing  continual
 changes of surface  by the annual overflow and  washing of the
 Nile.   With a similarly wise provision of means best calculated
 to preserve the  public health,  one, if not  more of the ancient
 kings, made those great artificial excavations, the lakes of Mceris,
 the effect of which  was protection against  the impetuous flow  of
 the Nile at its rise,  or the too persistent delay of its waters at its
 fall; and, in either  case, to diminish,  if not entirely prevent, an
 exposed marshy  surface with its deleterious exhalations.
  We are all familiar with the memorable  incidents of  the wars
 growing out of the  rivalry between the Romans and the Cartha-
 ginians ;  but  few are aware, that paving  the streets  was first
 practised in Carthage, and that the example was followed by the
 Romans, or  that a  copious  supply of water for  the use of the
 inhabitants of that  city  was brought, after immense labor  and
 expense, by an aqueduct more than fifty miles in length, and  of
 such dimensions  that a man could stand erect in it.  The cisterns
 for the reception and distribution  of  the water through the city
 were of corresponding magnitude ;  and even now, in rowing along
 the beach, the mouths of common sewers  are frequently disco-
 vered.   In a like spirit of regard for  the public health,  the Car-
 thaginians set apart ground for a public  cemetery, beyond the
 suburbs  of the city, which  became  a  true  Necropolis, a city  of
 the dead, of which  notice will  be taken when we come to treat
 of the evils of intramural interments.
  Favorable as  the site  of ancient Rome, extending over her
 seven hills, might at first  appear for early habitation and  defence,
it may be safely said, that  we should never have heard of the
 eternal city, never would  she have  become mistress of the world,
if her rulers and people had not early felt the  importance  of
 sanitary measures, and carried them out with a  persistence and 
51
an ability, which should serve as models for all succeeding ages.
Much of the ground between the hills was little  better than a
swamp, owing to the trickling down of the small  springs from
above  and  to the  frequent  overflowing of the Tiber.   Unless,
therefore, the ground could have been thoroughly drained, it must
have remained, in a great measure, uninhabitable ; and the  seven
hills would  have continued to be the seat of merely so  many
separate villages, the abode and  refuge of  a half shepherd, half
robber population, who had  the Capitoline hill for  their citadel;
and  Rome  would  have barely acquired the rank of an inferior
Latin  city under the rule  of her  neighbor  and subsequent rival
Alba Longa.   With not  only an intenseness  to meet existing
wants, but with, apparently, a prescience of the future greatness
and dominion of Rome, the work of drainage  and  sewerage was
begun  by her kings, and continued during the republic on a scale
of such magnitude, and in a "manner so  enduring, as to be un-
surpassed and rarely equalled by any subsequent labor of the
same kind in other countries.   The Cloaca Maxima which carried
off the waters of the Velabrum, at the time a marsh between the
Tiber in one direction, and the Capitoline, Palatine, and Aven-
tinc  hills in  another, rivals the largest of the pyramids in solidity
and amount  of material, and exceeds them  all  in unquestionable
utility.-  The inner diameter of this river-like trimural sewer was
more than thirteen feet, and  such as to allow it to receive  other
large affluxes. " Earthquakes, the pressure  of buildings, the neg-
lect of fifteen hundred years, have not," writes Niebuhr, "moved
a  stone out  of  its  place; and for ten thousand years to  come,
these vaults will stand uninjured  as at this day."   The Minor
Velabrum was continuous with the marshy districts, known  after-
wards  as the Forum and  the Suburra, which  were  drained by
appropriate  tunnels opening into the main trunk.   In the centre
of the  Minor Velabrum was a bog  or swamp called lake Curtius,
which was long an unabated  and  unmanageable nuisance.   Tho
myth of Marcus Curtius sacrificing himself for the good of his
country, by  plunging,  mounted  and armed, into  this  yawning
abyss,  which was henceforth closed forever, would, if clothed in
the language of sober reality, probably read  as follows, in  the
style of an obituary notice.  " Marcus Curtius,  edile, while super-
intending, day after day, the drainage and filling up of the  un-
sightly and  insalubrious Minor Velabrum, and being  exposed all
the time to  the fervid rays of an autumnal  sun, contracted a
pestilential  fever, under which he sank, a martyr  to his love for
Rome, to whose welfare he gave his life as a sacrifice.  Peace to
his manes!   Eternal honor to his memory."
   All these  reclaimed marshes became memorable in the history
of Rome, as sites for many  of her most useful and  ornamental 
52
buildings  and streets.   In the Velabrum  were constructed  the
cattle and fish markets, Forum Boarium  and Forum  Piscato-
rium, the  Temples of Ffirtune and Vesta, the Arcus Quadrifrons
and  the  Circus  Maximus.  The Forum,  long known by  that
simple designation, and afterwards called Forum Romanum, was
a place for public meetings and also a market place :  it was sur-
rounded by buildings of  various descriptions, both  useful  and
ornamental;  shops, arcades, columns, triumphal arches and tem-
ples.   This is not the time to speak  of the  historical associations
of the Roman Forum, where the Comitia were held, where Cicero
harangued, and where the triumphal  processions  passed.   The
once remote and marshy suburban village, the Suburra, became
after its drainage and the  desiccation of the  soil, the  site of the
amphitheatre of Titus Vespasian, more generally known as the
Colosseum, and the triumphal arch of Titus.
   But, notwithstanding  all the pains and expense lavished on
the vast subterranean drains (cloacce), it was always a matter of
extreme difficulty  to  keep the  ground of  the Velabrum  and
the Suburra sufficiently dry to be  healthy;  and hence these
quarters were the residence of the plebs or commonalty.  Julius
Caesar, in  the early part of his career, occupied an humble house
in the Suburra.  Of a similar marshy nature was the plain ly-
ing between the Tiber and the Pincian, Quirinal and  Capitoline
hills, on which a  good  part  of modern Rome has been built.
Part of this plain, in an  early period of ancient Rome,  was
cleared of trees, and made a field for gymnastic  exercises  and
feats of mimic  war (Campus Martius).   Large groves were,
however, retained, among  which Augustus erected the Mauso-
leum called after  him ;  and behind it beautiful walks were  laid
out.   Another part of the plain was covered with innumerable
palaces, wooded  gardens, three theatres, and amphitheatre,  and
magnificent temples, contiguous one to another.  To have drained
this  district, as  a necessary  preliminary  for such various  and
splendid constructions, must  have been a  work of considerable
labor and  time, as  we have an opportunity  of learning from the
experimental observations of an eminent Italian savant (Brocchi).
He shows  that, at any spot over the whole plain, water is readily
procured at the depth of a  few feet from the surface, and in such
quantity as to furnish, were  it necessary, an adequate supply to
the whole  city, by means of wells, and without having  recourse to
the aqueducts.   With a  knowledge  of  the buildings which  bor-
dered the  Campus Martius  on three  sides,  and  the still more
numerous  and imposing ones in the Forum  and the Suburra,  pre-
viously notieed, we see the  necessity for completing the simple yet
extensive underground constructions in the way of sewers, before
a firm foundation could  be procured for the more various, mas- 
53
sive, lofty and ornamental  edifices erected on the surface.  The
lesson is a fruitful one, and ought never to  be lost sight of in
the founding and laying out of new towns.   In many of  these a
proper system of drainage and sewerage is an after thought, and
hence when  executed it is at an immense cost, and  often after
much sickness and suffering to the first inhabitants.
   Paving, the necessary accompaniment of sewerage, and with-
out which the latter must always be imperfect, was not begun in
Rome until  an advanced period of the republic, when the prac-
tice was said to have been adopted  from the  example  of the
Carthaginians.  The  early deficiency in  this respect, and the
inadequate supply of  water for  washing out the sewers, allowed
of the  extrication  and escape  of effluvia, which added  to the
exhalations  from an exposed and wet surface, still in part sub-
jected to overflow of the Tiber,  gave  rise to those epidemic and
aggravated  periodical  fevers, which   under  the vague name of
plague (pestis) ravaged the  city and the Ager Romanus, now the
Campagna di Roma,  at different times, and  carried off large
numbers of  their inhabitants.   The state  of war in  which the
Romans were, with the exception of short intervals, so constantly
engaged, must have complicated the features and augmented the
violence and  fatality of these pestilences.   Without professing to
have made antiquarian or much historical  research,  it seems to
us that these visitations were not so destructive in the latter years
of the republic, and under the  first  emperors, notwithstanding
the greatly increased  population of the city, as they had  been
under the kings  and in the  first  centuries of the republic.  The
difference in  these respects must be traced  to the extended sys-
tem of paving and of sewerage, and the abundant supply of water
brought by the aqueducts.   Brennus  at the  head of  his victori-
ous Gauls, after having held  possession  of the city for  six  or
seven months,  during which period  he laid  close siege  to the
Capitoline hill, on whose summit the surviving citizens had taken
their last stand,  was finally obliged to retire, owing to the sick-
ness that destroyed so many of  his soldiers, much more than to
the gold with which it was said  he was bought off.   The  Gauls
encamped around the Capitoline hill, in the Forum  and  the re-
gion of the  Velabrum, were unavoidably  exposed to the causes
of fever growing out of  this low and  unhealthy situation, acted
on by the fervid rays of a summer and autumnal sun.  Refer-
ence has been already made to the ground in this region  being
sometimes overflowed by the Tiber; and we may now add, that,
even as  late as the time of Augustus, it was, on such occasions,
impossible to pass from the Palatine to  the Aventine  mount
without  the  aid  of  a  boat, for which each passenger  paid  a
qualrans, or about a cent of our money. 
54
   On an equally  large and magnificent scale with  the  subter-
ranean conduits and  galleries for the purpose of sewerage,  were
the numerous aqueducts which traversed Rome in all directions.
They were nine in number, and  conveyed into the city,  at dis-
tances varying from seven  to sixty miles, a supply of water ad-
equate for both public and  private uses—cleansing the cloaques,
supplying their numerous baths,  and naumachia?, and the houses
for all domestic purposes.   One of these aqueducts, the Martian,
conveyed the waters of three separate streams in as many chan-
nels.  The first aqueduct,  made  in the fifth century from the
foundation of Rome, was almost entirely subterranean.  In such
cases, openings to the external air were made at intervals  of 241
feet, for the purposes of ventilation.   With the growth  of the
city, and the extension and multiplication of the sewers, it be-
came more than ever an object to keep these underground  pas-
sages free from obstructions, and  hence whether Rome was at war
or at peace with the neighboring  states, the government, both in
the time of the republic and in that  of the empire, exercised un-
ceasing  vigilance, not only in these important matters,  but in
everything that bore  relation  to the public health.   The  com-
prehensive jurisdiction of  the ediles indicated the  supervision,
not only of public buildings, temples, theatres, &c, and  of pri-
vate edifices to such an extent that they should neither endanger
nor  incommode passengers on  the streets, but also of baths,
aqueducts, common sewers, and  direction of  the  markets and
houses of public  resort—taverns and  hotels as we should call
them at the present day.  The ediles took care that the health of
the people should not  suffer by bad provisions, which they threw
into  the Tiber, nor their morals by  bad women, whom they had
authority to banish from  the city.  Officers  were also specially
appointed  to  take  care of the  aqueducts.   These Curatores
A quorum  were invested   with  considerable  authority,  being
attended,  when they went out of  the city, by an architect, secre-
taries, two lictors, three public slaves, &c.
   After reading the account given by Strabo of the quantity of
water introduced  into the city being so great  that whole rivers
seemed to flow through the streets and sewers, what a  contrast
is offered to our minds when we turn over the pages of the Par-
liamentary reports made a  few years ago, showing the lamenta-
ble deficiency in this  respect both in  London and many of the
great and even small towns of England.  To such an extent did
this prevail that hundreds of thousands were deprived not only
of an adequate supply for  washing  their clothes, and for  pur-
poses of personal cleanliness, but also for drink itself.  The only
fountains to which they had access were those  of liquid poison  ;
the only edifices to rejoice their eyes,  and to which they might 
55
claim entrance, by  spending the pittance earned by their daily
toil,  were gin-palaces.   In most of our cities on this side of the
Atlantic, provision  has been  made for an  abundant supply  of
water for the use of their inhabitants ;  and our municipal author-
ities might, with propriety, repeat the language of Augustus, who,
in reply to a popular clamor about the dearness and scarcity  of
wine, reminded  the people  of Rome  " that no man could  rea-
sonably complain of thirst,  since the  aqueducts of Agrippa had
introduced into the city so  many  copious  streams  of pure  and
salubrious water."   There is reason to fear that this appeal  in
favor of the unsophisticated  appetite for  water, as contrasted
with the acquired relish for alcoholic stimulants, would  be re-
ceived with as  little favor in  the  Christian capitals  of  Europe
and  America, as  it  was in pagan  Rome.  There is  no name  in
Roman history and records so eminent  for his numerous and
extensive additions to the chief means of  promoting the public
health as Agrippa,  the son-in-law and  most trusted  counsellor of
Augustus.   lie increased the number  of the public sewers, and
exercised a continual and careful  supervision over  all of them.
So numerous were  these  subterranean galleries that the entire
city might be said,  in the language afterwards used  by Pliny,  to
be suspended over innumerable arches (urbs pensilis).  Agrippa
contrived, in addition to other means, to collect several minor
streams into  a larger one, and to  divert the entire current  into
the sewers, so as, in a measure, to  flush them, as we would say
now-a-days, and  thus to drive before it all refuse and fetid accu-
mulations.  He carried his supervision so far as to see in person
to the cleaning out of  the sewers,  for which purpose  he used  to
enter some of them in a boat.  The civil authorities of Rome dis-
played continued watchfulness so as to prevent the waste of water
brought by the aqueducts;  and, among other laws to this effect,
there was'one which prohibited the diverting of the water,  that
flowed over the castclla or  reservoirs at the termination of the
aqueducts, to private purposes, to  the  detriment of the health  of
the city by thus  preventing  the washing out of the sewers.  By
the like attention to drainage and cultivation  of suburban dis-
tricts, and indeed of all Latium,  the country was rendered in a
great measure healthy, and became the favorite retreat of the
wealthy  Romans during the hot season.   These delightful villas
could not, even if  they were yet  entire,  be now  inhabited, on
account  of the altered condition of the soil, and its  alleged con-
sequent extrication of the pervading and destructive malaria.
   Following the  construction of the  aqueducts, and the intro-
duction of so great  a  body  of water  as was conveyed by them
into Rome, was that of the Public Baths, some of which, as those
of Diocletian, were almost small towns, comprising,  as they did, 
56
 every  kind  of structure for bodily exercise, religious worship,
 reading, and recreation, in addition to the vast lavacra, and other
 appliances for bathing in water, vapor, or hot air, as taste, or the
 bodily health might require.  Some reference will again be made
 to these establishments, towards the close of this report.
   History tells us of the immense population of ancient Rome at
 the height of her power, and the villas which overspread the sur-
 rounding country; both  town and country preserving and main-
 taining  a vigorous and  unremitting observance  of  the  laws
 enacted for  the  public health.  From  the same source we learn
 the melancholy and contrasted picture  of Rome,  fallen, depo-
 pulated, and rendered almost  desolate by her  barbarian  inva-
 ders,  and the  consequent  entire neglect  of all sanitary legis-
 lation.   Such  was the  wide-spread ruin  which  followed  the
 repeated  irruptions  of  barbarian  conquerors  and despoilers,
 Goths, Huns, Vandals, and  Lombards, that, in  the eighth  cen-
 tury, as we  read in the pages of the learned and accurate Mura-
 tori, a considerable part of Italy was  covered with forests and
 marshes of great extent, and infested with  wolves and other wild
 beasts.  The same state of desolation prevailed in other countries
 of Europe.  Rome herself, fallen from her high estate, exhibited
 the melancholy spectacle of a great city in ruins; the adjacent
 country a gloomy solitude, and  disease  reigning supreme  over
 the surviving inhabitants. Plundered first by Alaric, and spared
 by the ferocious Attila, who had laid waste  the whole empire, her
 greatest sufferings were caused by Totila,  who besieged Rome and
 cut the aqueducts, in order to facilitate  the capture of the city.
 By this  means the country around was  overflowed, ponds  and
 quagmires were  formed,  and the  air became  in  consequence
 poisoned.  The Lombards  exceeded, if possible, those who  had
 gone before  them in the  work of destruction, in which we must
 include that of drains, dikes, and  sewers.   Even if  these  had
 not been destroyed or closed up  by foreign enemies, there were
 not inhabitants left in sufficient number to keep  them  entire and
 to cleanse them.   With progressive barbarism and  decay of all
 the useful arts, a knowledge of the very existence, and, conse-
 quently, of the  direction of most of  the sewers, was lost.   There
 was no longer any police nor the commonest attention  to public
 hygiene.  Frequent references were made, in successive centuries
 of the dark  or middle ages, to the stagnant waters in the vicinity
of Rome,  and their retention in the vaults  and the ruined build-
ings of the city, as a constant cause  of taint of the incumbent air.
 During the  twelfth and thirteenth centuries, few of the inhabit-
 ants of Rome reached the fortieth year of life, and  a  very small
number survived  the sixtieth  year.   On  the  advance of  the
Emperor  Frederic  Barbarossa on  Rome, it was asserted  by a 
57
writer at the time, that its pestilential air offered a better means
than  its soldiers, of protection  to  the  city against an enemy.
When the Popes returned to Rome, after an absence of seventy
years (1306 to 1376) in Avignon, the city only contained thirty
thousand inhabitants.  This return became the signal for setting
about the work of restoration and improvement, and among  the
jneasures of this nature most contributive to the public health
was the construction of new and the repairing and opening some
of the old sewers.   Noticeable evidences of-improvement in the
sanitary condition of Rome, effected by drainage, were presented
in the changes wrought in the quarter of  the Vatican, and in
that corresponding with the ancient Campus Martius. The first,
in the time of Tacitus, was eminently unhealthy, owing to  the
marshy nature of the  ground; but it was so much  improved in
this  particular by the Popes  as to be made  the  site for  the
church  of St. Peter and the Palace of the Vatican.   In fact,
many of the largest churches and finest palaces in modern Rome
are so many evidences of conquests over marshy ground, in order
to give  space and stable foundation for their erection, and, also,
to render access and occupation easy and'safe.   Modern Rome,
through the Popes, has in part imitated and in part turned to
direct account the construction of the ancient aqueducts, so that
by means of three of these art-directed rivers the city is amply
supplied with  water, not only for the domestic and personal
wants of the inhabitants, but for the purposes  of cleansing  the
streets and supplying numerous fountains.  The gushing streams
and jets sent out from these last diffuse a grateful coolness through
the surrounding  air during the raging and oppressive heats of
summer.  The most rigid protestant, in going the rounds of sight-
seeing during  the  dog days, must feel his odium theologicum
oozing out at every pore as he approaches the magnificent foun-
tains  of Termini, of Trevi, and of the Piazza Navone, formerly
the Circus Agonalis, or sees a river foaming like a  cataract at
the Pauline.
   The calamities which followed the irruption of the German  and
Scythian nations into the Roman empire, lasted for four centuries;
and  during this period it were vain to talk of public hygiene.
No longer were ediles and questors to be found, nor were similar
officers  created by the barbarian  conquerors.   Even after the
outlines of a new order of things were visible,  and  modern  his-
tory began  its records, a long  time  elapsed  before any pains
whatever were  taken to preserve the health of communities by
sanitary regulations.   The cultivators of the soil, herding rather
than dwelling together round the castle of their lord and tyrant,
were  badly fed and worse lodged; and both in town and country
the purifying aid of the bath ceased to be sought for, and in  fact 
58
 was no longer procurable.   The first memorable  step  towards a
 better social and political organization of the people who overran
 and subjugated the Roman empire, was their collection into com-
 mercial communities.  Ingenuity, enterprise, and taste, were ra-
 pidly  developed;  and with the increase of the wealth of  the
 State there ensued greater individual comfort and enjoyments—
 better means,  in fine, of procuring health, and avoiding disease.
 To huts and dark  and unwholesome habitations, succeeded spa-
 cious,  if not always well-aired and well-lighted  mansions; and
 avenues  obstructed  by mud  and  filth were  replaced  by paved
 streets; while, here and there, a fountain gave evidence of a re-
 cognition of the virtues of running water, and rendered it probable
 that abundance for use was secured before indulgence^ in  orna-
 ment was allowed.  This ameliorating process was chiefly observ-
 able in the free cities of Germany and Italy; and it was after a
 much longer period that even the capitals of powerful kingdoms,
 such as London and Paris,  were wanting in most of the essentials
 for the preservation of the  public health.   The streets were nar-
 row and  unpaved, and with their  own mud were mixed up  all
 kinds  of garbage  and offal;  the  houses were for the most part
 small,  damp, and badly ventilated ;  water for  both public  and
 private wants, household and personal, was deficient in quantity;
 and when procured often tainted with  impurities.  The supply
 of food was irregular, and never in the variety required for the
 purposes of health.   In all the cities of Europe, during  the mid-
 dle ages, the population was excessive, owing to the insecurity of
 persons and property outside the walls during their frequent and
 almost continual wars, and to the consequentflight of large numbers
 from the country, who sought refuge in the city from the sudden
 fury of a barbarous enemy. It mattered but little whether the town
 were large or small; there was always a  disproportion  between
 the number of its inhabitants  and the space for habitation  and
 change of air.  Hence we cannot  be  surprised that any notice-
 able deviation  from the customary states of the atmosphere, or,
 still more, interruption  to  the regular supply of food, should
have been followed in city,  town, and hamlet, with pestilence in
its most appalling and deadly forms.  Even if Ave were ignorant
of all the  particulars of bad medical police, or  of  its entire neg-
lect, and of the mode of living during this period, we still couhl
not fail to see  in these melancholy chapters  of  the  devastations
from epidemic diseases, a want  of adequate public  hygiene, if not
a total ignorance of its principles.  In proportion,  on the other
hand, to more conformity with and a better appreciation of these
latter,  was there an abatement if not entire disappearance of these
 scourges of mankind; and sanitary measures, methodically car- 
59
ried out, were followed by improved public health and increased
duration of the life of the individual.
  Vital statistics enable us to speak with confidence of the progres-
sive ameliorations, in these respects, which accompanied advancing
civilization.  The mortality in Paris in the early part of the four-
teenth century has been estimated from a manuscript document to
be 1 in 20; whereas at the present time the average mortality of
the inhabitants, in the very poorest arrondissement, or ward, as we
might term it, in which poverty and destitution are extreme, was
1 in 24, in the first third of the present  century.  The average
deaths  in  all Paris  at  the same  date (1830) was 1 in 32, and
among the more wealthy  innabitants 1 in 42 ; and hence we are
safe in sajing that the mechanic of the present day, who resides
in the French capital, is better off, on the score of air and the ap-
pliances for supporting life, than the rich inhabitant at the open-
ing of the thirteenth  century, notwithstanding that the population
is more than 300  times greater now than it was then.   The dif-
ference in the vital statistics of the two periods thus compared is
easily explained by the entire neglect  of public  hygiene  in  the
former, and the careful  attention which it receives  in the latter.
Although paving of the streets of Paris  had been begun in  the
twelfth century, under Philip Augustus, yet it was of very limited
extent at the beginning of the fourteenth, when Philip the Fair
was king.  At that time the streets of Paris gave out abominable
stenches, so  obstructed  were  they with  mud,  dung, and  other
excrementitial substances and offal of  all kinds.   Even towards
the close of  the century  things  were no  better, if we may judge
from  a proclamation of Charles VI., which  speaks of the  pave-
ment being so broken up into ruts that it was dangerous in many
places to ride either  on  horseback or in a  carriage;  and that,
owing to the accumulation of refuse of all kinds, grave diseases
and death were common.   With few exceptions, the houses were   (
little better than hovels.   Even down  to  the early period of the
reign of Louis XIV., the greater number of the streets were still
unpaved, or paved only on one side and at certain distances: they
were  obstructed also by the same  kind of abominations already
mentioned.  Historians remark that, after the paving of Dijon,
the ancient capital of Burgundy, in the middle of the fourteenth
century, dysentery,  spotted fever, and other diseases  became of
less frequent occurrence in that city.  A still more^ striking ex-
ample of the effect of improved sanitary  legislation in increasing
the average duration of human life, is  exhibited in the registra-
tion of the births and deaths, and population of the city of Geneva
during the last three centuries.   M.  Marc d'Espine, in  a late
work  on "Comparative  Mortuary Statistics," shows, that  the
probable life  at Geneva in the sixteenth  century  was  rather less 
60
than 5 years; in the seventeenth century 11 years ;  at the begin-
ning of'the eighteenth 27  years; at the end of the century 32
years ; and now it is 44  years.   M. Mallet had previously shown
from  the  same  documents, that the mean duration  of life in
Geneva, in 1833, was nearly the double (or as 40 years, 5 months
to 21  years, 2 months)  of  that  reached rather  more  than  two
centuries before.
  Nearly  all the great cities of the world have  been founded on
the banks and at  the confluence of rivers, or  on the  seashore,
where the ground  is low, flat, and  often  marshy, and  liable to
be in  part flooded by heavy rains,  or the overflow of adjoining
rivers.  In localities like these,  almost  invariably at particular
seasons, and under certain regularly recurring atmospherical
influences, fevers of a periodical  kind afflict the  first inhabitants.
It was so, as we have already stated, at  Rome ; and in  the cities
and small towns, too, of  modern  Europe, as well  as  those in
America,  the  same  unfavorable localities  have produced  the
same effect,  until  the industry and  art  of the  inhabitants have
been exerted to  alter the surface of the  ground by firm pave-
ments and judicious draining, so  that the water  coming from the
houses and that falling in the streets in  the shape of rain, shall
readily flow  into the sewers beneath, in place of being allowed to
stagnate in ruts, hollows, and pools, and afterwards, with the aid
of heat, to bring about a putrefactive fermentation of all the refuse
accumulated, in the shape of vegetable and animal offal, and other
matters which  are  thrown or otherwise  find their way into the
streets.  A  compost thus formed of all kinds of abominations, in
union with the filth retained in most of the houses of Europe
during the middle ages,  was a perpetually sustaining cause, not
only of periodical fevers, but of  plague itself.   The materials of
wood, and lath, and plaster,  of  which the  houses were chiefly
built,  by retaining moisture and  yielding  to decay, must have
greatly contributed to the evolution of foul and unwholesome air,
which was added  to the permanent supply in the streets.  Fire
in some instances came opportunely to  purify  the  air, while it
destroyed the dwellings  in  a city.   The great fire of London in
1665,  which followed the great plague, destroyed thirteen thou-
sand houses  and eighty-nine churches in  four hundred streets ;
but it left the  English capital  free, ever after, from the  plague.
The benefits would have been much more complete if the streets
had been  laid  out  after a general  and uniform  plan, instead of
preserving the old lines,  although  many of  them were made
wider.  To  this last circumstance, and the better  construction
of the houses,  both as regards  the material, brick, and the larger
access  of light and air,  was  the new  city  indebted for  a
higher sanitary standard than it had ever attained before.   But 
61
the imperfect paving and drainage of London still left it open to
intermittent fever and dysentery, both of which prevailed every
year.  It will surprise many persons, general readers too, when
they are told that the mortality from the former cause alone, in
a population  at the  time not greater than that of  Philadelphia,
was from one to two thousand persons annually. Now, it scarcely
figures on the mortuary list, owing to the great sanitary improve-
ments  in  the metropolis,  especially  under the  heads just men-
tioned.   In former  times, it  appears  that Walbrook, Sherbourne,
Longbourne and  Oldbourne were really brooks, often closed up
by  filth, and  in some places  the currents  so much obstructed as
to  form  pools.  A  large  portion  of the country, also,  around
London was a marsh, and indeed the banks of the Thames, from
Lambeth  to  Woolwich, was one  continued  swamp.   All these
parts,  however, have been under  drained,  extensive  sewers
formed, the ditches filled  up, the river banked  out, and the  site
generally rendered  so dry, that London is  now unquestionably
not only the most healthy capital  in Europe, but, on the score
of salubrity,  is scarcely rivalled by any city in the world.
   We  have been accustomed to read  and to speak of  the wonder-
ful and almost miraculous progress  of Rome, from  a small  and
insignificant  beginning to  universal empire,  and to expatiate on
the firmness, courage, and  martial  spirit of her people, which
bore them up under the most trying and adverse circumstances.
Viewed  under another and hygienic  aspect, her career must
excite  our surprise and  admiration to  a still greater  extent,
when  we  reflect on  the  eminently unfavorable  geographical
situation  of  the  city, as  every way adverse to health  and to
the growth in numbers, wealth, and  splendor which she ulti-
mately attained.    It would  indeed be  difficult  to adduce a
stronger and more  convincing proof of the  importance of sani-
tary measures, not  only for  the prosperity but  for the  existence
of  a city, than was exhibited in the history of Rome.  But in
more modern times  the same instructive lessons have  been taught
with even greater force and  point by the foundation  and growth
of the  three great cities of Venice, Amsterdam, and St.  Peters-
burgh.   Had the refugees  from the mainland who  fled before
Attila and his Huns  to the  small  islands in the lagunes of the
Adriatic, hesitated  to procure a stable and permanent  abiding
place for  themselves amid the waters, and to set about laying at
once the  foundations of a mart  for  commerce, they might,  per-
haps, have had a line in history, telling of their love of freedom
and of their success  as  fishermen  and buccaneers, but never
would  the world have heard of the name of Venice,  or of its ex-
tensive trade and  political  power.  Never would  the  spectacle
have been exhibited of a great city  rising as it were out of the 
62
sea, and resplendent with marble palaces and  churches,  and
piazzas, and with rich tessellated pavements and houses, many of
them palatial in size and architectural decorations, and nearly'all
of these edifices, both public  and private, built on piers.   There
was pavement foundation of  a new kind and upon a  large and
costly scale, but how fully was the expense repaid !  Where canals
take  in most  cases  the  place of streets,  these are necessarily
small, if not insignificant; but their pavements required a  heavier
outlay than that of  many of the broad avenues of other cities.
It is easy to conceive the engineering skill in making the canals,
and in preserving their requisite levels, as well as the labor in
preventing undue accumulations of offal and refuse of all kinds
cast into them.   The  entire exemption of the  inhabitants of
Venice from periodical fevers  is well calculated to excite surprise
under any view which may be taken of  the peculiar topographi-
cal features of the city.  During the summer months the lagunes
give out very unpleasant  odors.
  Amsterdam had an equally small and unpropitious beginning as
the Queen of the Adriatic, and like that of the latter, it was also
a maritime one.   Its founders were first a few fishermen, and then
a few traders, whose early efforts were  directed to prevent them
from sinking in the  morasses on which they had  erected their
humble  dwellings, and from having them swept away by the sud-
den rising of the stormy Zuyder Zee.   Drainage by canals gave
them something like terra firma in their  marshes, while dikes
sheltered them from the capricious fury of  the ocean.   Industry
and  enterprise thus  early exercised were not  long in being di-
rected into  the channels of an extensive and lucrative commerce,
and  brought  these inhabitants wealth and a mercantile marine.
Its tonnage  constituted  a large  part  of that  of the Seven
L'nited Provinces, and this, at the  close of  the seventeenth cen-
tury, was nearly equal to the  tonnage of all the rest of Europe.
Amsterdam presents the spectacle of a flourishing and hand-
somely built city of more than two hundred thousand inhabitants,
with well paved  and  clean streets, which sometimes run parallel
to and sometimes are intersected by numerous  canals, and with
public and  private edifices evincing durability, taste, and wealth.
The whole of them rest on piles; and hence the common remark,
assuming the tone of complaint, that a house costs as much below
as above the ground.  It  should be remembered, however, that a
house is worth little above ground anywhere as a residence unless
the under ground be well  kept, and rest on a dry and properly
drained soil.   Notwithstanding, however, all the pains taken to
keep the canals of Amsterdam clear of accumulations  of  filth or
other obstruction, the depth of water is  often insufficient  to pre-
vent offensive and injurious exhalations,  which  affect the health 
63
and lessen the mean  duration  of the life of the  inhabitants.
What is here said of Amsterdajn applies to nearly all  Holland.
The people of that country, inhabiting a barren soil, alternately
marsh and sand and almost submerged by water, and breathing an
atmosphere the most  unfriendly to human comfort,  so far from
retiring before the encroachments of the ocean, erect barriers to
restrain its fury, give new channels to their sluggish waves, drain
by numerous canals their marshes and morasses, and convert, as
it were, the  elements  which seemed to be the  means of  destruc-
tion, into so many sources  of wealth and power.
  St. Petersburgh, the capital of the  Russian  empire, rests, like
Venice and Amsterdam, on made ground, once an area  of marsh
and bog, near the mouth of the  Neva.  Its foundation, unlike,
however, that of the free cities just  named, was owing to the
despotic will  of one man, Peter the Great, who triumphed over
nature, but at an enormous sacrifice of human life.  History tells
of forty thousand  men having been employed  at one time  in the
preliminary work of draining of the soil, and filling up pools and
quagmires ; and of three hundred thousand men having lost their
lives before the work  was completed.   Now, we look at a magni-
ficent capital, containing a population of half  a million  of souls,
with its  wide and long streets, its grand stone quays extending
for three miles on  each side of the Neva, its apparently endless
lines of imposing houses in a  uniform style of  architecture  for
entire blocks  and even streets, interspersed with  churches and
palaces  and  government edifices.  All this  has  been created
within the period that  has elapsed since the foundation and first
settlement of Philadelphia.  Well might it  be  said, after a study
of the rise and growth of  all the  great  capitals and celebrated
cities of the world, that the first and the most  important chapter
in the history  of  civilization is that  of drainage.   If  there be
exceptions, they will be found, for the most part, to strengthen
and enforce  the general practice, by showing the inconveniences
and loss  caused by its  neglect.
  As a  part of the contrasted  picture of neglect of the most im-
portant  measures  of sanitary  legislation in cities, we  may ad-
duce  the  instance of  Berlin, the capital of Prussia.   For the
first half of the seventeenth century, its streets were  not entirely
paved ;  and  at the beginning  of  the  century they  were never
swept.   The  new market was paved as  late as 1679.  How dif-
ferent the state of things in  the commercial and  free city of
Augsburg, the  paving of  which was begun in the early part of
the fifteenth  century, and in the earliest periods it  had subter-
ranean passages or sewers.  In Berlin, on the other hand, in the
latter part of the seventeenth century (1671),  every  countryman
who  came to the market was  required to  carry away with him 
64
a load of dirt.  Hog styes were erected on the streets, some-
times under the windows.   Berlin  had no regular sewers or un-
derground  drains at as recent a date as  1816.   A sluggish but
considerable river, the Spree, almost stagnates in the town.   It
might be made a grand cloaque, connecting with the other drains
when covered, and  the  whole of them,  as well as the  streets,
could be washed by water raised by engines, at a cost not  greater
than that now incurred  for stucco  work and  other outside deco-
rations for the houses.   Large puddles  of filth are allowed  to
collect before  the doors even of the best houses, which, espe-
cially in the last months  of summer, diffuse  a most  horrible
stench.   It must be admitted, however, that the low situation  of
the town renders drainage  a  matter  of great difficulty.   Laing,
the traveller, speaking of Berlin as  he found it in 1841, says:
"It is a fine city, very like  the age she represents—very fine,
and  very nasty.  The streets are  spacious  and straight,, with
broad margins on each  side for foot-passengers, and a band  of
broad flagstones on  their margins, make  them much more walk-
able than the streets of most continental  towns.  But these mar-
gins are  divided from the spacious carriage-way in the  middle,
by  open kennels, telling the most  unutterable things.   These
open kennels are boarded over only  at the gateways of the pal-
aces,  to let  the carriages cross them, and  must be particularly
convenient to the inhabitants, for they are not at all particularly
agreeable."  "If bronze and marble could smell,  Blucher  and
Bulow, Schwerin and Ziethen, and  duck-winged angels, and two-
headed  eagles innumerable would  be found  on their pedestals,
holding  their  noses  instead of .grasping [as in the case of the
generals] their swords." Berlin is still so far behindhand in the
comforts of life,  as not to have water conveyed in pipes into the
city and the houses.  "Three hundred  thousand  people have
taste enough to be in dreamy ecstasies at the singing of Madame
Pasta, or the dancing of Taglioni, and have not taste enough  to
appreciate or feel the want of a supply of water in their kitchens,
sculleries, drains, sewers and water closets."  No surprise  need  be
felt that Berlin was scourged with the cholera in 1831, and again
with still greater severity in  1837.   Putting aside drainage, the
Prussian capital is, in the width and  general arrangements of the
streets, and the better ventilation of the houses, superior to the
French; but yet  the proportionate  mortality from cholera was
much greater, or at the rate of nearly 2| to 1 in  1831, in the
former  than in the  latter  city—which, as commonly described,
was so  great  a sufferer.   In the  second attack  (in  1837), the
mortality was  still  heavier in Berlin, or, as the difference  be-
tween 1426 and 2174 deaths.  There, as in nearly every city  in
which the cholera made its attack, the greater number of cases, 
(55
and the chief mortality were found in dark narrow streets, inac-
cessible to the rays of the sun and to winds, and in low, damp
habitations, especially near the water.
  During the  last two centuries, colonization and incidental con-
quest have exerted a powerful influence on the political and social
relations of the  different countries in  both hemispheres,  from
which neither  Hindoo nor Chinese, Turk nor Tartar, Indian nor
Negro are  exempt.   Consequent upon the vast extension and the
openings of new channels of commerce, have been the foundation
and  growth of many cities, the  inhabitants of which, in  their
eagerness for gain, have hardly allowed themselves, until recently,
time to attend to the obvious  requirements of public hygiene.
Looking too  much  at the  surface, they have  often neglected
proper  draining  and sewerage, and the means of procuring an
adequate supply  of  water, and more surprising  still, a renewal
of fresh air by suitable ventilation.  The consequences of this
neglect have  been  the production of febrile and other diseases,
which have not  only destroyed life to  a fearful extent, but re-
tarded industry,  and greatly interfered  with social progress and
educational amelioration.   These  evils are not confined to Cal-
cutta and  New Orleans, to Cairo  and Constantinople;  they are
but  too  apparent in Liverpool and  Manchester and Glasgow,
and  in New  York,  and,  although in  less  degree,  in Boston,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, not  to speak  of  our great inland
towns on  the  Mississippi  and its  tributaries, and on our  great
Lakes.   Little admonished by the history  of former ages, the
people of Europe and America have paid but scant  attention to
the  best measures  for preventing diseases  and for preserving
health among  the masses: the poor and the  destitute and the de-
graded have been too long allowed to remain in their ignorance,
to grovel in their filth, and while suffering acutely themselves, to
spread around them the contamination  and  contagion of the dis-
eases of body  and  of mind, which inevitably result  from their
neglected condition.  The  philanthropic few have, from time to
time, remonstrated,  and at the same 'rime suggested, and, as far
as their limited  efforts would allow, have carried out  improve-
ments; but the former have never  obtained a full public hear-
ing,  and the latter were  too  partial in their  nature to  prune,
still  less to eradicate the wide-spread and  constantly growing
evils.   The plague  of  Asia and  Africa, the  yellow  fever  of
America, and  the typhus fever in  Europe, and the cholera in all
quarters of the world, have spread fright and death, have elicited
many legislative and municipal enactments, and given rise to acts
of heroic devotion to the relief of suffering  humanity; but until
a recent period, they have  failed, notwithstanding their frequent
and  dreaded visits,  to fix the attention of the several communi-
       5 
66
 ties, among which they have been most rife, on their real, and, as
 far as could be ascertained, their preventible causes.  It is under
 these circumstances that Hygeia may be invoked, not merely as
 the  handmaid  of Medicine,  but as the potent divinity saving
 her  tens  of thousands of  lives, while the latter can only hope
 to rescue  her hundreds  after incredible efforts and  expense on
 the part of her immediate  votaries.
   Concurrently with the increase, and both as an effect, and, in
 turn, a  cause of commerce,  have been  the  vast extension  and
 multiplication of manufactures within the  past century, and the
 concentration of human beings, in consequence, far beyond what
 would be allowable on  any principle  of  hygiene.   Deprived, as
 so many tens of thousands  are, in the great manufacturing cities
 and towns  of Great Britain and France,  of the common  air,  and
 common light,  pent up in close and damp, often, underground
 lodgings by night, and forced to extraordinary, and yet partial
 bodily  efforts by day, receiving an inadequate supply  of food,
 and  tempted by their  overpowering feelings  of exhaustion  and
 depression to seek for temporary renovation and excitement in the
 use of ardent spirits, or fermented and drugged, erst  called malt
 liquors, what wonder that  they are invaded  by disease in every
 shape—fevers,  pulmonary  consumption, scrofula, and all  that
 can disfigure and deform.   The picture is a gloomy one, and sug-
 gestive  of fearful forebodings:  it has  long enlisted the sympa-
 thies of the benevolent, and has, at last, startled the selfish  and
 the avaricious, who feel a well-grounded alarm at  the  probability
 of the continued sufferings  and degradation of a neglected, if not
 despised, class of their  fellow  beings diminishing their own gains.
 But we  must not  scrutinize motives too closely, if  the acts be of
 an ameliorating and kindly nature.  Enlightened public  spirit is
 urging those who have the  power to make  the requisite reforms,
 and in legislative  enactments, as well as in voluntary associations
 and individual liberality, satisfactory  proofs are given of a new
 and better state  of things.  Recurrence will soon be made to
 this subject.  In  some of  the towns  of  England, of  late years,
 public baths have been opened, and public wash-houses erected
 so as to insure  to the  poorer classes cleanliness of  person and
 clothing, two great means  of preserving health, and, indirectly,
 of aiding  the cause of morals;  the mind receiving from  the
 body's purity a secret  sympathetic aid.
   The burden of sanitary  legislation  is protection of the public
 health,  compatibly  with the rights  of person  and property, and
 the pursuits of industry.    The  common right of all is entire en-
joyment of  the material  conditions for healthy life.   This ricrht
 is seldom obtained in its full  latitude.  It is too often neglected
 by those who might, with care, enjoy it;  and, still oftener, it is 
67
withheld or violated by force or selfishness in such a way that
the people in mass find it difficult to obtain justice.  The contest
between cupidity and sanitary rights is  sometimes unavoidable,
but more  frequently this arises from the  ignorance on the part of
the opponents of reform.  So soon as people are congregated in
cities and other marts of business, they discover, on coming to a
common understanding, the necessity of giving up the indulgence
of individual will when it conflicts with the  public good.  Hence,
municipal laws for regulating thoroughfare, and for.the introduc-
tion and  export of  various  articles of commerce, especially  the
products of agriculture.  Every citizen is insured the right of way
through all the  streets, in the pursuit of  business or  pleasure ;
and be is  protected  by stringent laws from  the  dishonesty of
those  who  would sell him  tainted meat, or even  provisions at
short weight.  It is not  in any view of sentimental philanthropy
or of ascetic restriction, but in the name of  humanity and justice,
that so many of our fellow citizens, in all the walks of life,  are
urgent for similar prohibitions against the retail trade in liquid
poison, the product  of alcoholic distillation—the original noxious
effects of which on the animal economy are still further increased
by the addition  of  some of the most subtle  and active poisons
derived from other  sources.
   Individual caprice and heedlessness are checked in acts which
conflict with the rights of the majority, in  fact,  of  the public at
large, as  when a person would extend the  front  of his house  be-
yond the regular line, or pile up goods or  wares in the middle of
the street.   It would be well that some  limitation should be put,
also, to the height of a house, in order that  a whole neighborhood
and the passers-by may  not be put in jeopardy, or suffer from the
loss of limb and life  itself by the fall of these lofty structures, which
are neither dedicated to religion nor to any public use, but which
seem to be merely monuments of the silly  vanity of individuals.
The exclusion of the cheerful and genial sunlight from the street,
and the restricted ventilation produced by  such lofty piles, might
count for something, even though questions^of this nature do  not
enter into the calculations of  cost  and  profit by the original
party.   Paving and draining, and sewerage are, also, recognized
parts of city police and sanitary legislation, to which all holders
of property are  made to contribute,  for the public good as well
as for their own personal benefit.   Public  convenience and pub-
lic  health are  subserved  by these means, the performance of
which is  insured by regularly appointed agents, and  Boards of
 Health.   Few will  be found in  the  large  cities of Europe  and
 America to contest the  propriety and wisdom of all  these mea-
 sures of  public hygiene, to which must  be  added the procuring a
suitable supply of pure  water, although, in many smaller places, 
68
they may be, at first, thought to be uncalled for, and to involve
an expenditure of money beyond the good to be obtained.   It is
seldom, however, that  experience does  not  show the groundless
nature of  these  objections, both  in a  sanitary and  economical
point of  view.  There  are not wanting, indeed, persons in every
country,  Christian or Mohammedan, who claim, as  one of their
reserved  rights, the privilege of having their senses of sight and
smell assailed by emanations from all kinds of offal and garbage,
and the stagnant water of  gutters, as if to mark the difference
between town and country, and, at the same time, their freedom
from restrictive laws.  There are also not a few who, with tastes
akin to those of  the preceding  class, claim  that their house is
their castle, and that they  have a right to  exclude  the air from
it as carefully as  if they were in a state of siege, and had been
obliged to close every aperture through which an enemy's missile
might find an entrance.
  State policy, itself, however little affinity it may seem to have
to  philanthropy and philosophy, is  deeply concerned in  the
inculcation and  enforcement  of the true  principles  of  public
hygiene.   The  power  of a  state depends  on  the  population,
wealth, and productive  industry, and on the cultivated intelli-
gence of its people; trammels  on all of which are  created by
whatever deteriorates the physical strength  and the  health of
any portion of  them.   Any permanent injury to  the  public
health  exerts,  at the same time, an unfavorable influence on the
social state; and hence  poverty, with its  frequent concomi-
tants  of  hunger, and  the  daily alternations of eager expec-
tation  of relief  and of depression of  the  feelings, has ever
been a promoter of secret and political disorganization.   While
philanthropy incites  to  more extended  efforts for the relief  and
prevention of sufferings which are the result  of  a breach of the
natural laws or  those  of health, expanded philosophy teaches
that, although some classes in every city pay  the heaviest penal-
ties, yet  there is no one  class  exempt from similar inflictions.
The  rich  man, in  his spacious  mansion, has  a direct  personal
interest in the health and domestic comfort of his poor neighbor;
and the more secluded  and shut  out from the world, in a dark
court or alley, is this neighbor, the greater is  this interest.   His
open windows will give entrance, not only to the  refreshing
breeze, but also to the poisoned air emanating from  congregated
beings in the confined lodgings, and from the unremove'd  refuse
or offal adjacent.   It is thus that typhus fever, beginning  in the
hovels of the poor, finds its way into the luxurious abodes  of the
rich.  "Were it necessary to continue in this line of argument, we
might point to the importance of sanitary legislation equally to
the employer, or master manufacturer, and  the operatives  and 
69
workmen.  His real interest will not consist  in  obtaining from
them  the greatest  possible  amount  of  work  from day to day,
without reference to their having a  due  proportion  of time  for
sleep, and of moderate recreation  in the  open air.   Nor will it
be good economy to stint these persons in the quantity of whole-
some  food which is necessary to  renovate the body weakened
by  labor, as  well as to remove the cravings  of  hunger.  The
landlord who desires to  have his   houses always occupied  by
good  paying tenants,  will  not be  negligent of either their
health or their morals.  Me will not speculate  on the powers of
endurance of human beings, when deprived of fresh air by resi-
dence  in  close, damp, and  badly ventilated rooms, and who  are
compelled to inhale an  impure  and vitiated air, the product of
their own respiration, and the exhalations from the accumulated
filth of cesspools, and of yards choked up by offal.  The inmates
of  such  habitations are,  necessarily, less fitted  for labor and
active  employment  of every kind ;  lose more  time  b}7 sickness,
and are carried off  in larger  proportion by  death than those in
more  favorable hygienic  conditions.  Their  nervous system is
weakened in  the functions of the senses and of the brain; and,
even if intemperance should not add its  baneful influence to their
distress,  they are more susceptible  to the causes of moral dis-
orders and  the temptations to evil-doing.   Men, thus wearied
and worn, depressed in body and  in mind, and  deprived  of all"
the genial excitement from fresh air  and light, and shut out from
all  the objects which might remind  them of nature, under  her
more pleasing aspects, become careless of themselves, indifferent
to the  wants  of their families, and regardless of  the obligations
contracted with employer or landlord, or  the  administrators of
the laws.   They are unfitted  for prolonged  and regular labor.
They are bad workmen, bad tenants, and unsafe neighbors.  We
shall conclude what is to be said of  the benefits of a good sani-
tary system,  both  to the  rich  and  the poor, by repeating that
right royal sentiment of Prince Albert, on the occasion  of his
taking the chair at  a meeting of the "Society for improving  the
Condition of the Working  Classes."  '-Depend upon it," said
the princely chairman, "that the interests of the often-contrasted
classes are identical, and it.is only ignorance which prevents their
uniting to the advantage of each other."
 . The sanitary  reforms which  have  been  carried out within  the
last ten or fifteen years  in Great Britain, and  those  which  are
still in progress, following  as  they  do a careful investigation of
the evils  and  abuses to  be corrected,  enable us to speak with
additional confidence of the importance and  economy of sani-
tary measures to cities, and  to adduce a large body of facts alike
pertinent and  convincing.  Your  reporter will content  himself 
70
with introducing articles from some statements taken  from a
mass of evidence which  he  had previously collected for other
purposes.   To  begin  with  paving,  it might be  sufficient to say
that the evils from  neglect of it are pointed out in most  of the
reports  on the  health of  towns, but  we  cannot forbear from
again adverting to the effects witnessed in  London.   Before the
streets of  that  metropolis  were  paved, the inhabitants were as
great sufferers from  periodical fevers as those of the  worst situ-
ated rural districts in our own country, and until underground
drainage had  been  adopted to some extent, dysentery was com-
mon and largely fatal.  Drawing on  home experience,  it has been
found that in Philadelphia, the exemption of the inhabitants from
intermittent and bilious remittent fevers has, with great uniform-
ity, followed the paving of the streets.  The space now called
Dock Street was, in the early days of  the  history of Philadel-
phia, a miry swamp, traversed by the sluggish stream called Dock
Creek, on either side of which periodical fevers, of all grades, pre-
vailed with a violence equal to those met with in the most sickly
districts in distant States.  The under surface having been paved
and  the creek  partly  filled up and covered over, and made the
line of a great  culvert, no  person residing  there now has any
apprehension of fevers, such as those  that  affected  the  former
dwellers there.  A  like change from the operation of a similar
cause has been  wrought in  the districts of  Southwark, Kensing-
ton, and Richmond.   The change  in  the  sanitary condition of
Southwark is the more obviously due to paving  and   subsequent
attention to scavengering, as ihe greater part of the drainage is
on the surface, owing to the limited extent  of sewers.
  An important lesson is deduced from the history of the foun-
dation of new cities, or the extension of the streets of old ones,
viz:  that paving ought to precede   the  erection of houses, and
drainage follow habitation at a very early period.   A neglect of
these two  preliminary  conditions for public health has been pro-
ductive, in all ages,  of  a  fearful  waste of life; we say waste
because the  deaths were  readily  preventable.   Actually  at
this  time  the  pavement  of the seventy   miles of  streets in
Boston furnishes the cheap protection  to the inhabitants  against
the evils arising out of the constant presence and accumulation
of town mud and filth, and other abominations which  it would be
impossible  to remove from  any ground not coated in this way.
This is the more evident when we  learn that for the length of
seventy miles  of  streets, there are  but  twenty-five miles  of
sewers,  many of which were some  years  ago  one-third to one-
half filled with  mud.  Baltimore  is mainly indebted to street
pavement  for  the  drainage which is done  at the surface, as  the
aggregate length of all the sewers  ten years ago did  not exceed 
71
two miles.   One of the most remarkable examples of the bene-
ficial  change  in  the  health of a  city produced  by paving its
streets is furnished in the history of Louisville, Kentucky, which
from  being called the  graveyard of the West, is now regarded
as one of  the  most healthy cities of that extensive region.   In-
termittent fever  was, as we  learn from Dr.  L.  P. Yandell, a
regular annual visitor,  and occasionally a form of bilious  fever
prevailed, rivalling yellow fever  in malignity, and  threatening
to depopulate the town.  The citizens, awakened, after the fever
of  1822,  to  a sense of their condition and  to  the means of
mending it, set about a  system of improvement, the chief feature
of which  was paving  of the streets and filling up of the ponds.
The change  in the sanitary character of Louisville  is the more
noticeable, as it was  brought  about without the aid of subsoil
drainage  by sewers.  It has been truly said that fever loves the
banks of  rivers, the  borders of marshes, the edges of stagnant
pools ;  it makes itself at home in the neighborhood of cesspools
and badly constructed  drains, and takes especial delight in the
incense of gully-holes.   It should  be added at the s;ime time  that
fever, at least of the  periodical  kind, will be prevented  from
showing itself by its favorite haunts  being covered  with a good
pavement, so as to separate at once and permanently the bed of
moist putrefactive materials from the sun and air, which ferment
and give  rise to the continual  evolution of noxious gases.   But
the guardians of the public health  must  not  relax their vigi-
lance after  the  construction of suitable street  pavements, for,
unless there be enforcement of a regular system of scavengering,
 these pavements  will soon be covered with  semi-fluid mud, ami
 offal, and vegetable and animal refuse, which will represent too
 faithfully and fatally the  banks of rivers,  a marsh,  or the edge
 of ponds, and the contents of cesspools and gullies.
   In contrasting the effects on the health  of  the inhabitants of
 sewered with unsewered districts in the same  town, we are met
 by the remarkable example of Ashton-under-Lyne  in  England,
 in which the duration of life is six years more in the  former  than
 in the latter state.   Equally marked results have been obtained
 from  the sanitary records of  Chorlton, a township of Manches-
 ter.   Thus, while the mortality in  the undrained streets amounts
 to four per cent., in  the drained districts it is only two per cent.,
 and  that we do not overate the influence of drainage is proved
 by the fact that  some streets containing  3500 inhabitants, and
 exhibiting a  mortality  of 1 in 32 of the population, were elevated
 immediately after having obtained the benefit  of  sewerage to
 such a scale  of health, that the deaths decreased to  1 in 50  ; or,
 in other words, the deaths were diminished  20 a year out of every
 110  even as a first effect of putting the streets in a proper con- 
72
 dition as to sewerage.  Other districts of  Manchester  give  the
 same instructive lesson.   In Liverpool it  was  ascertained  that
 although the high mortality of  5.4  per cent,  occurred in both •
 sets of courts in that city, yet that more than 22 persons in every  .
 100 of the undrained courts had serious  cases of illness, while
 only 10 in 100 suffered in the same  way in the drained districts.
 The sanitary history of every city contains evidence of the  im-
 provement of  the  public  health following  a good system of
 sewerage, and this is the same as in  the contrast offered between
 the preferred and fashionable streets as we now find them, and
 the same spots before they had the benefit of paving and sewer-
 age.  In London, the west end of the town, and Westminster,  the
 seats of the residences of the nobility, and where are found  the
 courts of law and the two houses of Parliament, were once exten-
 sive marshes, nearly uninhabitable on account of the fevers which
 annually prevailed there.   In Paris a regular system of sewerage
 has converted sickly and almost  abandoned districts into those
 now known  as the  Faubourg Montmartre, the Chausse' d'Antin
 and the  Faubourg  St. Honore",  which  are remarkable for  the
 business transacted in them and  the  wealth of their inhabitants.
   Rotherhithe, a district of London, on the south  bank of the
 Thames, has  been the favorite haunt of the cholera in successive
 periods of appearance of that disease from 1831-2 to 1854.   Its
 sewerage was  deplorably defective, being by open sewers con-
 nected with  the  river.  Malignant  cholera spread to a much
 greater extent on the line of open sewers than in  the other poor
 and  densely  inhabited places.   In  other districts, we are told
 that the line of habitations, badly cleansed and suffering from
 defective drainage, formed the line of cholera cases'  in 1831-2.
 The reports of  the medical  inspectors, appointed by the Board
 of Health in  London  in 1854, concur in showing that wherever
 cholera has become localized it was found to  be connected with
 obvious removable causes.   Of these  the principal were the open
 ditches used in most  instances as sewers,  or receptacles  of  all
 descriptions of filth,  and  receiving  the drainage  of numerous
 privies.  Generally  speaking, the mortality from  cholera was
 greatest in the lowest levels, owing, as may be readily supposed,
 to their imperfect drainage, and, consequently, to  the greater
 humidity and impurity of the air of such  places.  The advan-
 tages that might  be expected from  greater elevation are lost,
 however, by defective or inefficient drainage, as in  the instance
 of the district of Kensal, in  the parish of Chelsea,  near London,
if not now an  integral part of the  metropolis.   This district,
with the advantage of  having at least fifty feet higher elevation
than  the rest of the parish, and an  open, airy situation,  had a
 death-rate from  epidemic disease, principally  diarrhoea, nearly 
73
  double that of any other  district in the parish; although, if we
  exclude epidemic  disease, it  is actually  the healthiest of the
  Chelsea districts.  The defective sanitary arrangement, on which
• this state of things depends, is described by Dr. Barclay, Medi-
  cal Officer of Health for Chelsea, to be inefficient drainage, fecal
  fermentation, and  the impregnation of the atmosphere with un-
  wholesome  -emanations from foul  drains, ditches, and cesspools.
  It has been said that the course of  typhoid fever in a town may
  be tracked  by that of neglected sewerage.  In Croydon, a town
  not far from London, in  consequence of a new but badly con-
  structed system  of drainage, there occurred  " an alarming out-
  break  of fever (typhoid),  diarrhoea,  and  dysentery.   And the
  relator, Dr. Letheby, adds, that  Dr. Carpenter, of that town,
  informed him "that even  now he can tell where the pipes are
  stopped, by the occurrence of diarrhoea or fever in  the houses
  through which the foul gases are  forced."   Typhoid fever has
  been represented to be a  better test  than even diarrhoea of the
  sanitary state of a town.
    The unhealthiness of an urban  or suburban  district,  and  its
  liability to  visitations of fevers and cholera, depend  in no small
  degree on its low situation and its proximity to river banks, or
  to stagnant water, and too commonly still on its imperfect drain-
  age.   It was said, in reference to the intimate relations  between
  the activity of the disease,  and the proximity of the river Thames,
  that two causes are at work in such a locality.   First, increased
  humidity, and, secondly, and more especially,  the large evaporat-
  ing surface  of foul water, by which noxious effluvia are continually
  given  off, and poison, to a certain extent, the atmosphere through
  which they  are diffused. On this point, the language held by Dr.
  Grainger will properly find a place on the present occasion : "It
  is almost needless  to point out,"  writes this  gentleman, " that
  when  the numerous sewers of a city reach the  stream, one part
  of their contents widely  mingling  with  a  large body of water,
  undergoes solution, and thus presents a physical condition favor-
  able to their subsequent escape into the atmosphere in  the form
  of mephitic  gases;  whilst other portions, owing to the diminished
  velocity, sink to the bottom, near the edge  of the river,  and thus
  become deposited on the banks of putrid mud, which will, at the
  next tide, being laid bare  to the action of the sun and air, exhale
  poisonous effluvia."   This  writer adds, that some facts  came to
  his knowledge,  showing that it is precisely in  those spots at  the
  stream, which receive the  principal  body of sewerage, that cho-
  lera especially ravages the population.  We may add that it was
  so at Hamburg and at Berlin, in the latter of which  cities open
  drains, emptying their contents into the sluggish Spree, would  be
  productive of still greater mischief.   In Paris, the evils from this 
74
cause have been felt, and suggestions were made some years ago,
and have been in a measure carried out, to  construct two  great
tunnel sewers, one on each side of the Seine,  to receive and trans-
mit to some distance below the city all the sewerage of the differ-  •
ent branch sewers.  A similar project is now  discussed in London,
so that the Thames may cease to  be, as it  has been for a long
time past, the great common  and open  sewer of the metropolis.
In  Philadelphia and  New York reforms  are called for in this
matter, so that the mouths of the sewers, which discharge their
contents into the rivers of these two cities, shall not be exposed
at low tide, and give out poisonous effluvia, which either directly
generate malignant fevers or  serve as exciting causes  on organ-
isms predisposed by atmospherical extremes, such as high heat
and humidity.  Without involving ourselves in doctrinal questions
as to the origin of yellow fever, we are sure of receiving, from all
quarters, the admission of the general sameness of the localities
of this disease, and that these are distinguished by their consist-
ing, for the  most part, of alluvial  and made soil, and by being
deficient in suitable drainage and analogous means of preserving
the surface dry and clear of accumulations of filth  and the like
decomposed organic remains.   What is said of the yellow  fever
in New Orleans will apply to other places in which it has  com-
mitted its worst ravages, viz., that it attacks generally at first
the most susceptible, who  live in the filthiest, worst-drained and
paved, and worst-ventilated, and most crowded portions of the
city.  In Philadelphia, invariably from the first visitation of the
yellow fever in 1699, to the  last slight one in 1853, the  history
of the origin of the first appearance of the fever is told in nearly
the same language, viz., in Dock  Street,  near  the drawbridge,
the former mouth of Dock  Creek, in  different parts of Water
Street, or at the water side, or on one of the wharves,  between
Kensington on the north,  and Southwark on the  south end of
the city.   In 1699 it broke out in the vicinity of the dock at the
end of Spruce Street;  and in 1853 on or near  the wharf at the
Delaware corner of South Street—the two spots being less than
three  hundred  yards apart.   Near  the  latter  of the two, the
mouth  of a large sewer was exposed at low tide, and the emana-
tions from its imperfectly discharged contents left to poison the
air  around.  In New York, a still worse state of things prevails
riot only from  the same cause, but from the slips and docks  espe-
cially on  the  East River being  made the  receptacles for  all
kinds  of offal and refuse thrown into them from  the  wharves and
the vessels.

  Sewage  and  Sewer Gases.—The virulent  and  actively poi-
sonous nature of  the emanations from  sewage, whether at the 
75
 terminations of the sewers left  exposed in the manner now de-
 scribed, or in the  course of its passage under the streets of a city
 from  gully-holes  or leaks in the public sewers as well  as in the
• private drains  leading into these latter, have been investigated
 with considerable care of late years both in London and  Paris.
 In the British metropolis, Drs. Barker and  Letheby, the first in a
 paper in the Sanitary Review and Journal of Public H~ealth,Vo\.
 IV., the second in a Report to the Commissioners of Sewers of the
 City of London,  have entered very fully and ably into the sub-
 ject.  Dr. Barker instituted a number of experiments on animals,
 with a view of  showing the toxical  effects of the chief gases in
 sewer emanations, viz., carbonic acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and
 ammonia, or rather sulphide of  ammonium.  A mouse, exposed
 in a cage to the air of a  cesspool, within three inches of the sur-
 face, although it  was  well fed  at intervals,  died on the  fifth day.
 Dogs thus exposed suffered from vomiting,  diarrhoea, and  febrile
 symptoms, rigors, restlessness, thirst, and  loss of appetite. The
 gases above named were then  experimented with separately.  A
 puppy, exposed to less than two per cent, of sulphuretted  hydro-
 gen  in the common air, was destroyed in two minutes and  a half,
 without a struggle, and  so small a  proportion as 0.42S per cent.
 killed another in  an hour. A dog,  exposed to 0.205 per cent, of
 this  gas, was affected  within a minute by tremors, and fell on his
 side.   The  action of the heart became irregular, and within four
 minutes the respiration  had apparently ceased, but after  awhile
 Avas  renewed.   After one hour and thirty-eight minutes the dog
 was  removed from the box containing air mixed with sulphuretted
 hydrogen as above.   The respirations, which had, previously, at
 one time—three-quarters of an hour from the beginning of the ex-
 periment—been 112 and even 120 in a minute, became suddenly
. stertorous, as in apoplexy. On the removal  of the dog the respira-
 tions were stertorous, the limbs rigid, and the  head was drawn
 backwards: the animal died nine hours and thirty-eight minutes
 after the commencement of the experiment. A  second  dog, simi-
 larly exposed, suffered at first, but  soon revived, and, at the end
 of five hours, was removed without exhibiting any morbid effect.
 Another was attacked with tremblings and diarrhoea after breath-
 ing the gas; a fourth with all the  appearances of intoxication.
 Ammonia and its salts produced what Dr. Richardson,  in his Es-
 say on  the Causes and Coagulation of the Blood, considers to be
 unmistakably typhoid symptoms.  The minute quantity of 0.056
 per cent., or '56  parts of sulphuretted  hydrogen in a thousand
 of common air, is sufficient to produce serious symptoms—eruc-
 tations, tremors,  rapid  and irregular respiration, extraordinary
 rapidity of  the pulse, and diarrhoea.  The  inhalation of carbonic
 acid in small proportions was followed by diarrhoea.   Dr. Bar- 
76
ker arrived at the following conclusions, which may be received
as a fair expression of the facts:—
   "The symptoms which have been noticed  as  resulting from
the inhalation of sulphuretted hydrogen, sulphide of ammonium,
and carbonic acid, are sufficient to account for the effects arising
from cesspool effluvia, without seeking for any further product
from such emanations.   Comparing the experiments with cess-
pool air with those  in which separate gases were  employed, the
inference seems clear to  my mind, that the symptoms arising
from the inhalation of cesspool atmosphere were  due mainly to
the presence  of a  small amount of sulphuretted hydrogen,  which
gas was always present.   If the experiments  with  the cesspool
air be placed side by side with those in which sulphuretted hy-
drogen, in the  proportion of 0.056  per cent,  was administered
by inhalation, the analogy between the two sets  of  results will
be sufficiently unmistakable."
  Before inquiring into  the nature and  effects on  the animal
economy of  sewage gases, Dr. Letheby examines the  nature of
sewage  itself—as far as observed by this writer, in  reference to
what is met with in England.  The matters to be dealt with  in the
public sewers of every town and city are very complex, for they
are composed not only of the solid and  liquid ejecta  of the  popu-
lation,  but also of the fluid refuse  of every branch  of  industry.
They consist of the filth of kitchens, laundries, and  dyehouses;
the drainings from stables,  slaughter-houses, and the  public
markets; the various liquid impurities  of trade and manufacto-
ries; and  the washings  of the  streets  and alleys; all of which,
with the ejecta of the inhabitants and a large quantity  of water,
compose the sewage of towns.   In Paris and the French towns
generally, and in our American ones, a  difference  prevails in
their sewage  from that of London  and other towns  in  England,
in the circumstance of the small quantity of human  ejecta  which
is conveyed by private sewers into the public ones in France and
the United States.  Altogether, it  may be said,  that the ejecta
of the  inhabitants  of London  and  the washings  of the streets
daily furnish about 233 tons of solid matter to  the sewage, of
which  152.6  tons are  of  dry  matter, and  293.6  of moist, and
these, with the trade refuse, are diluted with about 84| million
gallons  of water.   It has been estimated, as data for part of the
preceding calculations, that 2  to 2|- ounces of dry  solid matter
are contained in the excrements per diem of each member of the
population.   Another mode of estimating the  composition  of
sewerage is founded on the analytical results of its'examination
at different   times  and  places.  These  show that  the sewage
discharged  by day is richer in solid  material  than the  night
sewage  is;  and that there are considerable  differences in this 
77
respect between the contents of sewers situated in different quar-
ters of the city.  "Taking the average of all the results obtained
in the examination of the metropolitan sewers, it may  be con-
cluded that the sewage  which flows  into the  Thames contains
about 904/ grains of  solid matter in the gallon ; of which about
29|  are suspended,  and 60J dissolved:  there being  about  15
grains of organic matter in each of these constituents."   "The
mineral constituents of sewer-water are chiefly carbonate of lime
and  common  salt, with  small proportions of  the alkaline  sul-
phates and phosphates.  They are derived from urine and from
the water supply.  The mineral part of the insoluble matter con-
sists almost entirely  of the debris of  the streets, and detritus of
wheels and  horse-shoes.   Their amount is  about  15 grains per
gallon;  which, in  the  aggregate, is as near as possible  81 tons
per  day for  the whole of the  metropolis, or  19 for the city."
"Thus, of the total amount of 485.5 tons of  solid  matter con-
tained in the sewage  of one day,  about 152.60 tons  are the^
ejecta of the inhabitants; 81.08 tons the  pulverized  granite and
iron on the roads;  102.04 the saline  matter  contained in the
water supply;  and the residue, 152.78 tons,  is from  trade and
manufactures.   The  total amount  of organic matter in all this is
about 215.14  tons;  of which half is in a state of solution, and
the rest is suspended."
   " The  physical properties of the  sewage   are peculiar, for
when it is examined under the microscope, it  is found that the
clear supernatant part contains a large quantity  of amorphous
organic matter, with the filaments of various  fungi.    It  swarms
with  animal life, as headed sperulina, vibriones,  and monad^;
and soon after exposure to air the higher forms of infusoria ap-
pear, as paramecimn,  vorticella, rotifera,  &c.   Besides which  it
contains small particles  of animal and vegetable  tissues, as the
■fibres of cotton, wool,  &c.   The mineral part is composed of the
debris of the streets, as particles of granite, flint,  and  carbonate
of lime, with a large  quantity of the black  sulphuret  of iron.
When the sewage has a very unpleasant odor, and is  charged
with sulphuretted hydrogen, it never exhibits much sign of animal
or vegetable life, notwithstanding that it contains  an abundance
of decaying organic .matter.   This is the  case with the foul con-
tents of the nearly stagnant sewers."
   The  putrefactive  decomposition of sewage  is noticed by Dr.
Letheby.  Looking  at the enormous quantity  of organic  matters
contained in  sewage,  and its minute subdivision, proportion  of
water and temperature,  it is not surprising that its decomposition
should  be attended  with the evolution of a   larger amount  of
noxious gas, or that it  should at once take on the putrefactive
change and begin to evolve foul gases before it enters the sewers. 
78
   "Under ordinary circumstances, the solid excrements do not fer-
   ment  in  less than  three or  four  days, but  here the catalytic
   influences are so strong that  putrefaction  begins at once, and it
   is always of the same kind as that already in  progress in  the old
   sewer matter.   This tendency to  accelerate  and direct  the de-
   composition is very  remarkable.  Its power lasts for weeks after
   the sewage has ceased to ferment, or it will operate immediately
   in  all kinds of  organic substances.  Blood, sugar, feces, urine,
   and other fermentable bodies are rapidly changed by it; and
   they evolve compounds of a most offensive character.   Common
   sugar, instead of being fermented into alcohol, is converted into
   lactic acid, which smells like putrid  pig's-wash;  then  it passes
   into butyric acid, and  gives  hydrogen and carbonic  acid, with
   the odor of rancid butter and human perspiration." Dr. Letheby
   points out the important part which  the  oxygen of the  atmo-
   spheric air performs in the  sewers, by giving  birth to mineral
^products, as water, carbonic acid, the sulphates, phosphates, and
   nitrates, which are the  final products of decay.   -'Its influence,
   therefore, is most  salutary,  and ought not to be disregarded.
   Experiment has also shown that the oxidizing  power of the air  is
   promoted by water, by porous substances, and by the fixed alka-
   lies."  Dr. L. ascertained that it is  the solid part of the sewerage
   which continues to  ferment and  keep up the  putrefactive action
   for months, evolving large  quantities of ammonia, sulphuretted
   hydrogen, marsh gas, and carbonic acid.   It  is the sedimentary
   matter which is the  chief cause of  the effluvium, and to this the
   writer afterwards directs attention.
     The nature of the seiver gases.—Dr. Letheby judiciously pre-
   cedes  his  observations on  this subject by the observation, that
   little can be  really done in the way of providing a remedy for
   the sewer miasms, until something is definitely known of their
   nature and composition.  He has  endeavored  to procure  the
   knowledge wanted by three sets of investigations, viz: "1. from
   inquiries into the composition of the gases dissolved in sewao-e ;
   2.  from an analysis of  the gases evolved during  its putrefaction ;
   and 3. from an  examination of the sewer air itself.''   The clear
   liquid of  sewage, when heated, evolves all  the gases which were
   held  in solution.   These consist of carbonic  acid, sulphuretted
   hydrogen, ammonia, marsh  gas (carburetted  hydrogen), and
   nitrogen.   Their quantity varies from about 32 to 76-cubic inches
   per gallon; and  the proportion of carbonic acid varies from 36
   to  72 per cent.; the sulphuretted  hydrogen from 0.9 to 3.1.
   A fact, full of significance, in relation  to  the condition of that
   river in its course through  London is  stated here.   It is, that
   Thames water, near  to the shore at low tide,  contains the same
   gases in nearly the same proportion.  It was observed that these 
79
gases are abundantly evolved wherever  the  sewerage becomes
stagnant, or nearly so.   From the thick  slushy matter in one
sewer (that of Catherine-wheel alley) the carburetted hydrogen,
among other gases, bubbled up in  such quantities  that it could
be ignited with ease, and would thus set fire to the  neighboring
bubbles and produce a sheet of flame that would extend for some
distance along the surface of the sewage.   "  The gas  contained
68  per cent, of  inflammable  air, 17.6 of carbonic  acid, 14.1 of
nitrogen,  and 0.2 of sulphuretted hydrogen.  The amount  of
ammonia  contained in the liquid of sewage is also  considerable.
It ranges from 3 to  15 grains in the gallon of ordinary sewage,
and from  15 to 41 in that of nearly stagnant sewers.   In addi-
tion to all these, there are other volatile  compounds which have
not yet been isolated—compounds  which give to the sewage its
peculiar odor, and which  Dr. Letheby surmises may also cause
its  poisonous action.  Looking at the experiments of Dr. Baker,
previously noticed, we  may doubt  the necessity of  searching for.
other and unknown toxical agents  to give rise to morbid pheno-
mena which are  already strictly ascribable to known gases.  The
English writer  made experiments similar to  those performed
thirty years ago in  Paris  by Gaultier de Claubry, which show
the great diminution of oxygen and the increase of nitrogen, and
the  evolution of sulphuretted hydrogen  in sewer  air.   He was
also able to condense  the organic vapor which rose from  the
sewer air, as had been done by  the  French  commissioner  ap-
pointed to  report on the cleaning and purifying  of the public
sewers of Paris, at the time just mentioned and of  which Parent
du  Chatelet was a member.  The liquid  thus obtained had  a
very disagreeable, and putrid and  ammoniacal odor, like  that of
bad sewerage.
   On the subject of the properties of the savage gases and their
effects on the animal system, we gather  some  interesting facts
from Dr. Letheby's Report.  He begins with sulphuretted hydro-
gen, which experiments performed  many years ago by Dupuytren
and Thenard show to be eminently  poisonous, even in very minute
quantities.  Horses are killed by  an atmosphere containing one
part of it in 250 of the air; but much less is hurtful if it be
breathed for any length of time.   It is on record,  that the men
who were engaged in cutting through the  bed of the river,  for the
construction of the Thames tunnel, suffered  severely from the
effects of the gas, although the  proportion of  it in the air was
hardly to be discovered by lead paper, and could not, therefore,
have exceeded  one  part in 100,000.   It  is  true,  that it some-
times came  in gushes from the fissures of the mud, but the quan-
tity was rarely  sufficient to be recognizable by  its odor.   Strong
and robust  men were, however, reduced  to  a  state of extreme 
80
 exhaustion by breathing it for a few months, and several of them
 died  from this cause.   The  symptoms with which  they were
 affected were giddiness, nausea, or actual sickness of stomach, and
 great debility.   The men became emaciated, lost their appetites,
 and fell into a state of low fever, from which, in several instances,
 they  did not recover.   Chloride of -lime and other prophylactics
 were used, but  the evil did  not entirely cease until the tunnel was
 opened from end to end, and free ventilation established.  Dr.
 Taylor mentions another remarkable instance of the same kind
 of poisoning, which occurred in the summer of 1857,  at Clayton
 Moor, near Whitehaven, where  there is a row of small cottages
 built  on the refuse  slag of some  neighboring iron furnaces.   In
 the course of two days in the month of June, thirty of  the inhabi-
 tants, all  of whom  had been for some time previously annoyed
 by  an offensive smell, were made seriously ill by it.   In a family
 of seven persons, consisting of a husband and wife, and five child-
Ten, who  had retired  to rest in their  usual health, two were
 found dead the next morning,  and the  others were in a state of
 insensibility.   "Before the day was over another of  them died,
 and in the course of the week a fourth.   In the second case, a
 strong, healthy man, came home from his night-work, and went
 to bed ; but an hour had hardly elapsed when he also was found
 dead.  And  in a sixth instance, a child  was taken ill in  the
 morning, and was a corpse at night."  In an inquiry, instituted
 on  the occasion, in order to discover the cause  of the mischief,
 Dr. Taylor came to the conclusion that it was the  sulphuretted
 hydrogen, generated by the action  of  water on the refuse slag
 upon  which the houses were built. If the explanation be a correct
 one, the case is a remarkable instance of the poisonous action of
 this gas, for the test of lead paper failed  to.show the presence
 of the poison except in mere traces ; that  is, in quantities which
 could not  have  been greater than  one part in 100,000 of the air.
 " These experiments and  observations  show that  sulphuretted
 hydrogen  gas is a powerful narcotic poison ;  that  in a concen-
 trated s.tate it kills immediately, as with the energy of prussic acrd.
 In a more dilute  form, it causes death  by lingering stupor,  and
 when more diluted still, so as hardly to  be discovered  by the
 odor, it prostrates the  vital powers, and  produces  a low fever
 which  may end fatally."
  " Carbonic acid is also produced by the decay of organic mat-
 ters.   It is found in the air of sewers to the extent of 0.5 to 2.3
 per cent.;  and, the gases evolved from the sewage itself contain
 about  19  per cent, of it.  If the gas has been produced at the
 expense of the oxygen of the air, as happens in sewers and crowded
 rooms, the effects are more strongly marked,  for  under these
 circumstances as little as three per cent, will quickly destroy life, 
81
and even the proportion of from 1.5 to 2 per cent, will cause almost
immediate distress and feelings of suffocation, with often giddi-
ness and headache, and a sense  of weight and  throbbing of the
temples.  This  is sometimes followed by a slight delirium and
then by an irresistible desire to sleep, the stupor of which passes
slowly into coma."
   Ammonia is another constituent of the sewer air, and is a pro-
duct of putrefaction.   It is known by its peculiar odor and alka-
line reaction. It is lighter than  the common air in the proportion
of 590 to 1000.  " When ammonia is inhaled in  a concentrated
state, it produces immediate asphyxia; when it is somewhat dilu-
ted with air, its action is chiefly on the lungs ; and when it is more
diluted still  and is breathed for a considerable time, it  liquefies
the corpuscles of the blood, and produces the symptoms of typhoid
fever."  These observations are confirmed by Dr. Barker's ex-
periments.   Dr. Richardson, already quoted, in the  same sense,
finds, from  experiment,  that the continued action  of ammoniacal
gas, even when it is largely diluted with air, is peculiarly injurious
to the animal economy: the tongue becomes dry and dark, there is
an involuntary action of the muscles, varying from mere twitch-
ing to violent convulsions ; there are insensibility, extreme sensi-
tiveness to  sound, obscurity of  sight, and ultimately, if matters
are pushed  far enough,  death by coma.  The state of the organs
after death  tends to the same  conclusion.  The blood is dark
and fluid ; the serous membranes show  petechial spots, and the
tissues are softened.  But, adds Dr. Letheby, " there is another
property of ammonia which is more dangerous still : it is that of
conveying the less volatile products of putrefaction into the air.
In all probability it is the  purveyor of  the miasms of  infected
districts, as it is known to have the fetid compounds of animal and
vegetable decomposition.  It was  the agent which gave validity
to the putridities of the Thames during  the hot  weather, and it
is the medium  by which  the more offensive matters of  coal gas
are held in  suspension.   Nor is it less powerful by diffusing the
sweet  odors of plants and the  subtle constituents of many per-
fumes.   It may therefore act for good as well as for evil.
   " The volatile compounds of ammonia with carbonic acid and
sulphuretted hydrogen, are also  injurious.   The first act like the
alkali itself, and the second like sulphuretted hydrogen.   I have
found  that one part of hyposulphate  of  ammonia in 1000 of  air
will kill birds almost instantly, and one in 500 will kill  rabbits."
   " Light carburetted hydrogen, or marsh  gas, is also found in
the atmosphere of sewers, but it rarely occurs in such proportion
as to be dangerous; now and then, however, it accumulates, as it
does in coal mines, and  becomes explosive."  Miners are often
obliged  to work in an atmosphere containing  from  8 to 10 per
       6 
82
cent, of the gas, but they experience no ill effects from  it, until
the proportion rises to about 20 per cent. ; and then they feel
giddy,  with a sense of  weight upon the forehead.
  " Coal gas is likewise  present in the sewers : it is not found
there, but escapes from the street mains.  The quantity which
is let loose in this manner is enormous.   Gas consumers  say that
from 12 to 35 per cent, of all the gas manufactured in London is
lost.   Now supposing that of this, the leakage amounts to five per
cent., which my friend,  Mr. Wright, informs  me  is  about the
quantity,  then as much as  386,400,000 cubic feet of gas escape
into the public ways of the metropolis every year, or rather more
than a million cubic feet every day ; and in the  city it  amounts
to  about  25,000,000  cubic feet per annum,  or nearly 70,000
cubic  feet per day.   Most  of  this must  find its way into the
sewers, and therefore is a matter of some importance.  The chief
constituents of coal gas are hydrogen, and light  carburetted hy-
drogen.  The former amounts to about 40  per cent,  of  the gas,
and the latter to 45.   The  other  constituents are about  7 per
cent, of carbonic oxide, 2 of nitrogen, 1 of carbonic acid, and 5
of the condensable hydrocarbons, besides which, there are always
traces of ammonia, bisulphuret  of  carbon, and  coal tar.  The
principal danger from this gas is its inflammability, and  its pro-
perty  of forming an  explosive  mixture with atmospheric  air."
" Dr.  Taylor has attested the record of seven cases of death from
the action of  coal gas, and it is probable that  the air  was not
charged with  more than 8 or 9 per cent, of it in  any one of
them."
  Dr. Letheby cannot  speak with certainty of the organic vapor
which is contained in sewer gases, "except that it is a matter in
a state of active decomposition ; and experience has long  since
decided that matter in this condition has power to disturb the
equilibrium of other  organic  molecules,  and to propagate to
them its  own  state of decay.   When this occurs in the living
animal body, it is productive of the most terrible consequences.
Our ignorance of the  nature of this organic  vapor  is  not sur-
prising, when we consider that we are equally uninformed of the
composition  of the subtle miasms and putridities which  abound
in the air  of infected districts, and in the vapors of organic de-
composition."   " Sometimes these  miasms are  colorless, but in
the case of the sewer gases, it is the organic vapor which gives
them their peculiar smell, for when the sulphuretted hydrogen
is entirely removed, there are still the characteristic stinks which
have been so accurately described by Parent Duchatelet.
  " What are the dangers of the Complex Sewer Gases themselves?
Experience has shown  that they are of two kinds, namely : the
dangers which are incidental  to  the poisonous action  of the 
'83
gases ;  and those which arise  from their  explosive property."
Observation has proved  that these gases are among the most
active poisons.   Passing over  a description of the acute forms
of poisoning by them when inhaled in  their undiluted state, it
may be stated,  as most germain to the present inquiry, that when
these gases are much diluted with  atmospheric air they produce
a general prostration of the vital powers.   " The appetite fails ;
the bowels become disturbed ;   diarrhoea of a chronic character
sets in ;  and the sufferer is either  worn  out by exhaustion, or he
falls into a state of  low fever,  from which  it is difficult to raise
him."
 •  Dr. Letheby gives additional point  to this part of his subject
by mentioning a few cases of  chronic  poisoning in which  the
eifects were produced by the inhalation of very small quantities of
sewer miasms.   We  cannot forbear from repeating his narrative,
under a belief of their  extreme appositeness to the immediate
purposes of this report, and for  the lessons of caution which they
furnish.   One of the most  remarkable  instances of this is re-
corded by M. D'Arcet.   He states that there was a  small lodg-
ing in Paris, consisting of a bedroom and  ante-room, which  had
been successively tenanted by  three vigorous young  men, each
of whom died within a few months of  his  occupying the  place.
D'Arcet was requested to examine the rooms, and ascertain the
cause of the evil.   He found  that a pipe from  a privy in the
upper floor ran down by  the side of the  wall near to the head of
the bed where the  inmates slept.  The pipe was  unsound,  and
the wall was damp from  leakage of the soil into it;  but there
was no perceptible smell in the  room, when D'Arcet examined it;
nevertheless he had  no doubt that  the deaths of the former occu-
pants were  referable to the emanations  from the  wall.  The
pipe was therefore  repaired, and from  that time  the  unwhole-
someness of the place was cured.   In August, 1831, twenty-two
boys, living at  a boarding-school in  Clapham,  were  suddenly
seized with alarming symptoms  of irritation in the stomach  and
bowels,  with twitchings of the muscles of the arms and excessive
prostration of  strength.  Another boy had been similarly at-
tacked three days before, and he died in twenty-five hours;  one
of the others died  in twenty-three hours.   A suspicion of acci-
dental poisoning naturally arose, and the  various utensils  and
articles of  food used by the family were examined, but nothing
of a deleterious nature was found.  The  only circumstance which
appeared to explain  the accident was, that, two days before the
first child was taken ill, a foul  cesspool had been opened and the
matter of it diffused over a garden adjoining to the children's
play-ground.  This was considered to be the cause of the disease,
and the opinion was formed not only by the medical attendants, 
84
but also by Drs. Latham, Chambers  and Pearson, who  person-
ally examined the whole of the particulars.  The third instance
to which I shall refer is  of  more recent date, and has  been a
subject  of  considerable discussion.   In the month of August,
1852, an attempt was  made to drain  the  town of  Croydon by
means of small stoneware pipes, which were not only of  insuffi-
cient size, but were imperfectly cemented together.   The conse-
quence was that a large quantity of the sewage escaped into the
earth, and  drained away to  the  neighboring ditches.    This
became  a subject  of  great  annoyance, and  in a short time it
produced an alarming outbreak of fever, diarrhoea and dysentery.
In the report from the Poor Law Commissioners on the sanitary
condition of the laboring  population of Great Britain, there are
many examples of the morbific action of sewer and cesspool gases.
There is one case which is remarkable for its significance.   "On
the north side of a street in Derby there  are  fifty-four houses,
all of the same description and inhabited by  the same  class.of
persons.  Six of these houses in the very centre of the row
became  the abodes of fever,  and of sixteen  persons attacked
with the disease five died.  The fever was nowhere  else in the
row, and on  inquiry  it was found that these,  and  these  only,
were exposed to the action of sewer gases and the miasms from
cesspool matter wThich had soaked into the soil."
  It is impossible to carry the observations and experiments of
Drs. Barker and Letheby in our minds without our comprehend-
ing the  noxious agencies by  which obstinate and often  fatal
diseases of the digestive  organs and  low fevers are produced in
those parts of a town in  which the inhabitants are continually
exposed to  the operation  of the gases above mentioned.   These
arise from vegetable and  animal matter in decay and decomposi-
tion, from obstructed gutters, open drains, or from cesspools and
the mouths and gully-holes of sewers, and accidental openings in
these latter.  Even when not directly poisoned by the continued
inhalation of a  corrupt atmosphere always charged  with these
gaseous poisons, the people thus exposed acquire such a predis-
position—have their vital energies so much reduced—are primed
as it were—that a  slight change in  the  ordinary conditions of
the atmosphere,  or  diminution  of their accustomed  food, serves
as a spark to ignite into febrile fire their weakened and  suscep-
tible frames.

  System of Sewers.—To procure the most efficient system of
sewerage by a well  connected system of sewers, and to determine
their proper level  and the degree of declination  of which  they
are capable, according to  the situation and nature of the soil of
the place, as well as to ascertain what are the best materials for 
85
their construction and the diameters best  adapted to give them
proper powers of transmission, are questions which, although they
must be investigated  and determined  by the  civil engineer, are
still of lively  interest to the  professional sanitarian.   Thus, for
instance, he will  tell  us that  the very large sized sewers, such as
the Cloaca Maxima,  unless intended for trunk  sewers running
the entire length of the city, are not  serviceable.  Egg-shaped
culverts of a  moderate size,  and, preferably still, circular pipes
of small diameter and perfectly smooth and glazed, are superior,
by far, to the  sewer with upright sides and flattened segmental
invert.   It would be  difficult to estimate the great amount that
might be saved not only by a judicious system of sewerage, but
even by a proper form of sewers, unless from  data such as those
furnished some years  ago by  Mr. Williams in his examination be-
fore Commissioners of whom  we have precedingly spoken.  In the
Westminster district  of London, in forty miles of covered drains
built during a  period of ten years, a loss of a sum'equal to 333,348
dollars was incurred  by faulty construction.  In  the whole me-
tropolis, which includes the city of London, Westminster, and
the Holborn  and Finsbury  districts, and  the  Tower  Hamlets,
and the  Surrey and  Kent portions, which include the borough
of Southwark, it  appears that,  during  a  period of ten years,
about 220  miles of sewers were built.  The difference between
the  expense  actually incurred  in  this work by  the  construc-
tion of upright sided sewers with man-holes, and that which
would have been  required by egg-shaped or arched sewers, with
a flushing  apparatus, was a quarter of  a  million of pounds
sterling, or about one million and two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.  There  is much less friction and risk of detention of
sewage when  the  conveying duct is egg-shaped or  circular.
Even the opening of gulley-holes, or the introduction of a gulley-
neck in" the crown of the arch to admit the surface water of the
street into the sewer  produces accumulations.  The plan so com-
mon in London of forming the opening of private or house drains
at right angles to the sewers, and, to aggravate the difficulty, of
having them to approach the culvert at an elevation of eighteen
inches or two feet above the latter, combines both objections; that
of flattened invert and the junction of two  sewers at right angles
to each other.   When sewers  meet at right  angles, there is a dimi-
nution of velocity, and eddies are  formed as well as  injurious
accumulations of deposit above the  point of meeting;  the rec-
tangular mode of junction of the sewers increasing the resistance
more  than  200 per cent.  It is of great importance  that the
internal surface of the sewer should be perfectly smooth, and in
order to retain  this  properly that it should be  built of inde-
structible materials, in part for reasons already assigned, and also 
86
to prevent  inequalities and cavities from being formed, and the
risk of falling of the entire wall by its becoming a burrow for rats,
which have a great partiality for public sewers.  Of equal neces-
sity is a suitable declination in the line of the sewer, from its upper
end, or in the heart of the city, to its termination in a river, or
in a reservoir for the purpose.  Mr. Hosking, whose calculations
were  made on  certain low situations in Westminster,  assumes
that a fall  of two inches the hundred  feet, with  a good  back
water from a river, at equal intervals, would be sufficient.
   The escape of deleterious emanations from sewers is prevented
by traps or valves at  the opening in the upper part,  and the
termination of the other end under water; and, if the opening at
this end is exposed  at low tides, by closing  it with a gate.   In
London, Liverpool and Glasgow, and in  Paris and Hamburgh,
as well as in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the mouths of
the sewers  are  exposed at low tide and  constitute  an offence to
the nostrils, and a probable source of disease.   Of the ventilation
of sewers we speak after awhile.  Unless there be an abundant
supply of  wTater for keeping the lowTer  and  branch  drains free
from  obstruction  and accumulation, they will prove  a source of
annoyance  and  disease.   To give effect to these means, a general
and systematic  survey of the  different  levels of a town should
be made,  and  a  uniform  plan of  sewerage  adopted.    Much
trouble, expense  and sickness  will be saved  in its  subsequent
history, if  these measures be adopted in the beginning of  every
new  town,  and  the  rise of such is common enough  in  our
widely extended country, in which the direct wants and  necessi-
ties of trade, and emulous speculation are continually urging its
people to  new  schemes—the foundation of a second  Tyre or
Alexandria, of another Persepolis, or Carthage, or Rome.  As a
general rule, each house drain at least ought to be provided with
a trap or valve to prevent  the escape of emanations from the drain
into the house.  Especially is this necessary where the the supply
of water is not  enough to keep the drain clean.   Mr. Simpson,
advocate of Edinburgh, urges strongly the advantage of a sepa-
ration of sewers  proper  from  surface drains ; the first  holding
sewerage proper; the second  giving passage to rain and melted
snow.  He recommends the entire abandonment of built sewers,
and the substitution of close  pipes or tubes in their  room.   In
London, as we learn from the instructive "Report on the Results
of Examinations  made in relation to Sewerage in several  Euro-
pean cities," by  E. S. Chesbrough, Chief Engineer of the Board of
Sewerage  Commissioners, Chicago, there were, in a grand total
of 934 miles  of covered  and  400 of  open sewers, 126 of pipes,
in 1855.   The first pipe  sewer was laid in 1848.   The greatest
length of  any  one  is  two and  a half  miles.   Mr. Haywood, 
87
Engineer of  the city of London, has always laid circular pipes ;
none  smaller than 9 inches, nor  larger than  15 inches diame-
ter; the joints are  put together sometimes with puddled clay,
sometimes with cement.
   The return of reflux odors, one of the  greatest  objections to
house drains, is prevented by three modes pointed out by Mr.
Simpson :  " First, the water pan  in and  the  sigmatic curve
under the water closet  and sink ; next, another  sigmatic curve,
if the descent will make it safe, where the pipe joins the  main
street drain  ; and,  thirdly,  a delicately hung flap  valve of gal-
vanized iron  at the extreme end of  the tube, where it discharges
into the  main drain.  The valve will always be shut, except when
opened by a  flow from  the house."   In the severe winters of our
climate,obstructions to the  easy working of these  contrivances
will not unfrequently  occur,  owing to the water freezing in the
supply pipe.   For his  sewers, Mr.  S. rightly  asserts that water
in  unstinted proportion is indispensable, but  especially for a
system of tubular sewers, which cannot be cleansed by any other
method.
   For  drains,  earthenware  pipes, glazed,   are  preferable  to
brick conduits, which  sometimes allow of exudation of  their
contents.  The size  of a pipe for a drain will  depend on the
number  of houses.   In one  instance, in London, an  18-inch
drain was carried 400 feet  at  the back of  40 houses, where
there was a good supply of water, and it was  kept  clean.
   On the means of  remedying the  sewer miasms, or of prevent-
ing the offensive and toxical effects of the emanations from sewers,
we cannot do better than introduce  that portion of Dr. Letheby's
report, the title of which was furnished in a preceding page.   His
manner of treating the  subject gives it a freshness and value that
cannot fail to be acceptable  even after  the interesting report of
Dr. Van  Bibber.   At  any rate, coming directly in our line of
practical precept in all that relates to sewerage and sewage, we
have  not hesitated to apply it to our own purposes.
   "The Remedy for the Sewer Miasms.—This is the great question
which you have submitted to me for consideration, and the preceding
facts show clearly enough that  it is  an important  question.  I am far
from thinking, with your  engineer, that  the mischief occasioned by sewer
gases is not of such magnitude as to be worth a remedy that may cost
sixpence a head to the population ; nor do I believe that if you had tem-
porized with the matter, and had  yielded to the demand  on the part of
the public, to close up the  ventilating gratings, which are now so offensive,
and had thus turned the  foul gases into the house drains, the nuisance
would have been regarded simply as a domestic evil, for  which the cure
was to be sought privately and individually by those who  felt the annoy-
ance ; in  fact, such a proceeding would  have been unworthy of the trust 
88
which is reposed in  you as  the custodians of the public health, for it
would have been a matter of life or death to the great bulk of the com-
munity.
   " At  all times attempts  have been  made to destroy or neutralize  the
offensive products of decomposition ; and the simplest way of doing it has
been by the use of another secret—a perfume or volatile oil which would
cover or mask the offensive body  These were the correctives employed
in religious worship.   They entered into the composition of the ointments
of the high-priest and the incense of the altar, and to this day they have
enjoyed a reputation and general popularity which they have not deserved,
for their action is not on the putrid product, but merely  on the sense of
smell, which  they blunt to  the action of  the offensive vapor.  In  the
middle ages, when the  plague,  the black death, and sweating sickness,
and pestilential fever desolated the cities of Europe, immense importance
was attached to the use  of perfumes;  fumigations, with costly spice  and
rich-smelling oriental drugs, were largely used in the houses of the rich,
but with no good effect.   The ancients also  knew the value of fire as a
disinfectant; and they also made use of the fumes of burning sulphur.
   " But the right kuowledge of the action  of disinfectants and deodor-
izers dates from a very recent period, for so late as the year 1773, Guyton
Morveau,  one of  the best chemists of France, thought that the vapors of
muriatic acid were the most powerful of disinfectants; and later still, in
the year 1803, Dr. Carmichael iSmith  obtained a grant of £5,000 from
Parliament, for a suggestion which is nearly valueless, namely : the em-
ployment  of the fumes of nitrous acid.  Chlorine gas was discovered by
Scheele in 1774,  and soon  afterwards its  disinfecting  properties were
noticed  by Berthollet, hut its  use cannot be dated farther back than the
present  century, when Guyton JMorveau and  Dupuytren first pointed out
the great value of it as a disinfectant; and even then  it was not generally
employed  ; in fact, its present popularity dates only  from the time that
chloride of lime has  been largely manufactured for  bleaching purposes.
Within  the last twenty  years almost all the refuse products of the arts,
and a great number  of  special compounds, have  been recommended  for
the deodorization of  sewage, etc.  They all act in one of two ways : they
either give stability  to the organic matter, and so check its tendency  to
decay, or they operate on the putrid vapors  and destroy their offensive
properties.  This they do, either by fixing the  effluvium, and forming
compounds which are inert, or by breaking up the putrid molecule and
changing its nature,  or by expediting the.process of decay, and hurrying
it on to the last stage of oxjdation.
   "Those substances which give stability to organic matter are properly
called antiseptics or anti-putrescents.  They have always been more popu-
lar than any of the second class of deodorizers, because of their import-
ance in  the arts.   Salt, sugar, vinegar, creosote,  and the empyreumatic
oils of  wood, peat,  coal, etc., are  examples  of  this  class.   So also  are
chloride of zinc, sulphate of  copper, and corrosive sublimate, substances
which have been respectively patented by  Sir  William Burnett,  Mr.
Margary and Mr. Ryan.  Alum and the astringent matter of many vege-
tables have likewise  been used for  ages as the means of preserving gela-
tinous tissues in  the form of leather.   None of these, however, except 
the chloride of zinc, is applicable to the case before us, and that operates
more as a deodorizer than an anti-putrescent  In fact, as I have already
stated, the matters of sewage are always in a state of decomposition, and
cannot, therefore, be treated with much advantage, unless the auti-septics
are applied to them before they enter the sewers;  and  this, I Leed not
say, is altogether impracticable.  Even in Paris, where there are special
contrivances  for such a purpose, it  fails, because of its utter imprac-
ticability.
   " Of the second class of substances, namely: the  deodorizers and disin-
foiants, there are  many which deserve notice.
   "Those which combine with the  putrid gases and fix them into an
involatile form, are the  metallic oxides and their salts,  as chloride and
sulphate  of  zinc;  acetate and nitrate of  lead; sulphate,  muriate and
pyrolignate of iron; impure muriate  of manganese;  the  refuse of bleach-
ing works; common alum;  the fixed alkalies;  and the salts  of  lime and
magnesia.  Most  of these compounds unite with sulphuretted hydrogen
and ammonia of sewage, and  so far, therefore, they remove  the unplea-
sant smell of it,  but they do not touch the organic vapors.   Besides
which, they  are difficult to apply and  are very costly.  In fact, putting
aside all  the working  expenses that would attend their use,  the mere
cost of the deodorizers alone would  range  from £20,000 to  upwards of
£1,000,000 per annum for the city sewage, and  from £1,000,000 sterling
to £48,000,000 for the sewage of the whole of  London.  This, together
with the insufficiency of their power, as deodorizers, and the  difficulty of
 applying them while the sewage is within the sewer, deprives them of all
 practical utility.   That power which they possess, namely, the power of
 coagulating a great part of the soluble  matter of sewage  and  favoring the
 precipitation of the insoluble, can only be applied with any chance of suc-
 cess after the sewage  has  left the sewers;  aud, even then,  there aie but
 two of them, namely, lime and the superphosphate of lime  with magne-
 sia, that can be used, with advantage.
    " Of the second class of  disinfectants : those which act chemically on
 the volatile matters, and break them up, so as  to form  new  compounds,
 which are inert, the most important  are chlorine, chloride of lime, hypo-
 chlorous acid, sulphurous acid and nitrous acid.  The first three of these,
 namely: chlorine and its oxycompounds, operate by abstracting hydrogen
 from the putrid  vapors, and perhaps,  also, by decomposing water,  and
 setting the oxygen free to destroy the miasm.   The power is remarkably
 great  as may be  seen  by the action of chlorine  or chloride of lime on
 ordinary sewage.   Eight grains of chloride of lime, or less than an ounce
 of the solution of  chlorine, will completely deodorize a gallon of sewage;
 and the diffusion  of a  little chlorine  through  the worst kind of sewer
 gases, is  sufficient instantly  to  deprive  them of their offensive  odor.
 Nevertheless, chloride of lime is a  costly agent.   If it be used m the
 proportion of only eight grains to the gallon, it will cost nearly £o <  000
 a year for the deodorization of the city sewage, and nearly £261,0U0 tor
 the sewage of all  London.   As for the gas itself,  it is almost impossible
 so to apportion and manage the diffusion of it in the sewers as not to have
 the chlorine or the sewer gases in  excess.                         \
     Sulphurous acid and nitrous acid are still less manageable, and besides
"Si 
90
 that they are costly, and not nearly as powerful in their action as chlorine.
 Like chlorine, however, they disorganize the putrid molecules and decom-
 pose the hydrosulphuric compounds, and fix  ammonia; but like it also
 they are powerful irritants, and could scarcely be let loose into the sewers
 without danger to the workmen.
   " The last of the disinfectants are those which expedite the process of
 decay, to combine with oxygen and to become inert.   Of this class there
 are two members, namely, those which act chemically and  supply oxy-
 gen, of themselves, to the offensive compounds, and  those which merely
 facilitate oxydation  by their  physical  properties.  The manganates and
 permanganates of potash are the best examples of the first class, and con-
 tain a large proportion of oxygen, which  they freely give the putrid  or-
 ganic matter, and  so destroy  it.  These  compounds  have been patented
 by Mr. Condy, of Battersea, and he supplies  them in a state of solution
 of  various strengths.  That which I  have used in my experiments con-
 tained nearly six per cent, of the permanganate, and could  be supplied
 at a shilling a gallon.  One hundred and  fifty drops of it were sufficient
 to deodorize a gallon of ordinary sewage ; but the disadvantage of it is
 that it has no power to destroy the foul gases which have already escaped
 into the sewer air.   Besides this, the cost of the material, even if it were
 used in proportion of 150 grains to the gallon, would be about £753,000
 a year for the city sewage, or more than  three  millions per annum for
 that of the whole metropolis.   Looking, however, merely at the chemistry
 of the  subject, it  must be admitted that  Mr. Condy's solution is a pow-
 erful and valuable disinfectant.
   "The second of this class of disinfectants are the agents which promote
 oxydation by a physical property, that is, by bringing the putrid matters
 into contact with atmospheric oxygen.  There are three of them, namely,
 fire, water, and porous solids.   The first effects the change by active com-
 bustion, and the others by the slower process of oxydation which is called
 eremacausis or slow burning.   All of them, however,-are complete in their
 action, and are  under different circumstances  more  or  less  manageable
 and useful.
   " The value of fire as a disinfectant was known and  has  been recog-
 nized since the  remotest  time.   The sacrificial altars of early nations
 were the rude methods by which the agent was employed;  and so fully
 did the ancients believe in its salutary action that in times of pestilence
it was  often resorted to as the only effective means of purifying the at-
mosphere.   In the popular mind there has always been a notion that the
plague of  London was exterminated  by the great fire.  Powerful, how-
ever, as the agent is, it does not appear to be applicable to  the destruc-
tion of the sewer  gases,  notwithstanding  that the use of it for  such a
purpose has always been a favorite idea with  every  new commission to
sewers, and is the  basis of most of the amateur schemes of the present
day.   Mr.  Bazalgette has stated, in  his  evidence before the House  of
 Commons, that, putting aside  all the difficulties for controlling the course
of the air in the  main channel of the sewers, and stopping the leakage
from the thousands of openings in the street closets and drains, the mere
cost of fuel for the furnaces would not be  less  than £80,000 a year, and
perhaps it might reach to upwards of £200,000. 
91
  " The destruction of the  sewer miasms by the agency of water is not
quite so unmanageable, and has therefore received  attention from many
of the leading  engineers of the present day.   Mr. Bazalgette says ot  it
that it is the best and the only available means of  purifying the sewers.
As to its salutary action  there can be no doubt, for its power as a disin-
fectant in the presence of atmospheric air is manifested in every river  in
the kingdom.  Wheresoever  the  putrid refuse of  a town  mixes with a
large volume of fresh  water,  there the process of  oxydation is quickly
carried out, and the offensive  matters are rendered innocuous.  Even the
river Thames,  except at a peculiarly dry and hot season, finds within  it-
self a means of purification which is  quite  equal  to  the  contaminating
influence of the soluble organic matter that flows into it.   This is effected
by the physical power which water possesses of transferring oxygen  irom
the atmosphere to the putrid products, and this is so great that it will
even destroy the soluble organic  constituents of ordinary sewage without
 further dilution with water.  I cannot inform you very accurately  what
 quantity of  water  is necessary for the purpose of disinfection    Already
 there is a daily supply of about thirty-one gallons  to each of the inhabit-
 ants of this metropolis.    But this is evidently not sufficient to cleanse
 the sewers, for, independently of the existence of a  putrid atmosphere,
 there is the stronger evidence of their foulness and the condition of the
 sewage which is  discharged  after a  heavy  fall of rain.   And  even if it
 could  be determined precisely  what amount of water would  effect the
 purpose, there is still the difficulty of distributing  it so as  to scour out all
 the channels ; for this could  not  be accomplished without special contriv-
 ances  for delivering  the  water at the head of every dram.   I do  not
 therefore see much prospect of success in this mode  of dealing with  the

 SU "The last means of destroying the offensive matter is by the agency of
 porous solids; and this  may be applied  either to the sewage itself or
 to the gases which are  evolved  from it.   The best examples of such an
 a«ent are common clay and charcoal.  Both of them  operate in the same
 w°ay, namely, by  condensing the putrid  vapors within  their  pores and
 upon the surface, so as to  cause  them to unite with  atmospheric oxygen
  and produce in fact a species of  slow combustion, by which the miasms
  are gradually consumed.   To effect this, however, there must be a  free
  accefs of atmospheric air.   Hence it is these substances  have but  a lim-
  ited poVer of deoxydation where they are mixed with a liquid sewage,
  or are so overcharged with water as to be incapable of absorbing oxygen.
     " Every one is familiar with the  deodorizing power of common earth;
  in fact the graveyards of every city testify to the enormous quantities, of
  organic matter that  can be disposed of  through  its agency, and no one
  who has witnessed the  rapid deodorizing power of day  when sewage or
  ni*ht soil is distributed upon the land, can doubt its efficacy.   1 he Chi-
  nese have Ion- taken advantage of this power, for they mix  night  soil
  wi h one-third of its weight of  fat  marl  and knead it into cakes  which
  Tre common  articles of commerce.   In practice  also it  is found  that a
  ton of clay will deodorize about three tons of the solid matter of sew-
  IZ   But, powerful as is this  action, it is not app  icable  to  liquid  sew-
  age   Even in the case of charcoal, which is a much more energetic de- 
92
odorizer than common  clay, the power is speedily lost when it is mixed
with fluid  refuse.   Dr. Hofman  found that  four cubic feet of charcoal
began to lose their power of deodorization when about seventy-eight gal-
lons, or rather more than three times their bulk, of the sewage had passed
through them.  Mr. Blythe's experiments are  to the same effect.  To this
I may  add  that the cost of this mode  of deodorization would be upwards
of £230,000  a year for the city sewage.    The remedy would be but
imperfect, to say nothing of the fact that it would contribute largely to
the solid matter already in  the sewers.
   " The  most effective way of using  charcoal  as a deodorizer is to take
advantage of its power of absorbing the putrid  miasms when they are in
a vaporous condition.   This power is  remarkably great.   It was noticed
by Sausure  as far back as  1814, that charcoal took from 75.90  times
its bulk of various gases.   Count  Morozzo had also observed the same
fact and had directed attention to it;  and later still, Messrs. Allen and
Pepys  found that different kinds of charcoal  had different powers of ab-
sorption; but yet it is only very recently that  we have been well informed
in this matter, and we  owe our knowledge of it to the  researches of Dr.
Stenhouse, who in 1853 had his attention  directed  to  the fact  that
when dead bodies of large animals are covered with a layer of charcoal
they putrefy without evolving any unpleasant odor, notwithstanding that
they are kept  for many months.
   " These results suggested the use of charcoal as a respirator and an air
filter, and soon after Dr. Stenhouse proposed it as a purifier of the foul
gases which escape from the  street gullies, the sewers, ventilators, and
the drains of private houses.  One of his air filters is in action in the
justice room of the Mansion House,  and another is in the justice room
of Guildhall, and Dr. Stenhouse  reports that their operations have been
successful and continuous for a long time.  I have myself repeated some of
Dr. Stenhouse's experiments during the last twelve months, and have as-
certained that the offensive  gases from  a close  cesspool are  completely de-
odorized by passing them through a small box containing about thirty-six
cubic inches of coarsely  powdered peat charcoal.  I have had this in contin-
ual action for three mouths; and although the  charcoal has not been re-
newed  yet  it does not  show any sign of derangement  or loss of power.
   "All kinds  of charcoal are not, however, equally valuable for the pur-
pose.  Dr. Stenhouse found  that wood charcoal and peat charcoal are the
most effective.   Mr. Blythe's experiments at the  Board  of Health and
the inquiries made in my own laboratory  by Mr. Fewtirll are to the same
effect.   The cause of this superiority  is doubtless due to the great poros-
ity of  vegetable charcoal.   Liebig states that the pores in a cubic inch
of beechwood charcoal  must, at the lowest computation,  be equal to the
surface of one hundred square feet, and several other chemists have esti-
mated  it at more than  double this amount.   Hence the extraordinary
physical power of wood charcoal in condensing gases and vapors within
its pores; so that when it is exposed  to an  atmosphere  containing the
putrid products of decomposition, it absorbs and oxydizes them by a spe-
cies of combustion that is as effectual as  if they were passed through the
ignited coals of a furnace.
   " Now in making a  practical application to  these facts, it is manifest 
93
that we have in common wood charcoal a powerful means of destroying
foul gases of sewers.   How it is  to be applied is fortunately a question
of but little embarrassment, for let the sewers be ventilated as they may,
either by open gratings in  the street  or  by the rain-water pipes of the
houses, or by the pillars of the gas lamps, or by tubes carried up at the
landlord's expense from the drains of every house, or by especial shafts
of the public street—in fact, let the gases  go out of the sewers how they
will and where they will, you have but to  place a small box containing a
few pennies' worth of  charcoal in the course of a draft and the purifica-
tion of the air will be complete."

   Defective  Ventilation. — Two great   requisites  for  the
healthy existence of human beings are due supplies of pure air and
of pure water.   Without these, the  most abundant food and all
the appliances furnished by science and art will  be of little avail;
and yet, by a singular  inconsistency  in human  conduct, there
would  seem to  be  a fixed determination  on  the  part of the
majority of mankind,  to deprive themselves of these essential
elements  of  health.  Air, in  an especial  manner,  is shut out
from habitations by all kinds of contrivances, or, when allowed
ingress, it is  deteriorated by  admixture with  emanations from
decayed organic matter, or from living bodies  brought  together
in  large numbers,  to meet the wants  of what is called civiliza-
 tion.
   The atmosphere  by which we are surrounded, and from  which,
by means of respiration, our bodies  derive the oxygen, or vital
 element of the air—that necessary for the support of life—is at
 the same time the great reservoir into  which  flow all the exhala-
 tions from the bodies of men and animals, and those resulting from
 the animal and vegetable decay which takes place on the surface of
 the soil.   These exhalations, if not carried into space in the upper
 air by winds, would  prove a destructive poison to all the people con-
 gregated in cities and towns.  The process by which these exha-
 lations are removed is ventilation ;  and the more complete it is,
 the healthier  are  the inhabitants ;  as, on  the other  hand,  its
 imperfection and neglect are productive of diseases of  the worst
 kind.  Streets are  so many channels for conveying the  requisite
 air to the inhabitants of the houses on either side of them ; and
 the wider and more numerous  are these channels, the more com-
 pletely is  their object  in  this  respect attained.   Proportions
 oucrht  to  be preserved between the  breadth  of a street and the
 hefght of the houses in it.   If  the  latter be very high, and the
 former narrow, both the air and sun are prevented from  reaching
 the street and lower portion of the houses.   Still greater detri-   •
 ment, in this  respect, is experienced by the occupants of narrow
 alleys  and small courts, in  which, unfortunately,  the crowd of
 inhabitants is greatest, and  the  supply of fresh air and suitable 
94
   ventilation the least.  Every sanitary investigation, down to the
   last made in New York,  goes to show the magnitude of the injury
   done to the public health by this last mentioned state of things.
   The  ills thence resulting are on the increase, since they follow,
   too  generally, in  certain, but not well-defined, proportions—the
   growth of the cities themselves.  No excuse, therefore, will be
   offered for dwelling on this subject, first by presenting the darker
   and repulsive  features,  and then UDder its  remedial  and  pre-
   ventive aspect.
     Few pause to consider the necessary consequence of 20 respi-
   rations per minute, 1,200 per hour, or  28,800 in a single day
   and night, for every adult human  being,  and of his abstract-
   ing, during  this period  of twenty-four hours, from  the atmo-
   spheric magazine his  portion  of air, amounting to fifty-seven
   hogsheads, of which he  retains vital oxygen  to the amount of
   about twenty pounds, that enters into his blood, and there serves
   to maintain the activity  of all  the functions of life, corporeal as
   well as mental.   It  has  been estimated  that about one-fourth of
   all the air drawn into the lungs by inspiration  is altered in these
   organs, and  is no longer fitted for respiration.  The alteration
   consists, first,  in  the  abstraction of the  vitalizing  element of
   oxygen; and secondly,  in the  addition of the deleterious  and
   poisonous gas—carbonic acid—which is given  out, together with
   volatilized animal matter, by expiration, and passes into the outer
   and  common atmosphere.  But if, instead of a free inhalation of
   pure  atmospheric  air,  there takes place that of  a  noxious or
   impure air, from which the exhaled  carbonic  acid  has  not been
   carried away, two results  ensue:  first, the  individual fails to
   receive his  proper proportion of oxygen, while he  suffers from
   the inhalation of the noxious carbonic acid gas; and secondly,
  the lungs are unable to eliminate from the blood with their usual
   freedom the noxious products, including  this very carbonic acid,
   or its  base, carbon, the retention of which, together  with the
  animal matter, previously mentioned, in the system, is productive
  of serious disorder in  itself, and predisposes  to the attacks of
  current diseases.   This abnormal  condition of things will con-
  tinue, with aggravation,  on  to  a fatal termination, if the same
  air be breathed over and over again, without its being displaced
  by  a purer air; that is, without ventilation  being carried on.
  Bad ventilation, as well said by Dr. D. B. Reid, is also injurious
  to the mind as to the body: and, where  it is utterly neglected,
  not only produces  headache and apoplexy, but, conjoined, with
' other circumstances, is  prone  to  favor that  depression which
  leads, at times, to  low spirits, or even to suicide.
     Taking into account the  physiological  data  just mentioned in
  connection with the facts  previously described, of the  noxious 
95
effluvium of the gases resulting from  the putrefaction of animal
and vegetable matter, we  find a  ready explanation of the great
amount of sickness and  high  death-rates among  the  crowded
courts and  cellar population in Liverpool,  Birmingham,  New
York, and other cities.  In Liverpool, in 1841, there were 2,398
courts, containing 68,365 persons. In the parish of Birmingham,
the older and more densely inhabited parts  of the town, there
were  2,000 courts, containing 50,000  inhabitants.   In Liverpool
it was not enough to outrage humanity and common sense that,
gloomy and badly ventilated as the houses themselves were in
the courts, there were found cellars under more than one half of
them, or  1,272  in  number, occupied by 6,290 persons.   The
whole number of cellars  in  Liverpool was 7,892,  containing a
population of nearly 40,000 persons,  or five persons on an  ave-
rage to  each cellar.  Aware, as  we are, of the impossibility of
a ventilation of these courts and cellars, and the continued  dete-
rioration of the air by exhalations from them and their inmates,
we need not  the bad eminence which  that city, after  the regis-
tration  act had gone into  full operation, unexpectedly acquired,
on the score  of  disease  and  the  short average duration of life
of its inhabitants, taking them in the aggregate.  Reference has
been  made in a previous part of this report to the greater amount
of sickness and mortality in  the  undrained  than in the drained
cellar districts of Liverpool.  The concomitant evils attending
this  crowded  population,  are tersely described by  Dr. Reid, in
speaking of the 8,000 houses in Nottingham built back to back
and  side to  side, and with no other outlet than the street door.
" Suffice it  to say, that in such quarters it is hardly possible
that a family can preserve for any term of years, either decency,
morals,  or health."  Worse, if possible, than the scenes exhibited
in some English towns,  is the condition of the poor in the  chief
cities of Scotland.  Dr. Arnot, among other details, relates that
in some of the wynds of Edinburgh and Glasgow, there were no
sewers or drains, and the  dung-heaps  received all the filth which
the swarm of wretched inhabitants could give ; and he learned
that a considerable part of the  rent of the houses was  paid by
the produce  of  the dung-heaps.   The interior of these houses,
and their inmates, corresponded  with  their exterior.   "We saw
half-starved wretches crowding  together to be warm, and in one
bed,  although  in the  middle of the day, several  women  were
imprisoned under a blanket, because as many others who had on
their  backs all the articles of dress that belonged to  the party,
were then out of doors in  the streets."
  The pictures drawn some years back by Dr. Griscom, of the
diseases and mortality caused by  residence "in the damp, dark,
and chilly cellars"  of New York, and of  "the degraded habits 
96
of life, the filth, the degenerate morals, the confined and crowded
apartments, and insufficient food of those who live in more ele-
vated soil, engendering a different  train  of  diseases, failed to
arrest  the attention  of the  authorities.   The  evils have  been
allowed to go on increasing until  at  last  their alarming excess
has  led to official  investigations, the  results of which fully con-
firm all that Dr. Griscom and other  sanitarians on the spot had
previously proclaimed.   They are embraced in  a  "Report of
the  Select Committee appointed to investigate  the  Health  De-
partment of the  City of New  York," which, together with  a
large amount of appended documents,  in  the  shape of medical
and  other testimony, and  tabular  matter,  was transmitted to
the  Legislature,  February 3, 1859.   A  startling  fact which
tells in  a few figures the deplorable state of the public health
in the city of New York is its gradual deterioration, with some
interruptions and  short rises, during the last forty-six years.
Thus, we learn that in 1810, with a population of  96,713, the
deaths were 1 in 46.6—whereas, in 1857,  with  a population of
probably 700,000, the deaths were 1 in  27.15.  The testimony
of  Dr.  Griscom, in  Committee,  is  full  of  instructive  details,
direct and comparative, on the  subject of the causes of the in-
crease of death-rates  in New York.   He shows  that  if the  mor-
tality of London  bore the same ratio as  that of New York to
population, it would have been 92,784, in place of 56,786, which
was  its actual  mortality.  Dr.  G. quoted  from the Report  of  a
Committee of the Association for Improving the Condition of the
Laboring Classes in the  City of New York, in which the dwellings
in many parts  of the city are thus  characterized :  " Crazy old
buildings; crowded rear  tenements  in  filthy  yards, dark, damp
basements, leaky  garrets, shops, out-houses, and stables,  con-
verted into dwellings, though scarcely fit  to shelter  brutes, are
the habitation of thousands of our fellow-beings in this wealthy,
Christian city.''  "In Oliver Street, Fourth Ward, for example,
is a  miserable rear building,  16 feet  by 30, two stories and gar-
ret,  three rooms to each of the first and second floors, and four
in the attic; in all, ten small apartments, which contain fourteen
fimilies.  The entrance  is through a  narrow, dirty alley,  and
the  yard and  appendages  of the filthiest kind."   In  Cherry
Street is a " tenement-house," in two lots, extending back  from
the  street about  150 feet, five stories above  the basement, so
arranged as to  contain 120 families, or  more  than 500 persons.
" But the most objectionable habitations in this  district are the
cellars, in some instances, six feet under  ground, which  have to
be  bailed out  after every rain-storm, and are so damp as  to
destroy health, so  dark  as to prevent industry, and  so low  that
ventilation is impossible.  Though utterly unavailable for every 
97
other use, they are rented, at rates which ought to procure com-
fortable dwellings, to persons  who have become  as  debased in
character, as the condition  is degrading, in  which  they live."
Many of the poor of the Sixth Ward " are in a condition incom-
parably  worse  than the hovel dwellers, where  father, mother,
children, and swine  live and  lodge  together."  In  the Eighth
Ward, " Rotten Row," so  unlike the  fashionable locality in Lon-
don  thus called, " consists of  eight houses on either side of the
street, fronting each other, with as many more in the rear, con-
taining, in all, about 250 families, and not less than 1,250 per-
sons, in  a  space of about 180 feet,  by, perhaps, a depth of 50
feet  on each side.   The  pestiferous stench  and filth  of these
pent-up  tenements  exceed description.  In  one room,  says a
visitor, six people are living, with  hens scratching about on the
bed.  Every corner  of these buildings  is  occupied—cellars  and
garrets."  The cellar population of  New York is believed to be
25,000.  What makes the case worse with the occupants of these
tenements and cellars is the circumstance of many of them being
emigrants from Europe, particularly  from Ireland and Germany,
who, during their voyage, had suffered from defective ventilation,
in their being crowded between  decks, and compelled to breathe
much of their  time  a  damp  and impure air. Among the  dis-
eases arising from, or singularly multiplied  and  aggravated by,
what Dr.  Griscom  terms " internal  domiciliary causes,"  are
cholera  infantum, diarrhoea,  and erysipelas, which have  been
increased in a high proportion since 1820.
   Dr. Samuel  Rotton,  in his testimony before  the Committee,
repeating, in a summary manner, what had  been  said by  Dr.
Griscom, and, to a certain extent, also  by Dr. McNulty, affirms
the chief causes of the malady in New York to arise from a great
number  of the inhabitants  living " with the smallest amount of
air that  is necessary to keep life in them, and the smallest  pos-
sible quantity of light with which they can possibly see and get
along with; and  these causes have been proven by Dr. Griscom
to produce much greater mortality than bad food  or bad clothing,
because, the  people  who  have lived in the same way, with the
same food  and  clothing, in better localities, have been seventy-
five  per cent, better with regard to mortality than those  who
lived in cellars  and other  dark, unventilated,  and  miserable
places."  During the cholera  season of 1849, in New York, Dr.
Rotton noted the fact  of the great mortality from  the disease
among the occupants of cellars, and hence, it became  his inva-
riable practice to have such persons, when attacked, immediately
removed.  He does not know of a single case  of  recovery of
those who were not removed.  "The  reason is obvious,"  con-
tinues Dr. R.  "In many of them  I  was obliged  to  wade  my
       7 
98
way upon bricks, before  I  could  stand  upon the floors, for the
water would cover my feet."  In  the  same year,  Dr. Rotton
attended a great many patients who were attacked with typhus
or ship fever, and with results  similar to those just  noticed in
regard to cholera.  All  whom he  could  not remove from the
cellars died—whereas, those who were situated in well ventilated
places fared much better.  He  mentions the cases of two men
lying sick with typhus fever, "in a back alley-way."  His con-
stant recommendation, at every visit, to admit fresh  air was as
constantly disregarded, and, on his return  each day, he found
the windows again closed, the door  closed, and a number of per-
sons living in the same room with the sick.   At last, Dr. Rotton,
becoming exasperated, broke out every pane of glass in the upper
portion of the windows.  His patients gradually improved, and
recovered.   Dr. D. Meredith Reese, in  his testimony before the
Committee, lays down the proposition that,  " The true criterion
and  best index  of atmospheric impurity, in any city, or other
locality, is manifested in young  children, whose  greater suscepti-
bility to  morbid causes, by  reason  of their greater delicacy of
structure, renders  them  the  earliest  victims  of  atmospheric
poisons.   Hence  the  fearful aggregate of  infant mortality in
New York,  which authentic statistics disclose, is  at once the
fruit and the proof of the contaminated air  they breathe, in the
wretched habitations of the poor, where confined and ill-venti-
lated apartments render healthy respiration impossible."   Dr.
Reese assigns other causes for infant mortality, which do not
come under our present  head, but which  are suggestive of the
importance  and necessity of sanitary reform, not only in New
York, but in most other cities.  His views on  the exceedingly
interesting topic  of infant mortalily in large cities,  have been
embodied in a Report to  the  American Medical  Association,
which he offered as part of his testimony before the  New York
Committee.
   The morbid effects  of  crowding and deficient ventilation are
well illustrated  by comparison with an  opposite condition of
things, as set forth by Dr. Richard S. Kissam.   The comparison
is of the state of health of two wards in  New York, the most
healthful and the least healthful.   In the sixth ward  there were
25,000 inhabitants in 1856, having 1400 dwellings, and the deaths
were 1089.  In the fifteenth ward  the population was 24,046, who
occupied 2445 dwellings, and the  deaths among whom were 436.
The proportion of deaths in the fifteenth ward is one in fifty-five,
and in the sixth ward one in twenty-three.   The contrast, as set
forth in the report itself, between the fifteenth and the first wards
in 1857, was still greater.  The  proportions were 1 in 69.68 in
the former, and 21.96 in the latter.  Dr. Kissam states the differ- 
99
ence between New York and Philadelphia, on the score of public
health, to be, that almost every family in the latter city has a tene-
ment in itself; the members of it are well provided and comfort-
able.   " The city, of course, has a larger number of houses in
proportion than our  own.  It is  very seldom that there is more
than one family in a house;  but here,  as has been stated, there
are 20 or 30 families in  one house."  In reply to  the  question,
" Then you  regard  ventilation  as  a great principle connected
with the preservation  of health," Dr. Kissam  replies:  " Most
assuredly,  even in  higher walks than among  the  poor.   Our
Academy of Medicine will sit, night after night, being poisoned,
so that those who are  sensitive  on  this point  invariably have a
headache next day.   The Historical rooms, the new building, is
very badly ventilated.  The subject of  ventilation  is one  that
seems to escape the  attentton of builders as well as  of officers."
   Examples of the connection of overcrowding with  the develop-
ment of typhus, scarlatina,  and cholera are  numerous.  Some
striking cases of this nature are recorded by  Mr. Cox  in the
 Sanitary Review, April, 1858.   In the  limits of two streets, in
 the village of Bromley,  fifty-three cases  of fever occurred.  The
 disease did not extend to the rest  of the village, neither did it
 break out elsewhere within the  district.  The evident cause of
 this local fever and  its mortality was the "awful" overcrowding.
 Each house  consisted of four rooms,  about twelve  feet square.
 " An entire family  lived and slept in each  chamber.  In one,
 Mr. Cox counted seven  human  beings,  who occupied the same
 filthy couch—a father,  mother, three  adult daughters, and  two
 younger children.   In  a second room, six persons  slept, viz., a
 widow, her two grown up daughters, an adult son, and two young
 children."  It is unnecessary to say that the rooms were  inde-
 scribably  foul, fetid, close, and disgusting.  "In the above in-
 stance,"  continues  Mr. Cox,  "we can have no  hesitation in
 ascribing  the  concentration and severity of the fever-poison (it
 not  indeed  its actual development) to  the vitiated atmosphere
 produced  by the overcrowding."  He made  every inquiry, but
 was quite unable to trace the origin of the disease to any  other
 sources.  Dr. Duncan, of Liverpool,  described, some years ago,
 a filthy,  pent-up   court, one  of  the thousands  in  that  city,
 with an area of only 150 square yards, occupied by 118 inhabi-
 tants, or about \\ square yards to  each.  This average breathing
 room is only one-half of what  it ought to be at  nighty  In this
 court, 50 cases of  fever, or nearly one-half the population, were
 attended  by  the Dispensary  in  a single year.   Some ot  the
 most frightful ravages  of cholera on record were^ owing to  the
 direct pulmonary poisoning by impure air and animal effluvium,
 accumulated for want of suitable ventilation.   Examples of this 
100
nature have been furnished in all  parts of the civilized world—
in the East Indies, at Karrachee, among the troops, at Jugger-
naut, among the native population, also in the crowded and ill-
ventilated barracks;  in  England, among  the brickmake.rs at
Southal, the hop-pickers  at East Farleigh, the pauper children
at Tooting, the lunatics in the Wakefield Asylum, the convicts at
the Wakefield  Old Prison, the inmates of the Millbank Peniten-
tiary, and of the Taunton workhouse.  At a  time when no case
of cholera  had  occurred in the neighborhood of Tooting,  and
when, indeed,  even diarrhoea was  not at all prevalent in the vil-
lage, 300 of the inmates  of the establishment were smitten with
the secret pestilence, and of these no less than 180 died.   The
girls, whose dormitories were the most overcrowded and the worst
ventilated, suffered more  severely  than the boys.  The essential
cause of all this mortality was  declared  to be " the inordinate
crowding of the  establishment."  The numbers crowded together
into the dormitories were  so great that each  boy had only 150
cubic feet, and each girl 133 cubic feet of air allowed for  respi-
ration, and some of the apartments  were, at the  same time, so
faultily constructed—there being windows on one side only—that
no effective ventilation could possibly be kept up.   How far this
scant supply of the pabulum vitse falls short  of the requirements
of health, may be inferred from the recommendation of the in-
spectors of prisons in England, some years ago, that every prisoner
should have 1000 cubic feet of air, and from the estimates  which
have been made in  other quarters that health and strength can-
not be  maintained in a space of less than 700 to 800 cubic feet;
and that to live and sleep in a space less than 400 to 500 cubic
feet for each individual,  is not compatible  with safety  to life,
even where there is no extrinsic or  superadded cause of  atmo-
spheric impurity.  And  let it not be  supposed that even the
first named  spaces would be sufficient in a  hermetically-closed
box  or chamber, for life would become extinct long before the
oxygen had  been consumed.1 In Philadelphia, we have had some
sad reminders  of the pernicious  effects of overcrowding and want
of ventilation  in the mortality and preceding horrors in the old
Arch Street Prison  during the cholera season of 1832, and in
the Blockley  Almshouse in the epidemic of 1849.  We may
note also  similar catastrophes in  the  Bucks  County  Poor-
house,  and the Baltimore Almshouse.   Although Philadel-
phia, Boston,  and Baltimore compare advantageously with New
York in  their annual death  rates, yet they  have also   their
dark spots, their bad districts, in  which physical is  associat-
ed with moral degradation and impurity, and cholera  claimed
1 Brit, and For. Med.-Chir. Review, vol. vii.,1851. 
101
its largest proportion of victims.  Whatever  effects may be at"
tributed to bad or defective supply of food in the production of
this disease, it has been said, with no doubt much truth, that the
state of health, as well as  the proclivity to disease, is influenced
much more by the condition of the air that is breathed than of
the food that is eaten.  The foul and fetid atmosphere, continues
the English  writer,1 of our Whitechapels and Bermondseys—
aided often by intemperance—has more  to  do with the haggard
looks and earthy complexion of these denizens than even penury
or want.  Dr. Letheby, in visiting some of the rooms  tenanted
by  poverty-stricken beings, crowded together, found the  atmo-
sphere so close and unwholesome, and infected with that peculiar
fainty and sickening smell so  characteristic of the filthy haunts
of poverty, that  he  endeavored to discover the special offending
element.   He ascertained that the contaminated and reduced air
was not only deficient in due  proportion of oxygen, but that it
contained three times the usual  amount  of carbonic acid, besides
a quantity of alkaline  matter that stank  abominably,  doubtless
the' product  of  putrefaction of the various fetid and  stagnant
exhalations that  are given off from the unclean body, and a pes-
tilential  scourge  of  disease, the  consequence  of  heaping human
beings into such  contracted localities.
  Observations have been made, and to such an extent as to justify
the belief, that  the intensity and mortality of scarlet  fever are
greatly increased by  overcrowding.   Mr. Cox, already quoted,
describes an outbreak of this fever with fearful and uncontrollable
malignity in  a dismal court at the back of Covent Garden, Lon-
don.   There were altogether nineteen cases in the three houses,
whereof ten  terminated fatally.  Mr. Cox "can confidently at-
tribute this fearful mortality  to the overcrowding; as, although
the disease  prevailed extensively in  the neighboring  streets, it
did not assume the same malignity of  type, and yielded to reme-
dial measures."   Both  Mr. Cox and a  friend who accompanied
him, and shared the professional  duties with him on  his visits
to  this forbidding  spot, contracted the disease, and  narrowly
escaped with their lives.   Measles have nearly double the mor-
tality in the crowded northwestern districts, that they have in
comparatively thinly peopled south and southeast ones of England.
Even though we  must attribute a good  deal to the ready trans-
mission of"contagious disease among  a  thickly planted popula-
tion, we can hardly doubt, as suggested  by  Mr. Simon, that a
general weakness of constitution,  conjoined with defective sani-
tary arrangements, greatly aggravates the fatality of the conta-
gious diseases in question.

           1 Brit, and For. Med.-Chir. Review, 1851, vol. vii. 
102
  Public Lodging Houses.—To speak of overcrowding is at once
suggestive of public lodging houses, long a recognized and pro-
lific source of disease and vice.  They are in all large cities the
nightly resorts, not only of the migrating laborer and travelling
artisan, but, also, of the lower mendicants, thieves  and prosti-
tutes.  It was no uncommon thing, as Dr. Duncan related, when
writing on the sanitary state of Liverpool, for the keepers of
lodging houses, in  that city, to cover the floor with straw, and
to allow as many human  beings as could manage to pack them-
selves  together  to  take up their quarters for the night, at the
charge of a penny (a little over two cents) each.  The  havoc
made by the cholera in the lodging houses of Manchester was
terrible.   In some of them as many as 6 or  8 bodies were con-
tained in a single room, which was crowded promiscuously with
men,  women,  and  children.   Dr. Howard, after showing the
lamentable  extent to  which they become hotbeds of febrile
diseases of the most  violent and fatal character, owing mainly
to their  filthy and unventilated condition, thus  describes the
morals of their  frequenters, and  their  malign  influence in this
way on the young and inexperienced:  "They  serve  as  open
receptacles of crime, vice  and  profligacy,  and as nurseries in
which the young and  yet uninitiated become familiar with every
species of immorality.  They are  the haunts of  the most de-
praved and abandoned  characters, as well as the most miserable
and suffering objects  of the  town (Manchester), and constitute
one of the most influential causes of the physical and moral de-
gradation of  our laboring population."   In Glasgow, where the
same evils prevailed to an alarming degree, the  lodging houses
have been subjected to regular municipal supervision and  ordi-
nance, and, as  we are told, with  excellent  effects.   Partial
inquiries made  in  our large  American cities, reveal a state of
things approaching to the  evils just pointed out as so common in
those of Great Britain, and which call imperatively for the ame-
liorating and reforming  influences introduced with success of late
years in different parts  of the latter country.  To these  we shall
soon advert.

  But the evil consequences of crowding and defective ventila-
tion are not confined  to the poor and the destitute.   Wherever
people are brought together for religious worship, for amusement
or recreation, in the halls of legislation and  of law, in school-
rooms, hospitals and  almshouses,  and  prisons,  the  neglect for
sanitary  measures, and especially of ventilation,  is the  rule.
Attention to this paramount means of  preserving health is the
exception.   Nor are the  mansions of the  rich  and  tasteful
exempt from the penalty of infraction of one  of  the  chief if not 
103
the very first of the natural laws.  This stricture is still more
applicable  to  modern  than to old houses.   We hear  much of
applied science, but the community has yet to learn its direction
towards a better  system of either public  or private hygiene.
Both proprietors and builders of houses are, for the most  part,
quite innocent of the desired  knowledge of this subject   Divi-
sion of rooms for business or family wants in the  interior, and
decorations externally after  some order,  Greek or Gothic ora
barbarous  blending of both, are the only things thought of in
relation to modern structures.   How the inmates are to procure
an adequate and continued supply of fresh  air, and how to get
clear of that  which is impure, are not even  secondary  matters :
they are sometimes discussed as curious questions of philosophy,
but  seldom  with a view  to  their direct  bearing on health.
Wearied, oppressed and  giddy, and with palpitating hearts and
hurried breathing, how many, after leaving a church, have mis-
taken their really disturbed states of the physical man  for those
 which result from the workings of the Spirit ; and  have retired
 to their homes, full of terrors for  the state of their soul, when
 in reality, they were suffering from a disorder of their corporeal
 functions, induced by the  impure and half poisoned blood  circu-
 lating  through their veins.   We are  familiar with the "blue
 Monday" of  dissipated and drunken workmen and laborers, who
 pay the penalty  of  a recognized gross infraction of natural laws
 on the preceding Sunday, but we are not often aware of the well
 defined "blue Monday"  as exhibited in feelings of languor,
 depression of spirits and unevenness of temperin those who have
 sinned against these same natural laws, albeit in  a different man-
 ner by their three goings  to church, including an evening service
 on the Sabbath, and breathing all the while an impure  air.   Dr.
 D. B.  Reid, who visited  numerous  churches in  hot weather, to
 observe the  effects of  bad air on the congregations, gives the
 result  in a very graphic sketch, which we regret not having room
 to insert.   We would  refer to his work, entitled  Illustrations
 of the Theory and  Practice of  Ventilation, with  Remarks on
  Warm Air,  Exclusive  Lighting, and  the Communication^  of
 Sound, for  much  valuable  information on the entire  subject
 embraced in  our present notice.   Dr. Reid was  one of the com-
 missioners appointed by Queen Victoria for inquiry into the state
 of large towns  and populous  districts; and his  opinions are
 founded on large experience.
    Schools.—The greatest sufferers from the general  ignorance
 of elementary physiology and hygiene among architects, control-
 lers and teachers, are children in schools, both public and private,
 the  latter just now probably the more punished of the  two.  We
 need not  repeat from the report of the commissioners just men- 
104
tioned, the distressing particulars of the wretched state  of  the
cottage schools in the different parts  of England, nor  of  the
dame and public schools of Liverpool and  Manchester some
years ago.   Abundant matter  for  comment  and  stricture  are
offered to observation in the schools of  the United States.  The
fate of the school children  of poor or improvident parents, who
reside in narrow streets, courts or alleys, is peculiarly hard; for,
after suffering from  partial  suffocation  during  the  night  and a
part of the day in their own wretched homes, they are subjected
to a similar,  if not more injurious process in their school-rooms,
into which they may be  said to be  entrapped, and thus cruelly
treated under the show of kindness and  regard for their welfare.
   Hospitals.—All medical men must be aware, at the present time,
how much the mortality is increased in  hospitals and asylums of
every kind by a confined air, rendered noxious by want of ventila-
tion.  The greatest skill on the part of the professional corps, the
most attentive administration of well selected medicines by  intelli-
gent and humane nurses, are nullified by the inmates of a hospital
breathing an  air not continually renewed, and which, if allowed
to remain  stationary, even  for  a very short  period,  becomes
charged with  emanations, gaseous and animal, of the most dele-
terious kind.   It is not too strong language to say that a renewal
of the air in  hospitals, which implies adequate ventilation, is a
question of life or death: every hospital  in which the atmospheric
air remains vitiated,  so far from being a benefit  to the  poorer
classes,  becomes  a public* calamity.    Better that its  inmates
should remain in their own wretched tenements, deprived  of  all
medical attendance,  than  to be subjected to  the concentrated
poison of the  large wards of  a hospital.  Many years ago,  during
a season of epidemic  visitation of smallpox in Philadelphia, it was
found that the mortality from this disease was greater among the
inmates of the hospital at Bush Hill, of  which your reporter was
at the time the chief medical attendant, than among the sick in
the city, many of them living in confined courts and dirty  alleys,
who came under his care as  dispensary patients.  As illustrative
of the contrasted effects of crowding and  bad ventilation  on  the
one hand, and-of improved ventilation on the other, reference may
be made to the Lying-in Hospital in Dublin, in which there died
2,944 children out of 7,650, but after ventilation, the deaths,
in the  same period of  time, and  in  a like number of children,
amounted only to  279.   The quantity and poisonous nature of
the exhalations continually given out  in the wards of a hospital
occupied by  the  sick, are strikingly shown by Montfalcon and
Poliniere  in  a treatise on  the Health  of Great Cities,1 when

 1 Traite de la Salubrite dans les Grandes Villes, suivie de l'Hygiene de Lyon. 
105
 speaking of the Hotel Dieu, the great hospital at Lyons.   The
 large fever wards  of this building represent a cross, at the centre
 of which is a vestibule surmounted by a dome and a cupola: in it
 is placed  an altar of marble,  over which is a  smaller  dome.
 From the  wards  thus communicating with  the  vestibule, the
 impure  air and exhalations escape into  the  dome and  cupola,
 which act  as  so  many funnels, and thence through suitable
 openings they find exit  into  the  outer  air.   The amount of
 mephitic air accumulated  in  the dome and cupola,  and after-
 wards expelled, is incredible, as no  one could  form  the  least
 idea of it when visiting the wards and  breathing an air exempt
 from all bad smell in them.   But if  workmen at this very time
 ascend to the  cupola, especially near its top,  they will suffer so
 much from the close and foul air which  has risen from below, as
 to be unable to continue  their  work, at the  longest, for more
 than half an hour.   Sometimes  even after half an hour's delay
 in this infectious  medium, they come away pale and  oppressed,
 and so disordered that sometimes they  sink down  in  a state of
 syncope.   Many workmen are obliged  to  succeed one another,
 to perform  the work of a single man.
   Shops and Factories.—The workshops of persons engaged in
 various mechanical employments are for the most part exceed-
 ingly deficient  on the score of ventilation, and their inmates in
 consequence encounter much suffering and  disease.   Dr.  South-
 wood Smith relates many distressing details of this nature, which
 came under his own observation.  There was a room in London,
 sixteen or eighteen yards long, and seven or eight yards wide, in
 which eighty working tailors sat, and so closely to each other, as
 to be nearly knee  to knee ;  one witness told of his having known
 young men, tailors from the country, faint away in the shop from
 the excessive heat  and closeness.  It was of frequent occurrence
 in such workshops, that suits of clothes  of a light color were
 spoiled from the perspiration of  the hand, and the dust and flue
 which arose during the work.  .In winter, these places are still
 more  unhealthy, as the heat from the candles—it may now be
 said gas—and the  closeness are much greater.   The entrance of
 fresh air  through an open window is objected to by those nearest
 to it, on  account of the draught, and generally they prevail in
 keeping out the cold, that is, the fresh air.  The effects of con-
 tinued exposure to this impure and deleterious air were to drive
 away many  before  their labors were over, and to take away the
appetite of those unaccustomed to the place.  "The  natural effect
of the depression," continues the  witness before the commission-
ers, "was that we had  recourse to drink as a stimulant; gin being
taken instead of food.  I should say the greater part of the habit
of drinking was produced by the  state of the place of work, be- 
106
cause when men work by themselves, or only two or three toge-
ther, in cooler and less close places, there is scarcely any drink-
ing between them."
  Females.— What has  been said  of  the journeymen tailors,
applies with too much force to the individuals of the  other_ sex,
who work in milliner and dressmaker shops, with the  additional
aggravation of  their being sometimes  kept up late at  night to
finish the  dress promised  by the employer for the  next  day.
Even when working alone in  their small and close rooms,  from
morn to night, in  a half-bent posture, they are objects of de-
served pity, as victims to the  sin of  a neglect of hygiene.
  Printing offices, in which germinate so many young  Franklins,
do  not  exhibit, if  we may judge from  the indifference of those
who work within them, the shrewdness of their professed model
in either devising or availing  themselves of known measures for
the promotion  of  health, foremost of which is  attention to the
respiratory function.   If it be  true, as alleged, that pressmen
are less liable than compositors  to  pulmonary  consumption, we
have additional confirmation of the fact, pointed out by Dr. Guy,
of the greater  frequency of this disease among those who are
habitually exposed to  a close  and impure  air, and  especially if,
at the same time, they are deprived of  all  exercise.  The saving
nature of this last  is evinced under the  circumstances just stated.
  Nautical  hygiene shows that outbreaks  of  cholera have oc-
curred aboard ship from  defective ventilation.
  It has been observed that, as a general rule,  the frequency of
pulmonary diseases in England, is greater  among the males than
among the females, in the proportion of 100 to 94—as regards
the country generally; but that in particular districts and towns,
the greatest death-rates from  these causes, are on the  side of the
females.  The  difference is attributable to the confinement in
factories or in  shops, and even in their own houses, of this part
of  the population, while  engaged  in  making  textile or other
fabrics.  In three  of  the registration  districts  in which this dif-
ference prevails, a good proportion  of  the adult females  are en-
gaged in  industrial manufacturing pursuits ; these  being chiefly
conducted at their own homes.   Exceptions, not yet  explained,
occur in this matter  in  some countries in England.   We  are,
after all, safe in adopting the opinion  expressed by Mr. Simon,
viz:  "In proportion as the male  and female populations are
severally attracted to indoor  branches of  industry, in such pror
portion, other  things being equal,  their  respective death-rates
by phthisis, are increased."   In the  lace-making  districts, the
female death loss seems always to exceed  the male.   "The pul-
monary death-rate is usually excessive  in towns where both males
and females are largely employed in the  manufacture of textile 
107
fabrics; but the difference in the mortality of the sexes is rarely
great."  So in Manchester, which, as one of the  cotton manu-
facturing  districts, has  a high pulmonary mortality, the differ-
ence in the death-rates of  males and females  is slight;  both
being largely engaged in the industrial occupations of the place.
In comparing  this state of things with what occurs in Liverpool,
we  find that  that city, with a  higher  mortality still, does not
show it so  much in its female  population, who are not engaged
in any special employment.
  Light.—Next to the apparent determination  to  exclude  fresh
air from the habitations of man,  and from  all the places in which
people assemble for  the purposes of religious worship, business,
and pleasure, is the apparent determination to prevent full access
of light to  the human body.   The paramount importance of light
to vegetation,  so that through it plants acquire not only their ver-
dure but the variegated colors which  we admire  in their flowers,
as well as their requisite firmness of  texture and the distinctive
flavor  of their juices, seems to have received only a  passing ap-
plication, suggestive  of its producing analogous effects on animals.
The bleaching and  sickly character of vegetables, which follow
the privation  of solar light, and their  sleep during  the night,
showing greatly diminished vital activity, find their  parallels in
the influence of the  same cause  on the animal economy.   Com-
parative physiology  furnishes  additional proof in  the same" line
of argument.   When, the eggs of a frog  are put in water in a
vase with  opaque sides and top,  so as to exclude the  light, they
evince no  change; whereas, eggs in water of the same quantity
and  temperature, exposed to the light, undergo a gradual  deve-
lopment, and  exhibit in due time young  tadpoles.  The subse-
quent  transformation of these beings is not prevented, but it is
retarded by their  being kept in  darkness.   Edwards, who  made
these experiments,  thought that in  countries  in  which nudity
was allowed by the nature of the climate, exposure of the whole
surface of the body  to light, or to insolation, as  we may term it,
was  very   favorable to  good  bodily conformation.   Humboldt
seems  to incline to the same opinion.  He asserted that deformity
and deviations from  the natural standard  of symmetry are very
rare in certain races  of men, especially among those with a highly
tinted  dermoid system.   The sinister  effects of want of the  sun's
light in underground apartments, and in  houses, narrow alleys,
and in deep courts,  almost blocked out from its genial access,
ought to share largely with humidity  and  impure air in the pro-
duction of scrofula and scurvy, and must come in for  a full  share
in the etiology of anaemia and chlorosis,  and of the  pallid and
earthy  colored skin of miners,  and  the tenants of  prisons, as
also  of those  persons who lead a  sedentary life in ill-lighted 
108
 habitations.  Dr. Brown, of Chatham, near London, calls atten-
 tion (Sanitary Revieiv, April, 1858)  to the injurious  effects  of
 underground kitchens.  He would have large room for comment
 in some of our cities, especially New York, in which there are not
 only underground kitchens, but where also  it is quite common to
 meet with dining, and sometimes sleeping,  rooms  thus situated.
 This vicious architectural arrangement is too common also in Phi-
 ladelphia.   Dampness is generally associated with the want  of
 light, and performs a not unimportant part in causing disease, by
 withdrawing from the body, as Dr. Brown supposes, "its normal
 proportion of electricity, and thus occasions disorders that de-
 pend upon diminished  nerve force.   These are ague, neuralgia,
 certain forms of rheumatism, epilepsy, chorea, and asthma, with
 some other affections, such as  dyspepsia."  The servant girls  of
 London exemplify, in their etiolated condition, and their breath-
 lessness,  as well as the anaemia under which they suffer, the evil
 effects of dampness and of deprivation of  the solar rays.   The
 functions peculiar to their sex are carried on imperfectly, or are
 absolutely suspended ;  hence the headache,  the pains in the side,
 the palpitation, and the dropsical ankles so frequently witnessed
 in this class.  Organic disease of the heart  is originated by these
 causes in some  instances.   Another consideration stated by Dr.
 Brown, but not bearing on our present theme, is  the exhaustion
 attendant upon the  frequent ascent and descent of stairs.
  Dr.  Elisha  Harris,  in  his  replies  to the  New York com-
 mittee, lays great stress on  the  privation of sunlight  to a vast
 proportion  of  the population  of the  city,  "not  only  in work-
 shops,  in warehouses, in counting-rooms, and in basements;  but
 in the modern tenement houses, the hotels, the school-rooms, the
 churches, and  the private dwellings."  He adds, and with be-
 coming warmth of language, " So important is  light to human
 health, that it should be made a  legal offence for any party to
 deprive a neighboring dwelling of light."   He repeats  an obser-
 vation  of Sir John Wylie, for  many years physician to the Em-
 perors Alexander and Nicholas, of Russia, viz.,  that in a  cer-
 tain barrack at St.  Petersburg, the mortality on the  dark  side,
 that from which  sunlight was always excluded, was 100  times
greater than on that side on which the sun  shone, and  penetrat-
ed into the windows and doors of the  apartments.

  The Remedies.—After a tolerably  full notice of the impurity,
and, still  worse, the virulent properties and effects of the air, caused
by overcrowding and defective ventilation, we are the better pre-
pared to inquire  into  the means  of the cure, and, still better,
because acting on a larger scale, the  prevention of the evils de-
scribed.  The  measures for  meeting this object must be under- 
109
 taken and carried out on a scale commensurate with the extent
 of the obstructions to be overcome.  They require for their suc-
 cessful performance discreet but firm legislation. First would be,
 to carry into effect the recommendation of the  English  commis-
 sioners already noticed, viz: to empower the local and municipal
 administrative  bodies, to  raise money for  the purchase of  pro-
 perty, with a view of opening thoroughfares and widening streets,
 courts and alleys, so as to improve the ventilation of the densely
 crowded districts of towns, as well as to increase the general con-
 venience of traffic.  Practical suggestions in this line occur to us
 on learning the steps taken by the present Emperor of  France,
 for the improvement  and embellishment of Paris.   There may
 be a difference of opinion respecting the motives which influence
 the French ruler in  the great changes  which have been  brought
 about, and others still in progress and  projected, in the interior
 of the capital; but of one thing we may be well  assured, that the
 public health will gain immensely, and this through  the external
 ventilation procured by  the new wide and magnificent streets,
 which intersect, and, in degree, break  up the crowded  dens of
 miserable  tenements in dark  and narrow  streets,  occupied by
 a population ready  at any hour  to  engage in scenes  of pub-
 lic revolution or of local  outbreak  and bloodshed.   With a view
 of securing better ventilation,  the  commissioners farther recom-
 mended, that courts and alleys be not built of a less width than
 twenty feet, to be open at both ends ;  and that they have an open-
 ing of not less than  ten feet from  the ground upwards, at each
 end;  the width of the court being in proportion to the height of
 the houses.   Streets  are not to be of less width  than thirty feet.
   Local acts, as authorized by acts of  Parliament, have already
 been  passed in Liverpool, Leeds, and  London,  and doubtless in
 other  cities and towns, since our  attention was last directed to
 this point,  prohibiting the use of cellars in dwellings, unless they
 are so constructed as to provide protection  against the existence
 of the evils which we have just pointed out.  The commissioners
 farther recommended, that, after a limited period, the use of cellars
 as dwellings be prohibited, unless  the rooms are of certain'di-
 mensions, and are provided with a fireplace, and window of  suf-
 ficient size,  made to open, and that said  dwelling have an open
 space in front; and also, that the foundation be properly drained.
 Prohibitions  have been suggested, if not laid down by actual en-
 actment, against building  houses back* to back, a vicious practice,
 which effectually prevents both a due supply of light, and any ade-
 quate ventilation by a through current of air through each house.
   Model Houses.—After  State and municipal governments shall
have done their  duty, by wise and liberal enactments, and provid-
ing means for giving them effect, a large field will still be left for 
110
the exercise of individual benevolence, or of voluntary associated
effort to carry on a scries of auxiliary measures, which are neces-
sary to the completion of those of a public and administrative
nature.   Among these it is pleasant to be able to announce, not
merely the inception  of plausible plans, but their  already success-
ful execution,  as in the erection of model-houses  in town,  and
model-cottages in the country, for  the use of the working classes
in England.  The new buildings, though small, are on  a footing
of comfort and sanitary arrangements, as to a due supply of water,
warming, and  ventilation, equal, if not  superior, to larger man-
sions inhabited by the wealthy.   The trials so far verify a remark
made by the Rev. Mr. Girdlestone, who has taken  an active and
praiseworthy part in sanitary reform : "that one of the  most effi-
cacious means  of elevating the condition of the laboring classes
is  the improvement of their dwellings."  At Birkenhead, opposite
Liverpool, dwellings  have been  erected  in a style so neat as to
approach to elegance, by the Dock Company, for the accommoda-
tion  of the workmen employed  in  the construction of the docks
and warehouses  of that new and flourishing town.  Tenements
have also been erected at the same place by Mr. William Laird,
called "Morpeth Buildings," and others by Mr. Robert Hughes;
the former consisting of sixty-four, the  latter  of seventy dwell-
ings.   The first  is built on the  Scotch plan, in flats, or suites of
rooms on a floor, and constitute eight blocks, each  block consist-
ing of eight dwellings.  The blocks are four stories high, with
no yard or cellar, and each  flat is divided  into two dwellings.
Each dwelling consists of three  rooms—kitchen, parlor, and bed-
room, or two bedrooms.  The kitchen  is provided with a range
and oven.  Separated  from  the kitchen, by a well-fitting door,
is  a water-closet, with an abundant supply of water for this and
all other purposes.   Through the centre of each  block, from top
to bottom, runs  a square shaft, containing the water  and gas-
pipes belonging to the eight  dwellings.   A small iron door, about
ten inches square, is  fixed to one corner of  a recess, close to the
ground, through  which all the dust and dirt are swept; the dust-
shaft receives the dust from all the  eight dwellings by eight simi-
lar openings, and descends to a very large  dust cellar beneath
the level of the house, from which it is removed at stated periods.
Each house is ventilated  by two  air-bricks—that is, a space
equal to the size of a brick is left  open  for the admission of air,
covered within and without by  an iron grating, and capable of
being closed by   an  iron shutter,  if necessary.   One  of these
openings is placed near the ceiling, for the escape of vitiated or
heated air. There is only one appliance, external to the person,
wanting in these houses, viz., the bath.  In New York, tenements
of this description have been constructed; and, where ground is 
Ill
so valuable, and the population so dense, in  some of the worst
districts, they must be  regarded  with favor,  although they may
allow of only comparatively limited external ventilation.
   Model lodging-houses have, likewise, been built in London and
other places with the most satisfactory  results.   The houseless,
the destitute, and the very poor  are comfortably lodged, at the
same time  that they escape the contamination both of disease and
of vice, for a very small  sum, but which is remunerative to the
proprietor.  At a meeting, some years back,  of the " Society for
Improving the  Condition of the Working Classes," Prince Albert
presiding,  it was stated by Lord Ashley, that the new lodging-
houses gave nightly lodging with every accommodation for clean-
liness and  decency at the rate of four pence (eight cents) a night,
so entire was the success and so remunerative was the profit ob-
tained, that upon a sum of about 13,000 or 14,000 pounds ster-
ling (65,000 to 70,000 dollars) expended on these lodging-houses,
they were now  receiving an income of very nearly 1500 pounds,
or  (7500  dollars)  a year.   Great improvements  have  been
brought about  in common  lodging-houses  throughout the  king-
dom by Lord Graftenbury's act,  as it is called.

   With such examples of successful sanitary reform before them,
the people  of the city of New York need not hesitate a day before
entering on a similar course, and thus regain the high health-rate
which it once enjoyed, realizing the benefits  due to its naturally
favorable situation  and to  certain hygienic measures which have
been completed on a large scale at great cost.  In the words of the
Committee of Investigation of the health department of the city of
New York, we can say: " A healthful river flows beneath its streets
and avenues, supplying every habitation with sufficient water  to
allay thirst, to prepare food, and to promote cleanliness.   The
island on  which it stands  is laved by two  noble rivers, whose
tides uplift and cleanse the respective streams.  Its sewerage
is advancing with rapid stretches from  street to street, and the
fresh breezes from  the ocean temper the coldness and  moderate
the  heat of its climate."

   Means of Ventilation.—When persons speak of the necessity
of fresh air for health, they are not always aware of the various
purposes which it serves in the animal economy.   It is a "thing,"
a substance to be weighed and measured as we would water.   It
is a food, the introduction of which into the  lungs is more neces-
sary than  that of  the substances commonly reckoned  as food
which are  introduced into the stomach.   The call for the  aerial
food is incessant, allows of no pause; that for the solid and  liquid
food is periodical and allows of  postponement for many  hours. 
112
 Using the terse language of a recent writer, when speaking of the
 air:  "It affords mechanical support; it is  a heat  modifying
 medium; it swallows all  gases exposed to it; it supplies a food
 to man,  out of which he is in part built  up; it feeds him with
 the active principle by which the warmth of  his body is sustained.
 The chief sustaining element of the air inspired in breathing,  is
 the oxygen, which forms  a fifth part of the whole of the  atmo-
 spheric  sea."  The minute terminations  of the branches of the
 bronchiae, themselves ramifying from  the windpipe, and  called
 air-cells, amount to about six hundred  million.  The air  in these
 cells, and chiefly its oxygenous portion,  permeates  their sides
 and enters those  of the minute bloodvessels, which are  ramified
 over them, and thus finds entrance into the blood with which  it
 mixes, and which it so changes as to  fit  this vital fluid  for  the
 nutrition and  building up the new and assisting  to remove the
 old materials of the organs.  While the blood is thus changed by
 the introduction of oxygen, it gives off, at the same time, its gaseous
 refuse in  the form of carbonic  acid and  animal  exhalations.
 There is no tampering with  the respiratory  wants:  the  lungs
 must  have their due supply of pure air, or the entire animal or-
 ganism suffers—the lungs suffer, the heart suffers, the brain suf-
 fers, and the mind works slowly ;  the stomach is weakened in its
 functions; muscular movement is enfeebled ; the senses are dull;
 the natural color of health  is replaced by  pallor.  The move-
 ments of inspiration and expiration, which make up respiration,
 constitute the natural ventilation of the  living frame.   This living
 ventilation is carried on unceasingly from birth to death, by  the
 infant as well as by the adult, by the profoundest philosopher as
 well as the solitary  artisan in his close polluted atmosphere, or
 by the sailor nursed amid storms, in a pure and invigorating air.
 Whether the circumambient air be  pure or pestilential, we drink
 of it twenty times a minute; if of the latter kind, we look  old
 in our youth; if  of the former, we maintain the  appearance of
 youth in  old age.  The average chance of living to  the  prover-
 bial age  of threescore  years and ten  may be considered  the
 measure  of the purity of  the air we breathe.1
  All the different  modes for ventilation  are  reducible to three
 heads: 1. To ventilate hy heat or by a  chemical process.  2.  By
pumping  or  a mechanical  process.  3.  By the   pressure  and
movements of the atmosphere without let or hindrance.2  Dr. Reid,
both in his work before mentioned and in his report to the Commis-
sioners on the Northern Coal Mine  Districts, enters fully into this
interesting question, which he presents under thefollowing  aspect:

           1 Dr. Hutchinson. Journ. of Pub. Health, vol. i.
           3 Sanitary Review, vol. ii. p. 208. 
113
"Ventilation depends essentially on three conditions: the quality
of the external air;   the  quantity  that can be made  to flow
through it in a given time, including the mode of distribution
and  the regulation of which it is susceptible,, whether in regard
to the temperature communicated to it,  or the force with which
it impinges on the system; and its freedom from  any noxious
ingredients that may be developed by lamps, candles, fireplaces,
or by any other special cause.   Where  sanitary measures have
secured  the purity of the  external  atmosphere,  by effective
drainage, cleansing, and prevention of nuisances, one-half of the
remedy may be secured, and without such measures  no system
of ventilation can be successful."   "Were it generally known,"
writes Dr. Reid, " that the movement of an ascending current
from lamps is always accompanied in non-ventilated apartments
by a proportionate descent of vitiated air, which may have pre-
viously supported combustion, and  that  the  descent, though
limited at first, may  suddenly  reach the floor,  greater  anxiety
would be  manifested  to give vent to  such products by a superior
aperture."   Dr.  Guy  very justly remarks  that  no  system  of
ventilation can come  into  general use which does  not  prevent
draughts, which is not cheap, and which interferes to any great
extent with existing structural arrangements.
   The great number of plans for ventilation would imply that an
easy and  efficient system  is not yet reached.  They are, how-
ever,  encouraging, as  they afford  evidence of an  increasing
general desire to become acquainted with  the subject, and  to
give it a practical bearing.   The extension which this report has
already unexpectedly reached will forbid  my entering into details,
or even repeating the outlines of all different plans  which I gave
some  years back (1850), in a report on Public Hygiene, read
before the College of  Physicians of Philadelphia.   Beginning
with the third  head of the plans of ventilation, which looks  to
the natural movements of  the  air by a  simple  interchange be-
tween that of the interior  of a house or  other building,  and the
external  atmosphere,  Dr.  Reid thinks,  that a  well-constructed
window,  capable  of  being opened  above and  below, realizes,
when the fireplace is well arranged, all  the  essential  conditions
for effective ventilation, in  the apartments or tenements occupied
by the poorer  classes.   This, as he admits, however, will only
answer when the weather  is not severe.  It also assumes, what
in our towns now is  becoming a rare thing, viz., an  open fire-
place.  This last  is replaced by a stove, or more generally still,
by a register for the  admission of warm air from the air-chamber
heated by the furnace  below.   One of the simplest, and at the
same time a most gentle and efficient mode  of ventilation, is the
admission of external air through a perforated zinc plate, or fine
       8 
114
wire gauze, which is to replace  a pane of glass in a window of
the room  to be  ventilated.   The  plate ■ is perforated with  two
hundred and ninety holes to the  square  inch.  It, or the  gauze
wire is generally introduced in  the upper part of the window,
and in the place of  the corner pane the farthest  from the fire-
place.  Instead of the contrivances just mentioned,  the pane of
glass might itself be perforated.   The fine orifices prevent the
air from coming in with a rush, which would occasion discomfort,
and they tend to diffuse the air equally  and gently through the
apartment.  No draught is felt unless a person be seated  imme-
diately under the window.   But  the benefit is not limited  to the
introduction of pure atmospheric air  into  the room.  There is
all the time an interchange between it and the internal heated
and impure air which thus  finds  vent  and  is carried off.   This
interchange takes place on  the same principle with  the diffusion
of vapors and gases, even though they differ from  each  other
in temperature  and  specific gravity.   It is in  this  way that
Jeffray's respirator acts, by  mitigating the  coldness of .the ex-
ternal air in  its admixture with the  warm internal air, just
escaping from the lungs in  respiration.  The plan of ventilation
now described is recommended by its simplicity and it3 cheap-
ness.  It  is applicable to ordinary sleeping and sitting-rooms in
a private house, as well as to shops, in which, owing to the general
absence of an open chimney or  any other means of permanent
communication with the external  air, it is more urgently required.
During the first winter in which  your  reporter had charge of the
men's wards of the Commercial Hospital at Cincinnati, he  caused
gauze wire to be substituted for  a pane of glass, in  every other
window, and the effects were immediate and perceptible, both in
a  diminution, if  not entire exclusion  of  the unpleasant  odors
which pervaded  the wards,  the ceilings of  which were very low,
and which were heated by large  coal stoves in the centre of each
ward.   On the following winter, the gauze wire was substituted
for the pane of glass in the windows of the large ward, and with
the best effects.   At the conclusion of his first tour of duty in
the  spring, his colleagues  in the  Ohio Medical  College were
pleased to compliment  him on what  they termed his successful
practice in  the Hospital.   As statistical returns  were wanting,
one could not attach much importance to this favorable opinion;
but  if the patients could have spoken, they would have expressed
themselves in very decided terms of commendation of the plan
by which they could breathe with some comfort, especially  during
the  night, and  obtain, at  the same  time, alleviation from the
excitement and pains of fever and inflammation.
   Another plan of ventilation still, based on the  natural move-
ments of the air without the aid  either of mechanical or chemical 
                             115

means, is by an opening in the wall or ceiling which leads to the
external air, and which is protected by a shield or disk, say two
inches larger than the aperture.   The external air in impinging
against the side of this shield, is  split  up into a thin circular
radiating sheet, and  at a short distance  below, not more  than
two feet, a person cannot feel cold entering, nor  can the  hand
detect a draught at eight or ten inches distance from the  edge
of the disk.   The sheet  of air may be modified according to the
distance of the  shield from the aperture.  A still farther  pre-
caution has been used by Dr. Guy, who adopted this practice for
admitting  air through a window-pane of glass.   It is, to  have
the sides of a close fitting shield  perforated, and thus to  have
the air broken into jets.   The plan of ventilation  through open-
ings with shields or disks before them has been modified by Mr.
Leather, of Sheffield.  He introduced it for supplying the  day
and  bed-rooms  of the Eccleshall Bierlow  Union Poor  House
with fresh air, and as he said, in his evidence before the English
Commissioners for Inquiry, &c, so often referred to in this report,
it answers the purpose admirably.   " An  opening is to be made
in the outer wall, and a flue carried from it between the  floor
timbers, to the middle of the  ceiling, where  the air passes into
the room;  in order to prevent  the current of air from rushinc
downwards, the  aperture in the  ceiling  is  masked by a  large
circular  iron  plate.   The purpose of this has been already ex-
plained.   It is fixed on a screw passing through its centre, and
by turning the plate round, the aperture may be closed or opened
little  or  much, and the supply of air regulated at pleasure.   Mr.
Hosking, in his  valuable work on the " Proper Regulation of
Buildings in  Towns,'" suggests different plans for ventilation.
One of the simplest,  and which comes under our  present head,
is by means of " opposite air-flues, or flues opening to the same
apartment in opposite walls, the flue on one  side giving vent to
the spent air at  the highest level the room affords, and that on
the other side delivering fresh air  at the same high level."   This
plan will go far  to fulfil the indications previously stated by Mr.
H., viz., the expulsion of foul air  from apartments by processes
which act independently, and  which cannot  operate offensively,
as by cold draughts;'and  such  processes  must be  moreover
inexpensive, to give them any chance of being  largely adopted.
The  plan just offered will be  more complete where  there  is a
fire, whose place is arranged,  and  whose combustion is fed  with
air, in a  manner previously described  by Mr. Hosking, so  as to
insure its  own  immunity from ignorant  interference, while it
requires  no manipulation that  a child may not supply.   For the
details of his plan, by which the fresh air from  without is intro-
duced behind and about the range  or stove,  and made to  do the 
116
 double duty of feeding the fire and supplying the room  for  the
 purposes of respiration,  I must refer those  curious on  the sub-
 ject to the work itself.   The plan is very analogous to the  one
 recommended long before by Franklin.   The  air-syphon  venti-
 lator originating with  Dr. Chowne, is  recommended by its sim-
 plicity and easy use, and  its adaptation to the general ventilation
 of buildings, of ships, and of mines;  and if a little care were
 taken in providing for its application  in architectural  designs,
 many useful results, both  in regard to artistic display and hygienic
 comforts would  be realized.   The general principle of the  air-
 syphon ventilator rests on the curious fact, that if a tube of the
 syphon shape be placed in a room with the long end uppermost, a
 current of air will immediately play through it; in the downward
 direction of the short, and in the upward  direction of the long leg
 of the tube.  Another and still more simple process of ventilation
is that recommended by Dr. Corwan.  It consists in simply bisect-
ing all tubes or outlets by which  a  current of air  is desirable.
 The bisecting consists in  the introduction of a second tube within
the first, so as  to allow space between the two.   If smoke is to
ascend, it will be drawn up in a steady and rapid stream on one
or other side of  the septum, and  a downward  current more  or
less active will be established in the other.  " Smoky chimneys,
for example, with their legionary train of evils and inconveniences,
would be impossible, were their spaces properly subdivided;  for
no disproportion in the  relative  strength of either upward  or
downward currents Avould prevent their  independent establish-
ment.  The short and  ever smoking chimneys of small tenements
and upper chambers might thus be made  efficient; and in  cases
where bisecting the tube was impracticable, suspending a central
tube would probably succeed.   The pipings of stoves, if  so con-
structed, would be far  more certain  in  their  action, while  the
downward draught could  be easily converted into an efficient bel-
lows for the fire."  Mr. McKennell, of Glasgow, has constructed
 his patent ventilator on this system.  " It consists mainly  of air
tubes arranged  concentrically, the  inner discharging the vitiated
air, while the fresh supply flows  down  the  outer  tube.   It is
almost automatic in its action, requiring  little or no attention in
ordinary circumstances.  It removes the  air as it is vitiated, and
supplies its place with  pure air  in the exact amount required,  in
currents so gentle as to be scarcely perceptible.
  Mr. Roberton describes the mode of  ventilation of the hos-
pital at Bordeaux, which is on the same   principle as that  advo-
cated by Mr. Hosking.  It consists in  having isolated wards,
and these open  to the  air from side to side and from end to end,
by means of long windows, so  that  a  current of air is  always
passing through, in correspondence with  the natural laws of  the 
117
 atmosphere.   In carrying out this the natural plan of ventilation,
 the perforated zinc or glass plates are most useful.
   Under the  head of mechanical or  physical means of ventila-
 tion,  come wind-sails, chiefly used on board ship, the bellows or
 pump, the fan and  the  screw.   The fanner and screw may be
 looked upon as modifications of the same instrument.   All these
 mechanical plans  are described by Dr.  Hutchinson,  in the
 Journal of Public Health, vol. ii.  In this connection, reference
 may be made to Dr. Arnott's single  ventilating pump, his gas-
 ometer ventilating  machine — in fact, an  air-pump—also his
 double  current warming ventilation.   In the Niger expedition,
 the steamers were ventilated after a plan proposed by  Dr. Reid,
 which rested in the plenum and vacuum principles."   A  fanner
 or ventilating machine  was put in  motion either by the ma-
 chinery of the steam engine, or  by the " kroomen," or when in
 the rivers, the paddles being disconnected  from the engine, by
 the paddles themselves, which acted as water wheels.   From the
 ventilator a series of tubes extended  to all the compartments of
 the vessel.  When the fanner worked on the " vacuum princi-
 ple," the vitiated air was drawn by it from the various compart-
 ments, and was discharged at an opening in  the circumference of
 the fan-box.  When the "plenum principle" was resorted  to, the
 fresh external air was connected with the centre, and blown into
 the distribution tubes to  the several compartments.   By other
 means it was hoped that, under any circumstances,  fresh air
 might be  infused into, or  vitiated air extracted from  the hold,
 or any part of the vessel.   At some  periods of the  voyage, the
 air was  drawn through a medicator, with the intention  of remov-
 ing carbonic acid, and of evolving chlorine.
   For nearly all useful purposes, and as an agent, in some sort,
 always present, and readily brought into  play, heat  is the most
 efficient agent, and it is that, which gives rise to chemical venti-
 lation.  In fact, the questions of warming and ventilating  apart-
 ments are closely  related and  interwoven  one with  another.
 There can be no ventilation where there is no movement of air,
 and this movement  apart from some mechanical contrivances of
 very  limited use and power, is always imparted by heat;  one
 portion  of air rarefied by heat, rising and  being replaced by a
 cooler one, and so on.  As long as we have a fire we have  a ven-
 tilator ; and when the difference  between the temperature of  a
 room  or hall  of any description, and that of  the outer  air, is
 not enough to cause an active movement of the air, or where this
is mixed with  much watery vapor  or gases, it is necessary to pro-
cure the aid of artificial heat, or a fire, in order to give the  requi-
site movement to the air, and thus insure ventilation.  With this
view a fire is made in the upper part  of the tower of a building 
118
to be ventilated, and flues are constructed to establish a communi-
cation between the room or hall in which persons are assembled,
and the chimney of the fireplace, or a common  central flue con-
tiguous to and heated by this fire.  A few large gas-burners will
answer the purpose of  this last, and with less trouble to the at-
tendants, and less risk to  the building.  The impure air is by this
means  drawn, as it were, from the various rooms  below through
the prepared apertures at the upper part, or near the ceiling, and
passes  along the flues which converge at the central flue, whence
it finds its way  into the open air, at such a height, and with such
a rapidity of movement, as to insure its diffusion through the at-
mosphere, without its exerting any injurious effects on the people
out of doors, or in fact without  the possibility of its  reaching
them.  By methods  of this kind, we could ventilate  all places
in which people congregate for any length of time, as churches,
schools and lecture-rooms, courts of justice, concert and dancing-
rooms, and theatres, or in which a number of persons are con-
fined from infirmity or sickness, as in  hospitals and other asy-
lums, or for crimes, as in prisons.  The ingress air or that from
without, is to be introduced in quantity bearing a  relation to the
number of persons assembled, and to the quantity of egress air
through the discharging flues.   When, however, it is necessary
to procure artificial warmth for the comfort of the parties assem-
bled, in any of the ways just mentioned, then the heating appa-
ratus will rarefy the air sufficiently to insure, after it has been
used in respiration, its rising and being carried off by exit flues
opening into the external atmosphere.  These flues for egress
air should be  somewhat of a valvular form, because air, except
under  a powerful and quick motion, will, from any cause, regur-
gitate  into the apartment or hall.   By the internal  valve for
egress air, we must be understood to mean some valvular machine
opening into a  heated  chimney flue, which may pass up the side
of the chamber. The internal valve is, therefore, chiefly applica-
ble to private rooms or buildings constructed on a similar systqm.
More than sixty years ago, Franklin spoke of the advantageous
system of making a communication into a  smoke flue  near the
ceiling of the wards of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and that such
an opening,  together  with  another  in  each door of the ward,
made them all  "perfectly sweet."
   The ventilating valve  of Dr.  Arnott has got  into  extensive
use, and when  correctly fitted up, works well.  It  is placed  in an
opening made for the  purpose from the room into the chimney-
flue, near the ceiling, by  which all the noxious air, caused by the
breathing of persons in the room, the combustion  of gas or  other
bodies for lighting,  &c, is allowed at once, in obedience to the
 chimney draught,  to pass away; but  through which no air  or 
119
smoke can return.   The valve is a metallic flap  to  close the
opening, balanced  by a weight on  an  arm behind the  hinge.
The weight may be screwed  on its arm to such a distance from
the axis, or centre of motion, that it shall exactly counterpoise
the flap; but if a little farther off, it will just preponderate and
keep the flap, when not acted on  by entering air, very softly in
the closed  position.  Although the valve, therefore, be heavy and
durable, a  breath of air suffices to remove it;  which, if from the
room, opens it, and if from the  chimney, closes it,  and when no
such force  interferes, it shuts.  The valve is so regulated ori-
ginally, as to settle always in the closed position.   An import-
ant part of the arrangement is the wire, which  descends like a
bell-wire, from a valve to a screw 'or peg, fixed in the wall  within
the reach of a. person's hand, by acting on which the valve may
be either entirely closed or left free to open in any desired de-
gree.  In  cold weather, or with few persons in the  room, the
valve when only opened a little, allows as much air to  pass as is
requisite. A flap of thirty-six square inches area is large enough,
where there is a good chimney draught, for a full-sized sitting-room
with company.  It is essential for the successful  working  of this
ventilating valve, that the chimney draught be uniform  and good,
so that  no  more air shall enter at the chimney flue  over the fire,
than can escape at the  chimney pot above.   Where the room is
warmed  by a stove or by furnace, there is less probability  of any
obstacle  of this kind  to the chimney taking in air at  the venti-
lating valve.
   Mr. Ewart has  constructed a more simple, and,  it is alleged,
effective valve than Dr. Arnott, for the  small cost of  a sum not
exceeding a dollar.   The valve is composed of oiled  silk, on a
frame, on which are six large  openings, admitting the  egress of
air with  gr*eat freedom. Very similar to this contrivance,  is one
also suggested by Dr. Arnott.  It consists of a square  iron tube
of from  three  to six  inches in diameter, and so long that the
outer orifice shall be flush with the wall of the apartment, and
the inner one  enter the chimney.  These tubes are usually from
four to six  inches in length.   At the orifice  entering the  room,
there is  either a plate of perforated zinc or a piece of fine wire
work, from the upper and  back part of which  hangs a piece of
ordinary or oiled silk, which acts as a valve, so as to  allow the
warm and  vitiated air to pass up the chimney, and to prevent
any smoke from entering the room.  The annoyance of a smoky
chimney is removed by this mechanism.  When it is  found ne-
cessary  to  close up the  valve, either upon lighting the  fire, or in
cold weather,  or when a room is first inhabited, or finally, if the
chimney should be on fire, a slide connected with  the tube can
be drawn up and  cover  the whole aperture. 
120
  In constructing a house, Dr.  Hutchinson recommends  the in-
troduction of a sufficient flue for air.  All chambers should  receive
the air below the level of the head of the inhabitant, and  this air
should be carried away at the highest point of the chamber, in
the ceiling or immediately below it.   This direction is not appli-
cable to the  flues through which heated ingress air from furnaces
or analogous heating apparatus by steam or hot water below finds
its entrance  into a room.   Its diffusion takes place without diffi-
culty.  Supposing,  as is the case in summer, that no movement is
communicated  to the air by internal heat, and no external supply
is obtained by  heated air which had just come from the external
atmosphere,  then must the ingress air be low down ; and while en-
tering it should be dispersed of broken up into small streams or
thin sheets,  as previously recommended, so that  no draught can
be felt by the inmate of the chamber.   It is necessary that the
air  should be admitted imperceptibly, and thus receive the natu-
ral  radiant  heat of the chamber as quickly as  possible.  Per-
forated floors were adopted by Dr. Reid, in  the House of Com-
mons ; this again being covered by hair cloth, so  that the supply
of air be broken up into small  currents.  The  objections to this
arrangement were  found to be,  that the  air not only brought
with it all the  dust and dirt and  taint from  the  feet,  but it was
likewise directed upon this part of the body, thus increasing the
discomfort of  "cold feet," from which.many persons suffer.  In
large buildings, as churches, where there is generally underground
convenience  for directing the air through some favorable quarter
below the floor, into the  body of the building, and that  in par-
ticular spots, not near the feet,  as  in  the aisle, this  system of
perforated floors may be found to answer.  In  private  rooms,
there  remains  only the side wall for ingress air, and the place
recommended  in preference,  is  the top of the skirting board
which surrounds the room.  But even  here some of  the objec-
tions  occur  which  intervene with the plan of perforated floors,
viz., the escape of  dust which would adhere to the borders of the
slit, if not partially obstruct it,  and be impelled at other times
into the room  by the draught of the ingress air.  This latter
may be  broken into a sheet-like form  by other means, which
have been already  mentioned.   Corresponding with the passage
round the lower part of the room for ingress air, and free from
the objections  brought against this, is  another passage  for the
egress air made by openings just  below the cornice, which com-
municate with  the external air, and are wide enough to answer the
desired purpose without interfering with the ornamental  charac-
ter of the cornice, or the general style of the finest apartment.
   Of all the various edifices in which a number of persons are
gathered together, and for whose protection and benefit an effi- 
121
cient system of ventilation is needful, none are of such paramount
importance as school-houses, and none have been so generally,
and we might add so cruelly neglected.  The children who sit in
them for many ho\irs daily, require, above all other  members of
the community, a continued supply of fresh air for their healthy
growth, and to allow of their tender brains being tasked without
detriment  and continual danger to their intellects, and a depres-
sion of spirits and languor so opposed to their instinctive feelings
and tendencies.   The originally indolent boy becomes at school
a hater of lesso'ns and books, associating as he  does with it all
that is wearisome and  dull; while the boy desirous to learn, and
emulous of distinction, becomes exhausted by his brain work, and
his nervous system acquires a morbid sensibility which remains
with him during all his after life.  The unrenewed air of a school-
room soon  becomes charged with the noxious  exhalations both
from the  lungs and the  skin.   The  latter organ, in a vast ma-
jority  of the poorer children, and in not a few of the  wealthier
class, becomes,  for want of due attention, almost coated with
perspirable and  other  matters, and is a source  of continual poi-
soning of the air of an illy*ventilated room.  The architectural
arrangement of nearly all the schools in England, as far as they
were examined some years ago, was, with few exceptions, deplor-
ably defective, especially where the scholars slept in the  build-
ing.  Among many instances of the same kind, we may state that
in  Manchester the blue-coat boys  suffered from scurvy, which
was removed  in  a great  measure by an amended diet and by
ventilation of the dormitories after  a fixed method.   But it is
not necessary to look abroad to find a general neglect of  school
hygiene, evidenced even  in what all call first class seminaries,
as well as in those of less pretension and with humbler inmates.
Happily, in saying this we can also promise a marked  reform of
the evils now complained  of.   This reform began in Boston, and
promises to spread to other and remote places.  A committee,
consisting of Dr. Henry G. Clark, E. G. Loring, Esq., and the
Rev. Charles Brooks, under an appointment of the School Com-
mittee of Boston, to inquire into the  subject of the ventilation of
school-houses, and to indicate the means of remedying defects,
reported, after the successful performance of their task, that the
grammar school-houses were then in a better condition, in respect
to their ventilation, than  any other  public schools in the world.
The first named gentleman of the committee, who is our  colleague
on  the  present  occasion, was mainly instrumental, by his inge-
nuity and  perseverance, in bringing about these improvements.
In Philadelphia  and other cities, many of the public schools re-
ceived  the benefit of the visits  and reformatory suggestions of
the Boston Committee.   Statues have been reared and  other 
122
honors  conferred  for  much  less services  than were rendered
by these gentlemen.  They ought to have received at least an
ovation from the grateful  children and  teachers  in  the  public
schools.   Commendatory reference may be made at this time to
the very useful volume of Mr. Henry Barnard  on school  archi-
tecture  in the  United States.  From page 142 to page 165, 2d
edition, the  reader will find instructive details on  the subject of
warming and ventilating schools  and other  public  buildings.
Among the apparatus  for the purpose  Chilson's furnace  and
ventilating stove, and also Emerson's ejecting and  injecting ven-
tilators, are noticed in terms  of commendation, such as had been
previously bestowed  on them by the Committee.   Mr. Emerson
very properly insists on the admission of warm air  into a school-
room, as indispensable to its proper ventilation ; and he enforces
his views on this point, by refusing to allow his ventilators to be
put up in any school-house that is not, by some means, supplied
with fresh, warmed air.  He  objects, like most  people  who have
attended to the subject, to the use of all such stoves and furnaces
as emit their heat through and from red-hot iron ; and he recom-
mends what large experience sanctions, that when anthracite coal
is used, the stove or furnace in which it is burned  be  lined with
brick or stone.
  As regards  the ventilation of hospitals, it  has been  well re-
marked by the French authors (MM. Montfalcon and Polini&re) of
a work already cited—a Treatise on the Health of Great Cities—
that the more numerous and diversified are the causes of vitiated
air  in a  hospital, the greater is the  necessity for vigilance in
obviating its occurrence.   Every patient  ought, these gentlemen
think,  to have at least three hundred cubic  inches of  pure air
per hour at his disposal ; and every ward of  a hospital so well
ventilated that  the most delicate sense of smell could  not  detect
any  unpleasant odor ; and finally,  the  temperature  should  be
always  kept at 60° F.  Ameliorating  influences, to the extent,
in some instances,  of entire  reform  of old  abuses, are now at
work in the  ventilation of hospitals and benevolent and charita-
ble  asylums of  all  kinds.   This is more  particularly observable
in the  asylums for the insane, some valuable  suggestions and
improvements in the interior economy of  which have been made
of late  years by their medical superintendents.  At their Vneet-
ing in  Utica, in 1849, they declared it  to  be  their unanimous
opinion^ " that the experiments recently made in various insti-
tutions in this country and elsewhere, prove that the best  means
of supplying warmth in winter,  at  present  known to them, con-
sist in passing fresh air from  the external atmosphere over pipes
or  plates,  containing  steam  at  a low pressure,  or water,  the
temperature of which in the boiler does not exceed 212° F., and 
123
placed in large air-chambers in  the  basement  or cellar of the
building to be heated."  These gentlemen also declared "that a
complete system of fixed ventilation was absolutely indispensable
in every institution, like  hospitals, for the  ordinary sick or in-
sane, and where all possible benefits are sought to be  derived
from these arrangements ;" and,  " that no expense that is  re-
quired to effect these objects thoroughly, can  be deemed either
misplaced or injudicious."
   The union of mechanical with chemical means  of ventilation
has  been  recommended.  A small power would be sufficient to
abstract the  air rendered heavy by the carbonic acid, which is
accidentally diffused in consequence of being  condensed  before
it arrives at the ventilating tubes. This might be done by means
of a ventilator on  the  bellows plan, similar to that adopted by
Hales, or the still more simple one, the exhausting air-pump of
John Taylor, for the ventilation of coal mines,  and which is
worked by a regulated power on  the principle of clock-work, and
with the addition of an apparatus for opening the valves.   "The
expense of labor to raise a weight every day to keep it  in con-
stant action, would be," Tredgold thinks, " much less than the
expense of fuel and attention to produce the same effect by fire,
the  action being more certain.   To produce the effect we desire,
the  best plan seems to be to have open gratings in various parts
of the  passages,  with tubes from each to the place of  the  venti-
lator ; and  the gratings  might be provided with slides, so that
the  action  might be  confined more to particular parts, as occa-
sion might require."   Another important part of the ventilation
of hospitals is that of the water-closets.  An  effectual plan for
attaining this  end is  to  connect a flue at one end with  the  de-
scending pipe of the basin, or with the well below, and at another
end with the chimney of a fire that is constantly kept up.  Even
where the water-closet pipe empties into a cesspool privy below,
this arrangement is, as we know from actual experience during  a
period  of seventeen years,  quite successful;  even in  a case in
which, although water is introduced by a pipe  and stopcock into
the  basin of the water-closet, yet there  is no addition of a trap
or syphon.  It is necessary for the proper effect of this plan, that
the  lids in  the privy below be kept* down, otherwise there will be
an upward and offensive current of air from the cesspool, inter-
fering with the draft from this into the chimney, as just described.
   At this present time two novel systems of warming and venti-
lation seem to  divide scientific opinion and  support in  Paris.
The one is by M. Duvoir, the advantages of which are said to be :
1st, that it insures free ventilation;  2d, that it warms and ven-
tilates at the same time ; 3d, that it is cleanlyand  inexpensive ;
4th, that in hospital wards, where the emanations from  the sick 
124
are offensive and pernicious, such emanations can be borne away
directly from above downwards, by having the upper opening in
the ventilating shafts in each ward closed, and  the lower one
open.  The wards are thus constantly swept clean of all hurtful
gaseous products.   Among other  public  buildings is the " Hos-
pital de Lariboisiere," to which this system of M. Duvojr has
been applied.   Strong testimony is borne by distinguished judges
of the value of its action and of its successful application.1   The
second apparatus for warming and ventilation is that contrived
by Van Hecke.  The apparatus for heating the men's wardsat
the Necker Hospital, -consists of three furnaces in a cellar, which
heat air that is distributed  by flues to the  hospital.   The quan-
tity of air heated is considerable, and hence it need not be raised
to a high temperature :  this, when  entering the  wards,  is not
more than 86° to 95° F.  It acquires the proper humidity by
passing over contiguous reservoirs of water.  The ventilation is
procured by the agency of a small  steam engine placed in the
cellar,  but  its  boiler in a  suitable place outside the building,
which sets in motion a ventilator, that derives its  pure air from
the garden and injects  it into a strong suction pipe placed under
ground and running the length of the entire building.  This chief
pipe is divided into secondary ones, which convey the air to the
furnaces  and thence into the wards  situated on different stories.
The air enters into  the wards in large sections, and without pro-
ducing sensible currents.   The impure and vitiated air escapes
by flues,  which convey it out above the roof.  This  system may
be defined to be, warming the hospital wards by means  of  three
furnaces  ; mechanical ventilation by propulsion; complete appro-
priation of the steam vapor, which, after doing its first duty  in
the engine, is  employed to meet the necessary wants of the pa-
tients,  such as baths and  washing.  The ventilating apparatus
propels from 60 to 120 cubic inches of pure air hourly for each
bed.  Registers allow of the diminution  of the amount of warm
air brought by the different flues.
  Were we to speak of the bodily ills  from factory labor,  as
arising in part from defective ventilation, we should be met by
the counter opinions  of  Drs.  Ure, Thackrah,  and W.  Cooke
Taylor, in England, and MM.'Villerm£, and Benoisten-Chateau-
neuf, in France.  Dr.  Ure contends that, from the  very nature
of the  machinery used in cotton mills it  is impossible  to  crowd
the operatives, and especially those, nine-tenths of them children,
who tend the open spurred mules.   As respects  the growth and
development  of persons  engaged in factory employments,  Sir
David  Barry,  in his Factory Commission Report, relates,  as the
1 Sanitary Review, vol. i. pp. 423-4. 
125
results  of  personal  observation, that many  of the girls  were
beautifully formed, who had been from ten years  to maturity in
the mills.   On  the  subject of  ventilation, M. Villerm£ states
distinctly  after a careful calculation of  data, that the great
body of those employed in the cotton mills have a better supply
of air at their work than at their  homes, and better, also, than
great numbers of  other classes of work people.   Dr. W. Cooke
Taylor  says : " I would be very well contented to have as large
a proportion  of room and air  in  my  own  study as  a cotton
spinner in  any of the  mills in Lancashire!"  We must look
then, it would seem, for  the causes of the greater proportionate
mortality among the manufacturing than among the agricultural
population, to the confined lodgings and crowding in the parts of
the town in which the former sleep and spend the  time not given
to work, and  to the want of abundant nutriment, and also in a
large number, to habits  of intemperance.  There are, however,
some  facts  recorded which might serve to qualify the  favorable
opinions of factory life.   Thus, for instance, fewer recruits of the
proper strength and stature for military service  are obtainable
now than heretofore from Manchester.   Again:  a corps levied
from the agricultural districts in Wales,  or the northern counties
of England, will last longer than one recruited from the manu-
facturing towns, as from Birmingham and Manchester,  or near
the metropolis.
  In speaking of the wants and ignorance of the poor  on the
score  of ventilation, it must not be supposed that this class is
the only sufferer.   The wealthy and  the  luxurious often mani-
fest equal ignorance, and  suffer accordingly.   In modern houses
the neglect of ventilation  is extreme,  as far as regards recourse
to any other means of obtaining it than the windows  of the
rooms.  All the fireplaces, as they used  to  be called, are her-
metically sealed by slabs of marble, and when the register of the
flue by which warm  air is introduced, is closed, as at  night, or
when  the room becomes  too warm in the  day, there is no aperture
either for  the admission of fresh air from without, or  for the
escape of foul air from within.   During the  night, the windows
and doors are closed, and the supply  of air fitted for respiration
becomes exhausted long before  morning, especially if, as  is so
commonly  the case,  there be several persons sleeping in the
same room. Headaches, restless  slumbers, nervousness of various
kinds, palpitations, oppressed breathing and loss of appetite, are
no unusual  effects of defective ventilation  in  the  houses of the
wealthy, who, at the very time,  may be  commiserating the poor
for their small and  close apartments.  It is indeed  time that
architects  should wake up and  think of constructing houses in
which the inmates  can live without a continued infraction of the 
126
 laws,  by compliance with which alone they can  enjoy health
 and serenity of mind.  Benevolent individuals and societies have
 taken the state of  the defective  lodgings  of the poor into con-
 sideration,  and have set about, in  some  instances with entire
 success, the devising  and execution  of the needful remedies.
 Let us hope that the rich will, in due time, come in  for a share
 of this well directed philanthropy.
   All classes might turn to useful  account, for  the purposes of
 ventilating  both  the rooms in their own houses  and the larger
 ones in public  buildings, the presence of artificial lights, espe-
 cially  those furnished by  gas.   A truncated cone of  zinc,  the
 upper  part of which  is  narrower  than that of  an  ordinary
 gas-shade, and resting like the latter over  the  burner, will be
 perforated near its upper border by one end of  a  tube of zinc,
 which  will at the other end be carried through the  outer wall or
 else into a chimney, and thus be a conductor for the air of  the
 room rendered impure by the combustion  of the  gas and  the
 breathing of persons in the room.  This mode of ventilation is
 particularly called for in small rooms or shops in which the air
 soon becomes contaminated, and exerts a noxious effect on those
 employed in them.  There is one instance  of an exit tube for
 gas, so elegant that it would grace any drawing-room, applicable
 for the lights over the mantel-piece at  each side of the looking-
 glass, introduced  by Prof. Faraday.
   Dr.  Hutchinson makes an observation which will be consoling
 to those of us who encroach on the midnight hour while engaged
 in the labors of the desk.  " It is an  error," he tells us, " to sup-
 pose that gas is more injurious to the constitution than candles ;
 scientifically the common means of lighting, whether by candles,
 oil, or  camphene,  are all gas-lights. The work of  a gas company
 is to take from the coal a certain  product, and send it to our
 houses for combustion; when we burn the candle, &c.  &c, we do
 in the  sitting room the work of the gas company,  taking from
 the material the same product which  the gas company sends  to
 us in pipes; therefore, if there is any difference, it is  in favor of
 gas-lights."
   Ventilation of Sewers.—This  is done, first, by air  shafts and
 gratings'over them, at certain distances from each other, which
 permit the escape of the  emanations from the sewer  below into
 the atmosphere;  2d, by establishing a communication  between
 the sewers and the rain-water spouts of the houses; but  it is neces-
 sary to trap these latter,  for,  otherwise, they might allow of the
 escape  of  the foul air into the windows of sleeping rooms   A
common method in Paris  is to allow of the escape of the foul air
of the sewer through lofty shafts or chimneys so that  it shall be
disseminated at a  height which would prevent its annoying  the 
127
people in the streets and the inhabitants of houses of ordinary
elevation.  These shafts are placed, as much as  possible, in the
least frequented parts of the city; but even  then the air escap-
ing from them is a source of more or less annoyance.  Sometimes
fires are made in these chimneys, and thus a strong upward draft
is procured and a large  amount of gases extracted.   A simpler
and more economical plan is to connect the  sewers with the fur-
naces or chimneys in large manufactories.   The only drawback
to a measure of this kind is the occasional risk  of sewer  gases
exploding when subjected to flame.
  As ventilation is a means of purification of sewers, a remark
may be here made opportunely, that water is the best purifier, by
its diluting the sewage and accelerating its onward progress; and
hence the freer and bolder the flushing, and  the more frequently
water is introduced into the sewer, the less  occasion will there
be for ventilation.   In Paris the  gutters and sewers are flushed
daily with water from the hydrants, 24; hours in the morning and
the same length of  time in the afternoon.   With  an adequate
supply  of water, and the impetus derived from the height of the
reservoirs of  supply, there is no necessity  for this system of
flushing if  the  water which  passes through  each house as  waste
be turned into  drains, both private and public.   Mr. G. Gurney
reported, four years ago, to the Office of Works in  London,  a
successful experiment which he had  made for removing or de-
stroying the effluvia of sewers.  He accomplished this object by
means of the  steam jet, which produces a current  through  the
sewer  and  conveyed with it the  noxious  exhalations which are
then decomposed and rendered harmless  by their being made to
pass through  a coke fire as they are drawn off.   The objection
to the frequent use of the steam jet in the same sewer would be
the disintegration of the mortar and action on the surface of the
bricks on the inside of the culvert.

  Effects of  Bad Water for Drink.—Favored, as the inha-
bitants  of most of our large cities are in an abundant supply of
pure water furnished to  them, they are beginning to forget that
they ever drank that which was bad, and cannot realize fully the
disastrous consequences of the habitual use of such a fluid. Gene-
rally, however, people are more easily led to believe, even if they
are not themselves fully sensible of the fact, that bad water is
injurious to the health than that the air which they often breathe
is a poison.  One of the  first sanitary measures of a growing and
thriving population is to procure for themselves a suitable supply
of good water.  All the people of antiquity were alive to this
fact.   The means on a large scale adopted for the  purpose both
in Rome and Carthage have been  referred to in this Report.  It 
128
is not necessary for me to enlarge on this pointy and I  proceed
to mention as a warning to all young cities to avoid the evils from
using bad  water, and forthwith to take measures to procure that
which is  good.  When this our natural beverage is impure, it
proves to be a cause of protracted ailments in ordinary  seasons,
and in those of epidemic visitations it acts as a  direct  exciting
cause of disease and death.  In marshy regions in which  periodi-
cal fevers abound, water is deemed by some, on good evidence, to
be as actively a contributing cause as the bad air  itself.  BuUts
malignancy has been particularly conspicuous in  the production
of cholera.   Dr. Lankester, in  describing the three kinds of wa-
ter  drunk by the  inhabitants of London, viz.:  1,  that of the
Thames and  New River; 2? that of  deep wells 150 feet, for ex-
ample, below the surface;   and 3dly, the surface  well  waters,
points out the  fact  that these last contain organic matters "of
precisely the same nature as those found in rivers which are the
receptacles of house sewerage and  saline matters, common salt,
ammonia, the phosphates, nitric acid,  &c, all  indicative of ani-
mal excretion.   Carbonic acid is largely present in these surface
waters, and  from the  pleasant drinking qualities it  imparts  to
them, actually makes the more impure waters the most popular,
and the most dangerous."   Dr. Liddle, Officer of Health to the
White Chapel  District, relates the  following incidents : " In a
street  at  Salford,  containing  ninety ;houses,  25  deaths from
cholera occurred  in thirty  of these houses, the  inhabitants  of
which drank  water from a well into which a  sewer had  leaked ;
in the'remaining sixty  houses, where pure water was drunk, there
were 11 cases of diarrhoea only, and no deaths."1
  A gigantic experiment, as Mr. Simon calls it, was made  in-
voluntarily and in ignorance by the parties who so largely suf-
fered under it in its progress  during two epidemics in the southern
districts  of London.  It is related as follows :—
  " These districts (comprising nearly a fifth of the population  of the
Metropolis) have been notorious for the great severity with which cholera
has visited them.  . . . Throughout these districts, during the epidemics
of 1853-4, there  were distributed  two different qualities of water; so
that one large population was drinking a tolerably good water, another
large population an exceedingly foul  water;  while in all  other respects
these two populations  (being intermixed in the same districts, and even
in the same streets of these districts) were living under precisely similar
social and sanitary circumstances.  And when, at the end of the  epidemic
period, the death-rates of  these  populations were compared, it was found
that the cholera mortality in the houses supplied  by the bad water had
been three and a  half times as great as in the houses supplied by the
better water.  This proof  of the fatal influence of foul water was  rendered
1 British and Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev., Jan. 1859. 
129
still stronger by reference to what had occurred in the epidemic of 1848-9.
For on that occasion the circumstances of the two populations were to
some extent reversed.  That company which, during the later epidemic,
gave the better water, had given during the earlier epidemic even a worse
water than its rival's; and the population supplied by it had at that time
suffered a proportionate cholera mortality.  So that the consequence of
an  improvement made by this water company in the interval between the
two epidemics was, that whereas, in the epidemic of 1848-9 there  bad
died 1925 of their tenants, there died  in the epidemic of  1853-4 only
Gil; while among the tenants of the rival company (whose supply be-
tween the two epidemics had  been worse instead  of  better) the deaths,
which in 1848-9 were 2880, had  in 1853-4 increased to 3476.   And
when these numbers are made proportionate to the populations or ten-
antries concerned  in  the two  periods  respectively, it is found  that the
cholera death-rates per 10,000 tenants of the  companies were about as
follows:  for those who in 1848-9 drank the worse water, 125; for their
neighbors, who in the same epidemic drank a  water somewhat less im-
pure, 118 ;  for those who in 1853-4 drank the worst water which had
been supplied, 130; for those who in this epidemic drank a comparatively
clear water, 37.  The quality of water which (as is illustrated in the first
three of these numbers) has produced such fatal results in the metropolis,
causing two-thirds of the cholera deaths in those parts of London which
have most  severely suffered from the disease, has been river-water pol-
luted by town-drainage—water pumped from the Thames  within ran^e
of the sewage of London—water which, according to the concurrent tes-
timony of chemical and microscopical observers, was abundantly charged
with matters in course of putrefactive change."   (Mr. Simon's " Report,"
p. 14.)

   Dr. Sutherland, in his report to the General Board of Health
on  the cholera epidemic  of  1849, says, that  the injurious effects
of unwholesome water had been manifest in nearly every affected
place; and adds, that a number of most severe and fatal outbursts
of cholera were referable to no other cause  except  the state of
the water supply,  and  this  especially where it had been ob-
tained from wells into which the contents  of sewers,  privies, or
the drainage  of graveyards had escaped.    Since that time much
additional evidence of a confirmatory character has been  col-
lected.   Two examples are recorded  by Dr. Acland,  in his val-
uable and interesting "Memoir on the Cholera in Oxford"—the
parish of St. Clement's, which suffered a large mortality in 1S32,
when the  inhabitants  had  filthy water from  a  sewer-receiving
stream, and an insignificant mortality in  1849 and  1854, when
the water was derived  from a  purer source.   The other  case is
that of  the  county jail,  in  which cases have occurred in every
epidemic, whilst the city jail, which is not far  from  the other,
has uniformly escaped.   The only  apparent difference between
the two establishments  in  1854 seems to have been that the
supply of  water  for the use of  the county jail, and of which the
       9 
130
soup and gruel were made, was pumped from  a filthy well-pool
within ten feet of one of the prison drains.   No sooner were the
supply pipes disconnected with this  impure source, than cholera
and diarrhoea ceased.   It appears from an elaborate inquiry  by
the General Board  of Health,  at the close  of the  cholera epi-
demic of 1854, that the contrasted  effects of the disease on the
people of two large sections of the population, are only explica-
ble by the  fact  that  one division,  comprising  a population  of
about 268,171 persons, drank impure  water-;  whilst the other,
numbering  about 166,906 persons, used a clearer and compara-
tively pure  water.   The two classes resided in the same localities,
breathed the same atmosphere, comprehended  the same classes,
and  averaging the  same  habits of life ; in short, placed in cir-
cumstances nearly identical, saving the difference in the source
whence they obtained their water for drink.   The mortality from
cholera among the drinkers  of impure  water—of water impreg-
nated with  the sewage of the metropolis, and containing in so-
lution a large quantity of saline matter, derived from the inter-
mixture of  sea-water—being at the rate of 130 to every 10,000;
that of the  drinkers of the pure water being only at  the rate  of
37 to every 10,000 persons living.1
  In the report  on epidemic cholera in  London, in 1854, by Dr.
Sutherland, much interesting information is afforded  on the in-
fluence of water upon the spread of the disease.  The deduction
from the microscopical and  chemical examination of the water
used  in the houses and  neighborhoods where  the disease was
most prevalent,  by Dr. Hassall, was: " That there is  no  water
supplied to the metropolis that does not contain dead and living
organic matter, animal and vegetable.  But the Thames Ditton
water, supplied by the Lambeth company, is by much the purest
of the waters, while the  Southwark and Vauxhall water is one
of the worst, and the waters of  the other companies might  be
arrayed in  a series between these two."  From an inquiry insti-
tuted by the  Registrar  General, the following results appear:
"In 26,107  houses that derived  the  water from  Ditton, 313
deaths from  cholera  occurred  in  ten weeks.  In  the 40,046
houses that received  the impure water  from Battersea, 2445
persons,  it  was ascertained, died from cholera  in the same time.
The deaths in the latter districts exceeded  by nearly 2000 the
deaths that would have occurred if cholera had only been as fatal
as it was in the  houses  that derived their water from Ditton."
Dr.  Sutherland makes the following remarks upon these results :
" When it  is considered that the sanitary condition of the popu-
lation does not materially differ, except in the quality of the

         1 British and Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev., January, 1857. 
131
water supplied by the two companies, it is difficult to resist this
statistical evidence of the predisposing effect of the Battersea
water, and of the loss of life  which has  arisen from its use.1
  The deleterious effects of impure water are not seen in cities or
large towns  alone ;  they occur in small  villages, sometimes in
the solitary farm-house—any place, in fine, in which the pump or
draw-well is in the midst of a farmyard  or filthy court; receiving
the surface drainage of heaps  of stable  manure, pigstyes,  &c.
How often do we notice, says Mr. W. J. Cox, green, slimy, stag-
nant pools, in  the close vicinity,  and  affording  the sole water
supply of cottages.  Such a  state of things does  not often occur
in this country; but in  too many instances there'is a neglect to
obtain an  adequate supply  of pure water,  the  penalty is paid
in the frequent occurrence of bowel complaint, and the sudden
inroads of epidemic cholera,  which makes its  attacks without  any
other  apparent provocation.  In  the  new settlements  of  the
west, the enterprising  pioneer and his famHy often  pay a tax in
the shape of disease, and not seldom of  life itself,  from the use
of bad water or its  imperfect  supply;  and  in new towns other
schemes  of  improvement are tried  before sanitary measures,
both for present and future  protection, such as  paving, drain-
age, and a supply of good potable water, are thought of.
   Dr. Cox tells us, that water tainted with various  organic mat-
ters—whether gaseous,  as  carbide or  sulphide of hydrogen, or
solid, as putrescent vegetable fibre,  or vitalized, as algae, con-
fervae, hydrse, fungi,  infusoria,  &c.—is  a  very frequent cause
of  severe  visitations of  bowel complaints  during  the summer
months.   Several instances  came under  his  own observation in
1853 and 1854, of the aggravation of epidemic diarrhoea from
this cause.   "That water falling on a growing soil, and running
off to lie in stagnant pools, is sure to become tainted with animal
and vegetable life, is well known;  and when to this is superadded
the  circumstances of the  said  soil being highly charged with
effete organic products, the water thus collected must necessarily
be highly impure, and most  unfit for  human consumption.   Yet
very often it forms the  only available source of supply."   Mr.
Cox alludes to epidemic scarlatina simplex showing itself in a
small agricultural village  in the  west  of England,  in August,
1856.  There occured  in all  thirty-eight  cases, chiefly among
the peasantry, whereof three proved fatal.  Two of these were
in one house, the  residence of a wealthy farmer.  Here the  dis-
ease changed its  character,  assuming the worst  asthenic type,
with  intense  throat affection, and, as is so  frequently the case,
defying all treatment.   The  persons attacked were a servant  girl
1 British and Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev., July, 1855. 
182
and three children, the two oldest  of the latter of  whom died.
The  younger child and  the  servant  girl recovered with  some
difficulty  & The probable cause of the malignity and fatality  ot
the disease in this family  was its  bad water  supply.   It was
derived from a  shallow draw-well in the back-yard,  imperfectly
covered, surrounded by heaps of decomposing manure and cow-
sheds, the black drainings from which were  constantly  flowing
over the soil.  Mr. Cox  examined the water from this well on
two occasions, before and after heavy rains.  The first analysis
showed  sixty grains of solid matter (chiefly nitrates) in the gal-
lon, of which five  grains  were undecomposed organic  matter.
The second  analysis (after the  rain) gave the enormous  amount
of between seven  and eight grains of organic matter.  The rest
of the  village derived its chief supply  of  water from  a  good
public  well, situated  at  a little  distance in a  large field, and
properly covered from the weather.
   Water tainted with putrid  contents sends into^ the air a much
larger quantity of noxious organic matter than it receives from
the air.  If we  take the Thames River, for an example, where it
flows through London, it has been  calculated that 4,000,000 of
gallons of water rise  daily, in the  form of vapor, from the sur-
face of the river  within the city limits, carrying with it into the
atmosphere some  portion of the putrid contents of the river.

   Intemperance.—The  transition  is  easy from  one  noxious
drink to another—from  bad water (nature  perverted),  to alco-
holic liquors (art  perverted)—viewed  as the cause  of so  much
intemperance, and disease under a great variety of aspects.   As
a  question of public health it comes necessarily under our notice,
and  as  such alone it can be studied  here.   We are not called
upon to arbitrate between the two  doctrinal extremes in regard
to the dietetic usage of this class of drinks, but simply to look at
things as we find them, and, as in the case of any other form of
physical evil afflicting a  fellow-creature, either standing by itself
or implicating at the  same time the moral and intellectual  facul-
ties, to limit, if possible, its diffusion, and to find means for  its
prevention.  The first of these objects aimed at is done by legis-
lative  enactments, enforced by suitable penalties; the second, or
preventive, is more certainly brought about by  individual will,
aided  by, and  at the same  time  aiding, voluntary  association
with others.  Everywhere drunkards,  or,  as  they  are usually
called, the intemperate,  which is the more correct term of desig-
nation, are among the first victims to epidemic and also conta-
gious febrile diseases. They are more readily attacked, and more
readily sink under disease, than any other class  of persons.  "The
pernicious effects of intemperance, in  predisposing to  the  dis- 
133
ease [cholera], have been recognized by all writers, in the East
Indies a3 well as the different countries of Europe.  What then
must have  been the mischief done by  this debasing  and life-
destroying sin in a country  like ours [England], where it has
been computed that  upwards of twenty millions of sterling are
annually spent upon ardent spirits  alone."1
  The value of temperate habits among the poor, in prolonging
life and diminishing sickness, has been exhibited in the compari-
son of temperance provident societies with other societies.   The
Teetotal Society in Preston (of  which however the numbers  are
rather small for the  purpose of any general deduction), presents,
as we learn from the sanitary report of the Rev. Mr. Clay, not
merely the  smallest proportion  of sick, but it also suffers  the
shortest average duration  of illness.  The annual mortality in the
Temperance Provident Society  (of London) during seven years,
has averaged only 4 in 1,000.  In agricultural laborers in  the
prime of life, the most highly favored of the working classes, it
is 8 per 1,000.  Among healthy persons, generally, it is rated at
10  per 1,000.   Among clerks, at the same age, it is no less than
23  per 1,000.
  It will  naturally  be asked whether  sanitary measures, which
are admitted  to be  both necessary and praiseworthy, for  pre-
venting the noxious effects  of bad  air  generated  by street and
household refuse and impurities, or by a neglect  of paving and
sewerage,  as well as for  arresting the  sale  of  tainted meat
and spoiled  provisions generally,  should not  also  be brought
to bear against the  abuse, if not the  use, of so active a poison
as  alcohol,  especially in its stronger  forms  of  combination.
In  some  countries  in Europe  the apothecary is forbidden  to
sell a  poison without  an express prescription  or order from  a
physician ;  and in  every country  he would be looked upon as
open to prosecution  if he passed across his counter a poison, with
a knowledge that the purchaser intended to make use of it at the
peril, if not the cost of his life.   Ought a man or a woman—for
the sex is not always ashamed to be seen engaged in such a call-
ing—behind a bar, be allowed privileges not granted to an educated
and careful  apothecary ?   But,  while we condemn the apothe-
cary for selling a small vial of laudanum, the contents of which,
if swallowed, cause  insensibility and other alarming symptoms,
if not death itself, we can not only tolerate, but give, as voters
and legislators and judges, our countenance to  the bar-tender,
whose customer is allowed to drink his  bottle  of distilled liquor
with a similar risk of being made—dead-drunk—insensible, and
sometimes ending his life  in this state of insensibility.  No terms

            1 Brit, and For. Med.-Chir.  Rev., vol. vii. p. 33. 
134
of censure and condemnation are thought to be too severe in  the
person who is administering, at stated intervals, a slow but cer-
tain poison, with intent to kill;  but men generally have little to
allege against the person who also administers, across his bar, a
certain poison, under the plea of his ignorance of, it may be his
indifference to, the  consequences.   The more violent and  acute
paroxysmal disturbances, induced by alcoholic drinks, sometimes
excite alarm,  but the popular mind  has not  attained to a full
knowledge of  the subject, as far as relates  to its  chemical and
physiological relations; and until it is enlightened on these points,
we must be slow to  censure those who still foster, directly or in-
directly, the  habit of intemperance, by refusing'to sanction, or
themselves to  set the example'of, the avoidance of a  practice
which so  soon and so often becomes a habit, and a dangerous
habit too.
  One important effect of alcoholic drinks, which pervades the
entire organism, while it seems at first confined to the function of
respiration, is  to diminish  the amount of carbonic acid eliminated
from  the  lungs and skin.   Valentin, Prout, Fyfe  and Vierordt
certify to  this fact.  Dr. E. Smith speaks of brandy  and beer
as greatly decreasing  the  respiration, and  the quantity of car-
bonic acid exhaled.   Dr.  Bocker  found, from his  experiments
on his own person,' that those beverages diminished by at least
one-fifth the amount of carbonic acid exhaled.   In 1854, Mr. W.
J. Cox, from whose paper1 we are now borrrowing, performed the
experiment of  collecting  the carbonic acid  evolved from the
lungs of two healthy individuals during one hour ; both  before
and after administering a dose of alcohol, in the shape of whiskey.
In the first case, the quantity of  gas  evolved previously to
taking the alcohol  was twelve  hundred cubic inches;  after it,
nine hundred  and fifty only.  In  the case  of  the other person,
the quantities  were  respectively  nine  hundred and  six hundred
and twenty cubic inches.  These facts show, continues Mr. Cox,
that the presence of alcohol in the circulating current is always
associated with a diminished  percentage of carbonic acid in the
air  expired, and in the exhalation from the  cutaneous surface.
The blood becomes  thereby loaded with effete  carbon.  An ana-
lysis was made by Mr. C.  in 1850  of  the blood of two delirium
tremens patients. Itwas, in both instances, attenuated and defi-
cient in plastic material; containing a great excess, or from six to
eight times more than common of fatty matters. Lecanu found in
one case of a sot the still  higher proportion of one hundred and
seventeen  parts in one thousand.  Now any agent which checks

24-?oidemiCS and their every~daF causess,  in Sanitary Review, vol. iv. p. 
185
the depuration of blood in the lungs, and retains in them the
effete products of the circulation, as is done in the case of the
blood of  a drunkard, must  be eminently  deleterious.  It yet
remains  to be  determined whether the blood of  a moderate
habitual  drinker is pro tanto in a  similar state.   Were we to
draw conclusions from the prompt effects in the experiments by
Mr. Cox, we should answer in the affirmative.   This writer has,
however  no hesitation in urging " the following fact which has re-
ceived overwhelming proof, that the least habitual excess beyond
a very moderate indulgence in  fermented  beverages lowers the
vital properties of  the blood; destroys the normal tone of the
nervous centres; and as a constant sequela most powerfully pre-
disposes  the frame  to the absorption of  epidemic virus of what-
ever kind.  Pure aerated blood affords the best safeguard against
the  attack of any epidemic.  But  the more perfect system of
house ventilation, cleanliness, &c, will fail  to secure this, if by
the constant imbibition of alcohol in excess, the functions of the
lungs and  skin  are  interfered with, their  healthy relations  de-    ,
stroyed,  and their waste products retained  within the current."
   We have the  encouraging reflection in nearly all the  efforts
and  plans of hygienic reform, that as one  evil often  gives
strength  to another, so  does the  abatement of one  evil  aid  in
bringing about a similar change in regard to another; and hence.
as  living in filth, breathing a close and impure  air, and wantof
nutritious food, and of adequate hours of sleep, predispose to in-
temperance in the.use  of alcoholic drinks, so will  cleanliness,
light, fresh air, proper food and diminished toil do much  to pre-
vent the habit being formed, or to cure it if it has been formed.
Judicious sanitary reform is therefore favorable to temperance, as
e converso, temperance is an indispensable auxiliary to sanitary
reform—if only by its inspiring the individuals who are to be its
subjects with  a desire, and, at the same time, the requisite bodily
vigor, to  engage in  industrial pursuits.  Everybody must, by this
time, be familiar with the fact of the pecuniary loss to his family
by the idleness of the inebriate, and the cost to the public treasury
for his ultimate  support in the last stage of destitution;  to pay
 nothing of the expense  of measures of  repression and punish-
 ment called for by the breaches of  peace and  crimes committed
 by the intemperate.

   Preventable Diseases and  Mortality.—Having exhibited
 one view of the importance of  sanitary measures for cities, viz.,
 that arising from the attention at all times  given to them as a  ne-
 cessary  condition for growth and prosperity, and the punishment
 in various  ways and often on a large scale when the subject has
 been neglected, we shall next take a more pleasing and encou- 
136
raging one, and which contrasts  strongly with  the  first.  But
before noticing some of the beneficial changes in the physical
well-being and comfort, and even an improved moral tone, which
have  resulted  from sanitary reform, we have  yet to say some-
thing on  losses of life and  money incurred,  in many places, by
the persistence  in  old abuses, owing more to  ignorance of hy-
gienic laws, than to purposed wrong-doing or want of humanity.
  Dr. Lyon Playfair, taking the single county of Lancashire in
England, which includes indeed the large cities of Liverpool and
Manchester, in  its bounds,  showed some years ago  by tabular
statements, that there are every year  in  Lancashire, 14,000
deaths, and 398,000 cases of sickness which might be prevented,
and that  11,000 of the deaths consist of adults engaged in pro-
ductive labor.   They farther  show,  continues Dr. Playfair, that
every individual in  Lancashire  lives 19 years, or only one-half
of the proper term of his life, and  that  every adult loses more
than ten  years of life, and from premature old age and sickness
much more than that period of working ability.  Without taking
into consideration the diminution of the  physical and  moral en-
ergies of  the survivors from  sickness and other depressing causes,
without estimating the losses from the substitution of young and
inexperienced labor for  that  which is  skilful  and  productive;
without including the heavy burdens incident to the large amount
of preventable widowhood and orphanage; calculating the loss
from the  excess of births resulting from  the excess of  deaths, or
the cost  of the maintenance of an infantile population,  nearly
one-half of which is swept off before it attains two years of age,
and about 59 per cent, of which never become  adult  productive
laborers ; and  with data in every case much  below  the truth,
Dr. Playfair estimates the actual pecuniary burdens borne by the
community in  the support of removable disease  and death  in
Lancashire alone, at the annual  sum of  five millions of pounds
sterling—twenty-five millions of dollars.   He would draw atten-
tion to the columns respecting the number of preventable cases
of death  and sickness in Liverpool and  Manchester, or in any
other of  the large  towns, to show the immense  amount of money
which might be saved by proper sanitary arrangements.
  Another view  of the  subject  of preventable diseases  and
rleaths is presented in the following  guise: Taking the least un-
favorable sanitary  conditions  of  a certain  number of  people
living in  sixty-four districts, in various  parts  of England, as  a
standard, we may call the difference between this and the gen-
eral mortality as preventable, and make our estimates accordingly.
The  people now referred to dwell in sixty-four districts, extend-
ing over  4,797,315  square  miles,  and their  number  at the last
census was 973,070, or  nearly a  million of souls.    Although 
187
 living undoubtedly under  many favorable  sanitary  conditions,
 yet investigations will lead to the detection of many sources of
 insalubrity, such as small, close, and crowded bed-rooms, and a
 neglect of cleanliness of person, and in the surroundings.   And
 yet after all " the annual mortality per 1,000 of this million of
 men, women and children, year after year,  does not  exceed 17.
 Is it not  evident, that under more favorable auspices the death-
 rate would be still lighter ?  Under such sanitary conditions as
 are known, and with all the appliances existing, can  we not
 imagine a, community living a healthier life than those  isolated
 people?"1 Setting out, however, from this standard, we  are safe
 in affirming  that  deaths in a people exceeding  17 in 1,000 an-
 nually are unnatural deaths.   "If the people were shot, drowned,
 burnt, poisoned by strychnine, their deaths would  not be more
 unnatural than the deaths wrought clandestinely by disease in
 excess  of the quota of natural  death ; that  is,  an excess  of
 seventeen deaths in 1,000 living."
   It may be alleged that an excess of deaths over the  standard is
 inevitably in large  cities, but, as justly remarked by the Review,
 whose train of argument we are now following, we lack the mea-
 sure line between  the  attainable and the inevitable  loss.   "In
 London, during the sixteenth century, the population lived about
 twenty years on an average, and 50 died out of 1000 living ;  con-
 sequently the excess over 17 was 33.   That this excess  was not
 inevitable is now demonstrated, for, with a great  increase  in num-
 ber, the population now lives about 37 years, and the mortality
 has fallen to 25 in 1000.  Is the  excess of 8 deaths a year among
 every 1000 living  inevitable ?   This cannot  be admitted  for a
 moment, if we regard only the imperfect state of the sanitary ar-
 rangements which the public authorities of  London have within
 their power.  Nor can it be admitted that the excess of 5 deaths
 —or 22 deaths instead of 17—a year on every thousand living is
 inevitable in England and Wales, with  evidence before our eyes
 of the same violations of nature in every district."  Of the 420,019
 persons who died in England in 1857, about 328,163 would have
 died had the mortality not exceeded the standard of 17 deaths in
 1000 living.   Of the difference, 91,856, or what may be called
 the unnatural deaths, 18,328 happened  in the country, or in the
 village districts, and 73,528 in the town districts. To  extend the
 argument. Within the shores of the islands of Great Britain and
 Ireland dwell nearly eight millions of  people who  "do not live
out half their days ; a hundred and forty thousand of them die
 every year unnatural deaths; two hundred and eighty thousand
are constantly suffering  from  actual diseases which do not pre-
1 Sanitary Review, vol. iv. pp. 87-8. 
138
vail in healthy places; their  strength is impaired in a thousand
ways ; their affections and intellects are .disturbed, deranged, and
diminished by the same agencies."
  Dr. Hutchinson sums up the loss to the  city of London, grow-
ing out of the preventable deaths, 10,000 in number, and of the
preventable cases of sickness, 20,000 in number annually, to be,
for  funerals,  medical attendance, loss of wages, and expense of
widows and orphans, £500,000, or §2,500,000.  In addition to
this, he estimates the loss to the community at £1,000,000, or
$5,000,000.  He charges to the same account the sums that might
be saved  by the consolidation of existing boards and companies,
improved water supply, suppression of smoke nuisance, and reve-
nue from sewer-water, amounting to more than another million
of pounds, or five millions of dollars.  This gives a sum of nearly
three millions of pounds, or  fifteen  millions of dollars, lost by
preventable disease and  death, and otherwise bad sanitary eco-
nomy, to the city of London.  Mr.  Banfield's estimate of loss
to the United Kingdom, from these causes, amounts to fifty-five
millions of pounds, or two hundred and seventy-five millions of
dollars, per annum.
  In the  single State of Massachusetts an  estimate exhibits an
annual loss to the commonwealth of $62,000,000 to $93,000,000
by the premature death of persons over 15 years of age.
  Of the preventable mortality a large proportion  occurs in the
early or infantile period.  Parents, on the spot, would be startled
at the announcement that the probabilities are against their child
reaching  its second year;  and yet in Manchester, Mr. Roberton
assures us,  in his account of  the  statistics of mortality in  that
town, that for every 100 infants born (in the township), upwards
of 33 males and 26 females die within the year;  whereas in Dor-
setshire the proportions are less than half these  numbers.  For
the next period  of life (frOm one to two years)  the percentage
of male deaths is 18, and  of female deaths upwards of 16 ;  but
in Dorsetshire the  proportions are less than one-fourth of this
amount.
  InLiverpool, the  low sanitary state of which has been already
mentioned, the  proportion of deaths  to the whole  population is
as low as 1 in 28.75, and the average duration of life is only 20
years. ^  Some have  thought  that the large emigrant floating
population'of Liverpool, chiefly Irish, contributed  much  to the
increased mortality and low average of life in that city ; but this
is a fallacy,  exposed by  Dr.  Playfair, who shows  that in  both
these particulars they have  greatly the advantage of  the fixed
resident  population.
  Not only is the mortality greatly increased by the preventable
causes of disease, but the physical vigor of the survivors is dimi- 
139
nished by the same causes.  The recruiting officers in the county
of Lancaster, which used to furnish the best soldiers in the coun-
try, complained to Dr. Playfair  that the sons are less tall than
the fathers, and that the difficulty is constantly increasing of ob-
taining tall and able-bodied men.
   Diseases  of the respiratory organs, including  phthisis, exist,
according  to Dr. Playfair, in the great  manufacturing districts
of Lancaster and Cheshire, to a greater extent than in any other
part of the kingdom.
   It  has  been estimated that the mortality among the poorer
classes in England might be reduced 20 per cent, by means within
administrative control, to say nothing of  the abatement or remo-
val of other causes depending on their personal habits, which are
intimately associated with those of the first-mentioned class.
   In  the town of Preston, we learn, from  the full and exceedingly
interesting report of the Rev. J. Clay, that, while the deaths in
the whole town are 1 in every 29 persons, yet in streets which are
described by him, where there is a neglect of sanitary measures,
and the inhabitants of which  are  equally negligent, the propor-
tion is 1 death in every 19 persons.
   The large proportion of infant mortality in Preston, among
the working classes—those least favored  on the score of sanitary
protection—is an  evident melancholy fact, bearing on the same
argument.  With the gentry the loss is only 17-J per cent, of in-
fant life (children  under five years of age), while  the operatives'
loss is 55.5 per  cent.  For the whole of  England and Wales the
percentage of deaths is 39.1.
   The average age of deaths, including children,  of the different
classes in  Preston, is  still further confirmatory of the position
laid down.  For "gentlemen," it is 47 years ; for "tradesmen,"
32 years;  and for "laborers," 18 years.
   In  our own country the subject of infant  mortality is one of
the highest interest, especially in  towns.  We would again refer
to a valuable paper on this very important subject, by Dr. D. M.
Reese.
   Under the operation of improved sanitary measures in the city
of New York, the Committee  of Investigation believe  that the
amount of thirteen millions of dollars, the estimated cost of avoid-
able  sickness  and death, and the unnecessary loss of five thou-
sand  lives per annum, might  be  prevented, with an effect upon
the happiness and morals of the people which  can neither be
reckoned in figures nor expressed in words.
   The deaths from pulmonary consumption in England and Wales
are represented to amount annually to 36,000, of which one-half
are said to occur in London.  Dr. Guy attributes the great mor-
tality from  this disease to be  owing to "defective ventilation of 
140
houses, shops, and  places of work.   Next to this, in point of
importance, is the inhalation of dust, metallic particles, and irri-
tating fumes.   One cause, over which the  poor themselves can
exercise control, is the abuse of spirituous liquors, a very fright-
ful source  of consumption."   The  death rates of consumption
are susceptible of being much  diminished.
   Mention was made, under the head of Ventilation, of  the suf-
ferings, from neglect of this matter, incurred  by tailors.  The
economy of a better sanitary system with  them is  set forth as
follows:  "If the employers and the men had been aware of the
effects of vitiated atmosphere  on the constitution and  general
strength, and of the means of ventilation,  the  practicable  gain
of money from the gain of labor by that sanitary  measure could
not have been  less, in one large shop, employing two hundred
men, than £100,000 ($500,000).   Independently of subscription
of the whole trade, it would diminish their working period of life,
and have been  sufficient, with the enjoyment of  greater health
and comfort by every workman during the time  of work, to have
purchased for him an annuity  of £1 ($5) per week for his com-
fortable and respectable self-support during a  period of super-
annuation,  commencing soon after fifty years of age."
   When speaking of the greatly increased cost  of sewers, owing
to defective arrangements in their first construction, the  amount
lost in this way should be put under the  head of money that
might have been saved by judicious sanitary measures.
   When comparing  the mortality of the town of Salford, in which
thirty-one persons per thousand die annually, and of Manchester,
which is still greater, with the neighboring town of Broughton,
where only  fourteen persons in  a  thousand  die annually, Mr.
Chadwick enters into some instructive calculations,  which go to
show that there are  700 deaths annually from preventable causes
alone; hence to remove these causes might insure an annual
saving of a  sum of money exceeding £40,000, or $200,000.   To
effect  this saving, the  main  thing  required is that the working
classes should understand what are the sanitary requirements to
secure health and comfort to their homes. The above sum is based
on the estimate that  there are twenty-five cases (Dr. Playfair says
28) of illness, on an average, to one death.   Each death costs,
on an average, £60, or $300, including funeral expenses, medi-
cal attendance, loss of labor, and the like.  The  reference to the
necessity of awakening the intelligence of the working classes to
a correct view of preventive hygiene reminds us  of the advice so
forcibly expressed by Dr. Kissam,  as to  the means  of abating
the evils of poverty, so as to  reduce the mortality among the
inhabitants  of certain districts in  the city of New  York.  Dr.
Kissam says, with much force :  "The poor must have good dwell- 
HI
ings to live in, and they must have medical missionaries to teach
them how  to live.   They are taught upon  almost every other
subject than about how to live.   They do  not know how to cook
their food ; they do not  know that they are poisoned when four
or five of them sleep in a room without ventilation."

   Sanitary  Improvements.—The importance and economy of
sanitary measures for cities are evinced in the great benefits de-
rived from sanitary improvements.  Hamburg suffered severely
from the cholera in 1832.  In 1842 occurred a grievous calamity,
as it was thought at the time, in a fire which destroyed nearly a
third of the city.  The rebuilt portion shows that in it due atten-
tion has been paid to  drainage and other requirements;  and the
effect was tested  in its  having enjoyed an exemption from the
cholera  of 1848,  alike  remarkable and  important.   A com-
parison of the state of the poor living in the rebuilt parts of the
town with  those living  in the old parts showed that not more
than one of the former had  been attacked with cholera for ten
of the latter.  Exeter,  in England, affords another remarkable
illustration of the benefit obtained by the  adoption of improved
hygienic measures.   These  consisted in  improved drainage, an
ample supply of good water in every part, pulling down of old
houses, the removal of nuisances, and greater general attention
to the sanitary condition of the poor.   In 1832, before  these
reforms were even thought of, the deaths from cholera were 402,
and a vast amount  of suffering, as well as heavy expenditures,
inflicted on the town.  In 1849 not more than ninety-nine cases
in all occurred  in Exeter, and one-half of these took place in the
single parish of St. Edmund, in a low, unwholesome district, near
the accumulations of  a  main drain from  the city, immersed in
putrid exhalations.   A still more instructive example is afforded
by Nottingham.  Upwards of 1000  cases of cholera, of which
nearly 500 were fatal, occurred  there in  1832.   At that time
Nottingham, like Exeter, was badly supplied with water, besides
its being ill drained, extremely filthy, and very densely populated.
The ravages of the pestilence were confined, in a great measure,
to the worst localities, the higher and better-conditioned district
escaping almost entirely.  Since then very much has been done
for the improvement of  the town.  It now enjoys an almost un-
limited  supply  of wholesome filtered water.  Nuisances were
removed, and the condition  of  the  dwellings of the poor im-
proved.  The result was that in the autumn of 1848, although a
filthy village within five  miles of Nottingham was severely at-
tacked, yet the town remained entirely exempt, nor did a single
case occur there until December in the following year, although
there had been  much diarrhoea during the  season—a clear  proof 
142
that the epidemic influence  had been felt—when five fatal cases
occurred.  In the same line of encouraging results from increased
attention to hygienic reforms occurs the example of Tynemouth,
eight miles below Newcastle and Gateshead, in the north of Eng-
land   This  town, like the last two mentioned, suffered severely
from cholera in 1848-49, losing  463  out of its  population of
64,248. Warned by this, active sanitary measures were adopted,
and when  in 1852 cholera was again  epidemic, those exertions
were redoubled; and, as a consequence, 1852 saw Newcastle  and
Gateshead suffering " from the most terrible  outbreak of cholera
yet experienced in England, whilst Tynemouth, only  eight miles
lower down  the river,  was exempt, although numerous cases of
diarrhoea plainly showed  that over it the choleraic influence ex-
tended, but found no congenial soil.   Evidence to the same pur-
port was furnished in different cities of the United States during
the cholera  outbreak of  1849; as, for instance, in Boston  and
Philadelphia—although the sanitary measures adopted  did  not
imply organic changes, but were mainly confined to the removal
or abatement of certain nuisances, domestic and otherwise,  and
cleansing  streets, &c.
   As justly remarked  by the British and Foreign Medico-Chi-
rurgical  Review,1 to which we are  continually indebted for so
much in all that relates to British sanitary progress  : "But far
more gratifying, in every point of view, is the clear testimony
which the late epidemic afforded of  the strikingly beneficial re-
sults of substantial structural improvements in averting the fatal
effects of  choleraic disease.   From a large mass of evidence we
select the following facts as  illustrative of this most important
subject:  The three model lodging-houses in the metropolis—two
of them  situated in a most unhealthy  district, and where there
were  numerous fatal  cases  around—escaped  almost entirely.
There were a few cases of diarrhoea among the inmates (210 in
number), and only one case of cholera, which occurred in an old
man, intemperate and ill-fed.  The complete immunity of the
' Metropolitan  Buildings' in  Old  Pancras Road, containing up-
wards of 500  inmates, was equally striking, although within a
few hundred yards the epidemic was so severe that three deaths
occurred in one house, and the whole neighborhood was  severely
afflicted with diarrhoea.  Of the  metropolitan prisons, two suf-
fered severely, while the seven others  remained nearly exempt.
In the model prison, at Pentonville, whose sanitary arrangements
are good, there was no cholera, and very little diarrhoea, among
465 inmates.  Giltspur and Newgate prisons enjoyed, the former
a complete, and the latter an all but complete, exemption, al-
1 Vol. vii. pp. 36-37. 
143
though the district around  suffered with  extraordinary severity.
The case  of the  House  of Correction, in Cold Bath Fields, is,
perhaps, the most instructive of all.  In  1832, when the number
of the prisoners was  1148,  there occurred 319 cases of diarrhoea,
207 of cholera, and 45 deaths.  At that time the drainage of the
prison was most faulty, the sewers having in places fallen in and
become choked with  soil.   Subsequently the whole sewerage was
rebuilt, and on examination previous to  the late epidemic it was
found  to  be in good order.  The ventilation, also, of the cells
had been improved,  and a small open fire was placed in each of
the day-rooms.   Out of 1100  prisoners there was not a single
instance of cholera, and only  a few cases of diarrhoea, which
speedily yielded to prompt treatment.  Bridewell prison afforded
equally satisfactory results. In 1832 it was in a most filthy state,
and the prisoners were much crowded.   Sixteen cases, four fatal,
occurred  in  the  epidemic  of that year.  The sanitary arrange-
ments of  the prison have  since that period been rectified ;  and
while the pestilence  raged on all sides  of it, in houses  separated
only  by a narrow wall, no case of  cholera took  place, though
fresh prisoners of the very lowest class were daily brought  in.
There was only one  case of the malignant  form  of the  disease
in  Horsemonger  Lane jail, which is situated in a district that
suffered  most  severely.   The  two public  metropolitan lunatic
asylums of Bethlehem and Hanwell escaped without loss of life,
although  cholera prevailed extensively and severely within a
hundred yards of the former,  and the latter was visited with a
rather sharp attack of diarrhoea, showing clearly  that the mor-
bific influence was  there."  To these  remarkable  proofs  of the
exemption from a fatal epidemic  enjoyed by good internal hy-
gienic arrangement we may add the  case of the jail at Taunton,
a town with a population of 16,000, during the prevalence of the
cholera in 1849.  Not a solitary case even of diarrhoea occurred
among the prisoners in the jail; which  offers a remarkable con-
trast with the state of things at that  period in the workhouse,
the inmates of which lost  by death from cholera 22 per cent, of
their number,  or 60 out of 276.  This last building was low,
badly drained, and most imperfectly ventilated;  there were nu-
merous nuisances within the walls;  the people  had insufficient
space  allowed them, and  personal  cleanliness was very much
neglected.   The  space allowed for  each inmate was  not above
two-thirds of what was  requisite  for safety.  The stress  of the
attack was in the girls' school-room, in which the greatest degree
of  overcrowding  existed.   The prisoners in the jail were much
better cared for than the poor  inmates of the Union Workhouse.
Each cell contained from  800 to 900 feet  and  upwards of air,
besides being systematically ventilated and warmed, to maintain 
144
an even temperature throughout the twenty-four  hours.   More-
over, each  prisoner had  the means of personal cleanliness, and
attention to this was strictly enforced  throughout the building.
The result was that the health of the prisoners remained through-
out perfectly good.
  A similar exemption from cholera in 1849 was enjoyed by the
Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

  Pulmonary and Cutaneous Purification.—The consenta-
neous,  and in a measure identical action of the lungs and  skin,
is not as generally known or attended  to as is demanded by the
interests of both public and personal  hygiene.  The lungs  and
the skin are both of them engaged in the same offices, viz., 1, to
evolve  gaseous and animal matters, the retention of which would
be injurious to the organism; and, 2, to introduce into the blood
the vitalizing element, or the oxygen of the atmosphere, and hence
both organs, the pulmonary and the cutaneous, require a supply
of fresh air.  Both of them require also the additional purifying
aid of water.   The lungs receive their share in the shape of ordi-
nary atmospheric moisture, and how they rejoice in this is seen
in the  rosy cheeks, implying active pulmonary circulation  and
respiration, of the inhabitants of the moist climates of England
and Holland.  The skin receives its share more commonly in the
shape of water, directly applied to its surface, as in the process
of ordinary ablution, and of bathing; sometimes, and in some
countries, on a large scale by vapor baths.  Both the lungs and
the skin exact as a condition for the healthy discharge of their
functions, that they shall have  their air bath for  transpiration,
and their water bath either as simple aqueous fluid or as vapor,
to deterge  the respiratory and cutaneous surfaces, and to enable
them to cast off, in the first case mucus, and  in the second, the
perspirable and  oily matters.   Cleanliness, in its  true compre-
hensive meaning, cannot be carried out so as to meet the wants of
the animal economy, unless these requirements are met.  Our
senses  revolt at the mere  offer of dirty water for drink;  but
nature  displays equal repugnance when dirty, that is, impure air
is offered for breathing  ; and no less injustice is done to the lungs
by the  inhalation of foul air, in which are floating at the same
time  particles  of fine dust, rising from different  substances in
manufacture, than would be to the skin, if first ditch or gutter
water and then sand and dirt were sprinkled over it.  The very
idea of swallowing or even tasting the fluid  substances ejected
as excreta  or thrown off by disease from the body of  another
person, or  even from our own, is abhorrent to all, and yet how
few scruple about receiving into their  lungs, by respiration, the
impure exhalations  from the lung3 of  everybody in the same 
145
room with themselves.  But they are doing  more at this dime :
they are inhaling not only the foul  air which escapes fp6m  the
lungs, but  also  that  and the kindred cutaneous emanations of
all those present on such an occasion.             /
  We make these  remarks  as introductory to, aha with a view
of enforcing  not  merely  the  desirableness on  the score  of
pleasurable  bodily  sensations, but also the necessity on ,that of
health, of out door exercise in a  fresh  and pure  air, and of
regular  bathing in pure water, whether it  be  fresh  or  saline.
Attention to these  things is a duty which  every individual owes
to him or to herself, but unless it be regarded at  the same time as
part of public hygiene, and carried into effect by proper sanitary
measures, the inhabitants of cities cannot meet the requirements
of the case, and must suffer if they are not aided  by judicious
municipal legislation.  The  opportunities afforded for ventilation
are availed of to a certain and too often to a very limited extent
in the house;  they  are more effective in the street; but they  can
only be  said  to have received their full, or in a measure their
satisfactory development in public gardens, squares and parks, in
which the delicate and the valetudinarian adults more especially,
and  all those  of tender age, may find compensation  for their in-
ability to visit  the suburbs  or surburban districts to  breathe
fresh air, and to be  enlivened by the sight of  herbage, flowers
and  trees in their habitual and ever pleasing livery.   These  ad-
vantages  are  all easily attained in the spots of  the  kind just
designated, which on this account can never be too highly prized,
nor too greatly multiplied.  But there is yet another and a laro-e
class, namely: the  artisans and mechanics, whose engagements
are such as  to keep them within the narrowest city limits,  and
who, fatigued and jaded with their prolonged toil, are prompted
to fly for present excitement and relief to the drinking shop, or
tavern, in place of drawing on the stimulants which nature affords
in the cordial  of a full measure of oxygen of the  pure air of these
open and planted places, added to  the grateful excitement of the
senses in admiring the grass-plots, and the rich parterres, with
their  shrubs and flowers, while seated under the shade of  the
spread trees, and refreshed by listening to the falling water of a
fountain, and  watching  its feathery spray.   It is in such places
that town rivals the country, and that nature and art join toge-
ther to promote the public health  and incite to  innocent gayety
and enjoyment.
  Gymnasia and Museums.—But something more is required
for the youth  and the industrious  mechanics and working men
generally, of  a city, than space for walking for themselves and
their  families,  important  as this  confessedly  is.  Grounds
       10 
146
ought to be set apart for gymnastic exercises and various manly
sports, under the supervision of competent instructors.
  Connected  with these grounds there might  be instituted mu-
seums of natural history, models  of machinery, and even speci-
mens of  the fine arts ;  thus  creating  in the  minds of all who
would visit these places, associations of the most pleasing and
instructive kind.   If  we suggest these things as measures  of
health, others might strengthen  our suggestion by urging them
as an affair of morals.
  Until within  the last few years, it was thought that there was
something in  the Anglo-Saxon disposition and character which
unfitted the people of Great Britain and the United  States from
a due appreciation of the benefits and pleasures of public walks
and gardens, and of museums and galleries of art, and that if these
places were thrown open to the public, they would be injured, if
not destroyed, by the Vandal multitude.  Trials made on a large
scale, as for instance by throwing open the British  Museum, in
London, and the grounds and the palace, including the collection
of paintings at Hampton Court, to the public of all classes, have
dispelled this notion.  The following carries with it instruction.
On  the occasion of  a projected chartist meeting at Manchester,
which greatly alarmed the municipal magistrates, Sir Charles
Shaw, the Chief Commissioner of Police, induced the  Mayor to
get the Botanical Garden, the  Zoological Garden, and  the Mu-
seum of that  town thrown open  to the public.   The  effect was,
that not more  than 200  or 300 attended  the  political meeting,
which entirely failed; and scarcely a dollar's  worth of damage
was  done to  the gardens or  to  the public institutions by  the
working people, who were pleased with their share of the enter-
tainment.  A farther effect produced, was, that the charges be-
fore the police,  of  drunkenness and riot, were on that day less
than the average of that on ordinary days.
  As relates to cutaneous purification, personal cleanliness ought
to be regarded in the light of a sanitary measure  of the  first
importance, and to come within the category of the cleansing of
streets and houses.  It does not engage attention to the extent
that its importance demands, whether we look  to health or com-
fort. The neglect of cleanliness by the colliers of Lancashire, as
recorded by Mr. Chadwick in his Report, is, we fear, not without
a parallel, either among the same classes  elsewhere, or among
many others in  better circumstances, but whose skin does -not tell
the tale to the eye so forcibly  as if it were blackened  by coal-
dust.  Neither  the men nor the girls employed in the coal-mines
ever washed their bodies.   " Their legs and their bodies, said a
witness, are as black as your hat."  One laborer remembered that
a particular event took place, because it was then he washed his 
147
feet.  The effects of these habits are seen in the workhouse, in
almost every pauper  admitted.   When it is necessary to wash
them on their admission, they usually manifest  an extreme re-
luctance to the process.  Their  common feeling was expressed
by one of them, when he declared it  "equal  to robbing him of a
great-coat which he had had for many years."
  How many of those who walk our streets, in gay attire, too,
wear a garment of this kind over their skins ?  If the external
surface of insects be  covered with oil, so as to stop up their
spiracles,  and the skin of animals of a higher grade be covered
by a layer of some impermeable substance, death results.  It
needs little physiological knowledge to make us aware  of the
injury done to the functions of a human body, by the skin being
coated for years with the secreted, oily, and perspirable matter.
The lungs, to which the skin is auxiliary,  must be overtasked in
consequence, and rendered more liable to  disease.  That dis-
tressing and too often unmanageable affection, albuminuria, or
Bright's disease, is not unfrequently traceable to the imperfect
performance of the functions of the skin.
   " It might savor of caricature," says Mr. Martin,  one of the
Commissioners on the Health of  Towns, &c, " were  it asserted
that in regard  to the laboring poor, it is only when the infant
enters upon  breathing existence, and when  the man  has ceased
to breathe, at the minute of birth, and at the hour of death, that
he is really washed ;  yet such a statement would not be so far
removed from the truth as it may at  first appear.  To the great
mass of the people, and from dawn to the  term of life, the bath,
as an article of comfort,  luxury, and  health, is  hardly known,
even in name.   In the chief cities of the United States a better,
and in some of them an abundant supply of water, allows of the
inhabitants having bath-rooms in their houses, for the purpose
of cold-bathing; and  within these few years past the increase of
kitchen ranges and boilers attached,  allows of the use of a warm-
bath.   But the multitude, the masses of our population, both in
town and  country, are still wanting in these  means of promoting
health and  enjoyment, and we have ample  cause for imitating,
by our own municipal governments, those  local ones in England,
which, aided by the benevolence of individuals, have set about
the erection of public baths.  These, if not actually allowed  to
be used by all applicants gratuitously, are  accessible on the pay-
ment of a very small  sum.
   As yet the people  of Christendom  are behind the ancients,
particularly the Romans, and even the semi-civilized inhabitants
of different countries at the present time, in the general resort to
the bath,  and the readiness of access to this comfort and solace
by the people at large.  Your reporter would venture to refer to 
148
a work of his (on Baths and the Watery Regimen) for a variety
of details on the subject of bathing, as a part of public hygiene.
Warm as well as cold water should be introduced into all bath-
houses, both for the purpose of more complete ablution and de-
tersion of the skin of all adhering impurities, and on account of
the differences in individual sensibility and vigor of frame, either
constant  or connected with temporary indisposition and weak-
ness, short of actual disease.   Warm baths might be supplied to
the working  classes,  Mr. Hawkesby thinks, at the low rate of
about six cents each, if taken by 200 or 300  daily.  By Sir
Henry Dunkerfield's Act, the Parliamentary standard  charge
for a warm-bath is fixed at two pence (four  cents),  and when
the bathers are in  reasonable  numbers, this sum is represented
to be quite sufficient to give a profit beyond  expenses.   Dr.
Reid, in his report to the Commissioners, in which he describes
the means of ventilating different kinds of buildings, mentions
the advantage  of  a  limited supply  of  water being procured,
"during the progress of the steam-bath, rendering cleansing and
the use  of  the flesh-brush much  more convenient than in the
ordinary  water or vapor baths."
   It has  been calculated that  the  waste water  of a steam-engine
of 500 horse  power would, at  an average temperature of 70° to
75° F., suffice to bathe  26,000 persons.   A  new source of an
abundant supply of water, of a somewhat elevated temperature,
adapted to personal and domestic wants, has been opened of late
years in Artesian  wells.  The most remarkable of these is the
one at Grenelle, near Paris, which, from a  depth of nearly 2000
feet, sends up a volume of water equal to 132,000 gallons every
twenty-four hours, at a temperature of 82° F.   Its softness and
temperature adapt it admirably to the purposes of a bath ai.d of
washing clothes, for both of which it is largely used.
   Public Wash-Houses.— One of the marked improvements in
public hygiene of late years, and  which bears evidence that the
spirit of  philanthropy is abroad and active, is the establishment
of Public Wash-Houses, to which women  of the poorer  classes
can go and  have  the use of  rooms and all the appliances for
washing and  drying their clothes and those of their families, on
the payment of a very small  sum.   The  trials so far made in
England and different cities of this country have been quite suc-
cessful, and promotive of much good and comfort to the parties
for whom these houses are opened.  Incidental but very decided
benefit to the women who make  use of the conveniences  thus
offered, is enjoyed in the avoidance of the dirt  and  litter, and
confusion and disturbance to the whole family on a washing day,
in the small and confined rooms of the poor.
   An improvement, or rather an exceedingly useful addition, has 
149
been made to the original plan, by the  procuring of large, airy
rooms in which the infant children of the wash-women who come
to wa-di their clothes, stay, and are watched and nursed  by a
person employed for the purpose.  And yet a step farther in the
way of  present as well as future good to these juveniles — it is
teaching them the simple elements of learning and morality.
   Nuisances.—A few words may be said on the present occasion
in regard to nuisances, a term  which in the minds of many has
an entirely too limited meaning for the cause of public health,
while, on the other hand, some of  the more  sensitive and exact-
ing would extend the list to an  almost indefinite extent.   Under
the general head of Nuisances  are included special obstructions
to the  public health, such as accumulations of dung and offal,
pig-sties, open privies, obstructed  drains, pools of stagnant wa-
ter, noxious smoke and other matters coming  from manufacto-
ries, and especially the  animal refuse invariably found in the
vicinity of slaughter-houses, all of  which act with so much power
in the midst of a dense  population.  By  an Act of Parliament
passed some }~ears ago, aggrieved parties can, by an easy course,
procure  a removal of evils,  when duly specified.  The Nuisance
Removal and Disease Prevention Act, passed in 1848, with the
Amended Statute  enacted the following year, are great steps in
the way of sanitary reform.  They constitute, together with the
Public Health  Act and the Interment Act,  a good beginning in
a  course of wise  sanitary  legislation, which has already  done
much toward an amelioration of the great and many abuses by
which the public health had suffered so much.

   French  sanitary legislation  is more precise, and at the  same
time, comprehensive, on  the subject of nuisances.   It distributes
into three classes  all establishments which  are  adverse to the
comfort, health and safety  of the inhabitants; and it describes
in what  manner each is unhealthy  and annoying.
   Establishments  of the  first  class cannot be allowed in the
vicinity  of private dwellings, and their erection is only permitted
by a decree of the sovereign council.  To this category  belong
the manufacture of sulphuric,  hydrochloric and nitric acids, as
well as  that of various chemical products, melting establishments
of fat  on  open fire, workshops for the preparation of taffety,
lee ther,  and varnished tissues, also of knackers, tripe-men, and
cat-gut manufacturers, and of those in which are prepared animal
black, glue, Prussian blue, blood-manure,  aiselle (a kind of dye),
and starch, factories of fire-works, lucifer  matches  and  fulmi-
nating compounds.  The reasons  for placing these together, as
the most dangerous class, are  vitiation of the  air by the  disen-
gagement  of emanations inimical to health,  the risk of fire, and 
150
the intolerable odors which they emit.   Hence if allowed at all,
it is only within a radius of three  thousand feet, after long and
multiplied formalities, which want of time prevents from intro-
ducing in this place.
  The second class  of establishments of the manufacturing kind
include those the removal of which from an inhabited district is
not absolutely necessary, but which it is fit should only be per-
mitted after a suitable inquiry  to  show that they are not nui-
sances.  To this category belong lime or plaster kilns, when they
are in constant operation, high-pressure steam engines, gas works,
currieries,  tanneries, hat factories, foundries, manufactories  of
sulphate of iron and zinc, of sulphate of soda  in close  vessels,
phosphorus, imitation jewelry, bituminous matter, chandleries  of
tallow and of stearine, and workshops for the scraping and clean-
ing of  copper vessels.
  None of  these can be  called actually unhealthy to  those  in
their vicinity, but many  of  them are disagreeable and seriously
annoy others by their smoke, their noise, the danger of fire,  or
by their offensive smell.
  The third class comprises all  those establishments which may
be in operation in the vicinity of dwelling houses without incon-
venience, but which must nevertheless  be  submitted to the in-
spection of the Prefect of the Department for his authorization.
They are, lime  and  plaster  kilns,  used  not more than a month
in the year, brick-yards,  potteries  and tile works, manufactories
of gelatine and isinglass, crucible  foundries, dye works,  &c.
  There is  nothing  absolute in this classification, inasmuch  as
that a particular manufactory, the  processes of which  are im-
proved, may pass from one category to another.
  Considering the excessive annoyances from the smoke, espe-
cially from the  burning of bituminous coal, in large cities, such
as London, and some of our own on this side of  the Atlantic,  it
becomes a measure of the first importance, as a question  of pub-
lic health, connected with its effects on the lungs, by its being
constantly  breathed, and on the  skin,  in relation  to personal
cleanliness, and to  the interiors of houses, on- the score of do-
mestic cleanliness, to discover  the means by which the evil can
be materially abated, if not entirely neutralized.  Experiments
withmore or less success have been made with this view, the
precise results of which,  or  their relative value,  need not be in-
troduced here.   Too much importance has been attached to the
mere effect of lofty chimneys in removing to a distance  and di-
luting  the  heavy smoke  and noxious fumes which are evolved
from many manufactories.  In themselves  they in no way de-
stroy the emanations which  are conveyed into them; these are
discharged  as much as before into the external atmosphere; and 
151
experience has proved that even very lofty chimneys, on which
large sums have  been expended, do not necessarily insure that
amount of admixture with the common air which is essential to
prevent the most injurious consequences  of their deposit,  even
at very considerable distances.   The extent to which nauseous,
acrid, and other noxious fumes from manufactories often destro}7
the atmosphere of numerous dwellings, and sometimes of whole
streets, is abundantly explained  in the reports of the  Commis-
sioners.
   Among the most grievous nuisances to which many neighbor-
hoods have been  subjected in London and  other large towns, is
burial  grounds not  adequate for complete sepulture.  Indeed
the practice of intra-mural interment, that is, of burial of the
dead in a densely populated part of a city, must altogether be
regarded  in the light of a nuisance.  It is not necessary to en-
large on this subject, as it has been made one of separate  inves-
tigation by your reporter, and as such it  is now offered to the
Convention as the completion of his labors at this time.
                INTERMENTS IN CITIES.

  There yet remains one important branch of sanitary reform,
bearing on the  public health, to which your attention  has not
been directed. It is interments of the dead in city limits. Turn-
ing to present account the materials which, as chairman of a
committee appointed, for the purpose, by the Philadelphia County
Medical Society, your reporter collected and presented to that
body, he now offers this document, with some additions,  as a con-
tribution, on the part  of the Committee on the Internal Hygiene
of Cities, to the Quarantine and Sanitary Convention.
  The practice of intra-mural interments, or of those within the
limits of a city or town, and especially in those parts  of it  in
which people are congregated in numbers for fixed  habitation, is
always dangerous to the public health. It has caused, in numer-
ous instances, sudden  death ; and to a still greater extent it has
been productive either of fatal disease, or of a slow decay of the
powers of life, and a breaking down of the constitution.  Enlight-
ened legislation, from the earliest times, has endeavored to pre-
vent, or if this could not be done, to mitigate the evils attendant
on interments in cities or towns.   Sometimes a religious sanction
was  given  as the means  best adapted to attain these objects.
This was the case in ancient Egypt, in which, owing to the na- 
152
 ture of the soil and the annual overflow of the valley of the Nile,
 inhumation  could  not  be performed in a proper  manner ; and
 hence the universal resort to embalming  the dead,  which  came
 to be regarded both as a religious and a hygienic measure.   The
 bodies thus  prepared were afterwards deposited in grottos  and
 in chambers excavated from the rocks,  the walls of which were
 covered with bas-reliefs and fresco  paintings descriptive of the
 trades and other occupations of  the  deceased.   The Etruscans,
 to whom Rome was indebted for her ritual, her first  sanitary re-
 gulations, and  the construction  of  the  great cloaque,  took wise
 precautions against the dead being a cause of disease and of ter-
 ror to the living, by arrangements for sepulture on such a  scale
 that in their  excavated  cities of the dead, the traveller, at the
 present time, sees sepulchral chambers so ample and decorated as
 to persuade  him that he is actually in the  houses of the former
 inhabitants.
  In the primitive ages  of  Greece the  inhabitants buried  their
 dead in depositaries prepared for the purpose in their own houses;
 and vaults in  temples were  sometimes  used in this  way.  But
 with the progress of refinement and  better knowledge, the cus-
 tom afterwards prevailed of carrying the dead without  the cities
 and interring them chiefly by the highways.   Lycurgus, in  this,
 as in most of his institutions, differed from the rest of the Greek
 lawgivers, for  he  allowed the Lacedemonians not  only to  bury
 their dead in the city,Jbut, also,  around  their temples.   His ob-
ject was to remove from the minds of the youth the fear  of a  dead
 body, as well as to destroy the superstitious dread, that treading
 on a grave or touching a dead  body would defile.  Burning the
 bodies of the dead became general among the Greeks, from whom
 the Romans afterwards borrowed the custom.
  The ancient Jewish  cemeteries were  commonly situated be-
 yond the limits of cities and villages. It was, indeed, the custom
 among other nations of the East as  well as among  the  Hebrews
 to bury out of  the city,  except in the  case  of kings  and  very
 distinguished men.  The Hebrews generally exhibited  a prefer-
 ence for burying in gardens, and beneath shady trees.  Large
 subterranean places of interment were frequently to be  found in
 Palestine : in some instances they were the work of  nature ; in
 some they were merely artificial excavations of the  earth, and in
 others were  cut out from rocks.  Numerous sepulchres of this
 kind are  still  found in Syria and also in Egypt.   Examples of
 these subterranean quarries, used probably for the same purpose,
 are seen at Marsala (the  ancient  Lilybseum) in Sicily, Syracuse!
 Salerno, Malta, and, in the  north at Maestricht, &c.;  and  per-
haps, adds Mr. Burton,1  the celebrated  labyrinth in the island

     1 Description of the Antiquities and other Curiosities of Rome. 
153
 of Crete was formed originally by excavations of the kind.  But
 by far the most remarkable are those  discovered of late years
 by Laborde in the remains of the large and  wealthy city  of
 Petra, the ancient Edom.   They  are of incredible number  and
 extent and of various forms and dimensions.   Some of them are
 houses  and palaces; but the greater number are tombs and the
 like sepulchral monuments.  They not  only occupy the foot  of
 the entire mountain by which the  valley is encompassed, but the
 ravines and recesses which  branch out from  the inclosed area.
 Ranged in regular order, like houses of a well  built city, they
 would extend, we are told by the  Rev. Dr. Olin, who visited the
 place, not less than five or  six  miles in length.   The fagades  of
 many of these rock tombs are decorated  with great  architectural
 and sculptural beauty;  the  more striking on account of the utter
 solitude and desolation  in which they are found.
   The  Carthaginians buried their dead at some distance from
 the city.   The Necropolis was situated  beyond  the suburbs,  or
 the new  town, or Megara,  as it  was called, which,  itself,  was
 made up chiefly of gardens intersected by canals for the purpose
 of irrigation.
   In the brightest or the republican period of the history  of
 Rome,  down to the time of  Sylla,  the ordinary method of inhu-
 mation was practised in either public or private places.  The
 private were in fields and gardens, often  on the sides of the most
 frequented roads,  so as  to attract the notice of those that passed,
 and it may have been also  to remind them  of their  mortality.
 Hence the frequent inscriptions on the tombs: Stop, Traveller;
 Behold, Traveller, &c.  (Seste  Viator;  Arpice Viator), seen
 on  the  Appian, the Aurelian, the  Flaminian, and  other  roads.
 Public places, such as the Campus Esquilinus outside the Esqui-
 line gate, were granted by the Senate  for  poor people.  The
 vast accumulation of the dead at  this spot rendered the neigh-
 borhood so  unhealthy that  Augustus, with the consent of  the
 Senate, gave part of it  to his favorite Maecenas,  who built on  it
 a magnificent  house, and surrounded  it by extensive  gardens.
 The Roman law was very decided  in its prohibition  of the burial
 of the dead within the city;  and only in a few exceptional cases
 was any relaxation permitted.   The  vestal virgins  and some
 illustrious men were interred in the city.  The right of sepulture
 for himself within  the poemarium, or open space left both
 within and outside of the walls, was decreed to Julius Csesar, as
 an unusual privilege.  By the emperors the original law was en-
forced with a  severity which was rendered the  more necessary
by its frequent infractions on the   part  of the people, who  be-
lieved the worship  of their household gods and the manes of their
ancestors  to  be more   acceptable  in the vicinity of  the  dead. 
154
Adrian decreed the confiscation of the land on which a tomb was
reared within the city limits, and the exhumation of the body
which had been buried.
  Burning the bodies of the dead, of which mention  is  made in
the laws of Numa  and of the Twelve Tables, did not become
general until towards the end of the republic.  Under the  em-
perors the custom was almost  universal, but it afterwards gra-
dually declined on the introduction of Christianity, and fell into
disuse about the end of the fourth century.  The  Romans pro-
hibited both the burning and the burial of the dead in  the city;
in the former case in order that houses might not be endangered
by the frequency of funeral  fires, and  the  air contaminated by
the stench arising from them.   The Senate House, contiguous to
the Forum, was burned by the flames extending from the funeral
pile of Clodius.
  The canons of  the  Christian church, in  imitation of the civil
law, were  opposed to interments in cities,  and also  in  their
churches, but with indifferent success.  The pernicious  example
set  by the Emperor Constantine, who, in pursuance of his  ex-
pressed wish, was buried  in the vestibule of the Basilica of  the
Holy Apostles at Constantinople, and  by Honorius, who found
a sepulchre in the portico of the Church of St. Peters, at Rome,
soon had  numerous  imitators  among the patricians and  great
officers of the  state.   Vainly  did succeeding emperors  forbid
intra-mural interments, and endeavor to restrict the privilege to
martyrs alone.   Mistaken piety, superstition, and the vanity of
the rich and the  powerful, prevailed  over  imperial* edicts, and
before the sixth century  there were not only numerous inter-
ments in  towns, but the practice of sepulture in  churches was
also on the increase.  The monks  obtained permission to be
buried in  the cloisters of their convents, and the founders of
churches procured for themselves the same privilege.  Charle-
magne,  toward the  close of the eighth  century, seconding the
wise reform  of  these  abuses  begun by Theodolphus, bishop of
Orleans,  prohibited  the  burial of the laity  in  churches,  and
eventually  of all  persons  whatever.   But  the  evil  was  not
arrested, although attempts were made with this view by numer-
ous great councils of the Catholic church, held in different parts
of Europe, from the beginning of  the ninth to the latter part of
the sixteenth century. Why prohibitions,  enjoined  under such
solemnity, were so long and  so extensively  disregarded, may be
understood for  the reasons already  assigned.  To  these should
be  added  another  and constantly  nullifying cause, viz:   the
cupidity of the clergy, who derived large  fees for the permission
which they granted to bury in  churches or  contiguous porticos ;
and this often in despite of positive enactments by some of  the 
155
 councils against such abuses.   Even  somewhat less than  a cen-
 tury ago, or in 1765, the Parliament of Paris, disregarding the
 remonstrances of the physicians, who  had called  the attention
 of the  government  to the  danger of intra-mural  burials, con-
 tinued the permission to the clergy to be interred in the churches.
 It was not long, however, before the clerical body, animated by
 a more enlightened  spirit, gave  up privileges which  were pro-
 ductive  of  so much danger to the public health; and at the
 present time the traveller has an opportunity of admiring the
 numerous and tastefully-arranged suburban and rural  cemeteries
 in France, Italy and Germany, which have replaced the crowded
 and often closely  body-packed  and noisome  graveyards  and
 church-vaults in the central parts of the cities.
   The practice by the first  Christians of interring  their dead in
 the  city of  Rome, grew  out  of  the  peculiar circumstances in
 which they  were  placed as a  persecuted sect.   As such they
 were compelled to hold their religious meetings and to celebrate
 their rites at  night, and in retired and  obscure spots;  and for
 this purpose no places were better fitted than the subterranean
 caves and passages known ever since  as the Catacombs.   There
 they met to  worship, there they baptized their children  and
 neophytes, and in many instances deposited their dead  in exca-
 vations made  in the sides of their numerous galleries and ave-
 nues.   These excavations were originally begun, and  must have
 been carried on to a great extent for the purpose of procuring
 building materials.   How far they were increased by the primi-
 tive Christians in Rome, is  a matter of doubt.   The length of
 these subterranean  streets, in different directions, and taken al-
 together, has been  estimated by  late  investigators at about nine
 hundred miles.  According to Father Marchi, the Roman Cata-
 combs may be believed to contain the prodigious number of nearly
 seven millions of graves.  When Christianity came to be tole-
 rated so as to admit of freedom of worship in the open day, grants
 of pieces of ground  for the burial of the  dead were made by con-
 verted publicans and Roman leaders, and thus were begun the
 intra-mural  cemeteries,  with their chapels, which, in  process of
 time, became  parish churches.   Some of the cemeteries of the
 rural parishes were after a time comprised in the limits of the city
 by its subsequent extension.  The history of the quarries in the
 tufa hills, near Naples, is similar to those  of Rome  : both of them
 supplied building materials,  and both were  converted into cata-
 combs for Christian worship and  burial.  In the  first centuries
 after  the Christian  era, so far was interment in churches from
 being allowed, that the presence of a solitary tomb  was deemed to
be sufficient cause for preventing  the erection of a house of wor-
ship.  The cemeteries, however, were soon placed, probably by the 
156
terms of their original grants, under ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
and continued to be so during the middle ages and as low down
as the middle of the sixteenth  century.   It was owing to this
circumstance that  sanitary reforms, which seemed to be  of a
purely mundane value, were so  slow  in  being brought  about.
In modern times, the  subject of the control of cemeteries  is pro-
perly viewed as a  municipal affair, and as  such it ought to  be
studied  and regulated with an eye solely to the public good.
  It is not necessary  to enlarge on the terrible penalties which
result from a neglect of the natural laws, established  on  an un-
changeable basis, by the Deity himself, nor to  present in detail
the loss of life and in other respects wide-spread injury  to the
public health, caused  by an infraction of these laws in the long-
continued custom of  interments in churches and in graveyards
within city limits.   Medical men  have never ceased  to protest
against  it, and to point out the  evils, sometimes amounting  to
frightful catastrophes, from its  continuance.  In some instances
these results were caused  by the escape of pestiferous  air from
recently opened vaults in  churches ;  in others by its extrication
on a larger scale, and with more concentrated virulence, from
the earth  of  old  burying  grounds, which had been  turned up
with a view to  their  being occupied for other purposes.   The
efforts of Navier to  enlighten the  people  of the government  of
France on the subject were so  far successful that a  royal decree
was issued in the following year (1776) limiting the privilege  of
sepulture in churches  to some of the higher dignitaries in church
and state.  In a small tract written a few years (in  1768)  before
this time, the author anticipated many of the views and sugges-
tions put forward of late years by Mr. Chadwick.  Vicq d'Azyr
ten years later, yielding to the solicitations of his friend D'Alem-
bert, snatched time from his profound studies and experimental
observations in anatomy  and physiology, to translate a volume
from the Italian of Scipio Patioli, on the subject of  the selection
of proper places for interment and the dangers resulting from a
neglect  of the observances required on the occasion.
  Within the last few years the attention of the people of Great
Britain^ has been thoroughly aroused to the enormities of intra-
mural interments,  especially as  witnessed  in  London, by the
labors of Walker and  Chadwick.  One cannot read without  feel-
ings of sickening and  disgust, the details of the state  of some  of
the graveyards of  the metropolis ;  and it must be a matter  of
surprise  to every reflecting mind that such  scenes  as are ex-
hibited in the pages of these writers should  have been so  long
tolerated by any people pretending to civilization, or  possessed
of ordinary sensibility and intelligence.   In a report  on  extra-
mural sepulture by  the General Board of Health, it was  stated 
157
that "there could not be less than two hundred, and probably
more, burial grounds  in  London, situated at various distances
from each other, and each differing in extent.   These constitute
two hundred centres of more or less pollution, each pouring out
unceasingly, day and night, its respective contribution of decay-
ing matter, but the whole together, reckoning only the gas from
decomposing human remains, amounting, as we have seen, in one
year, to upwards of two million and a half of cubic feet.   What-
ever portion of these gases is not absorbed by the earth—earth
already surcharged with  the  accumulation  of centuries—and
whatever  part  does not mix with  and contaminate the water,
must be emitted into the atmosphere, bearing  with  them, as we
know, putrescent matters perceptible to sense.  That these ema-
nations do act injuriously on  the health of the people resident in
the immediate neighborhood of the places from which they issue,
appears to us, by the evidence  that has been  adduced, to be in-
dubitably established.   From the law of diffusion of gases, they
must be rapidly spread through the whole of the atmosphere that
surrounds the  metropolis, and  though they thereby become di-
luted, and are thus rendered proportionally innocuous, yet that
they do materially contribute to the  contamination  of the air
breathed  by two millions of  the people, cannot, we think, admit
of reasonable  doubt.   We submit, therefore, that a case is  made
out for the total prohibition of interments within the metropolis,
on account of the injury resulting  from  the practice to public
health."   The argument of the General Board of  Health was  a
convincing one, and it led to the Interment  Act of 1850, the
passage of which was  probably facilitated by the favoring influ-
ence of the clergy of the  established church, headed  by the
Bishop of  London.   Evidence was  adduced by  the Board of
 Health to show that severe complaints in the vicinity of some of
the churchyards, almost invariably proved fatal; and also that
 the pestilential atmosphere thus formed became a fit radius for
 the poison  of cholera  during the fatal year of 1849.
   But the exhalations into the atmosphere are not the only evils.
 Mr. George A.Walker had shown, years before, that the fluid por-
 tions of the decomposing body pass into the earth, and together
 with resulting gases, percolate  through the walls  of houses and
 drains, and find their  way into gully-holes and thence into the air
 of the streets.  It is not improbable that legislative action was
 quickened in the case of the Interment act by the annoyance to
 which the members of the House of Commons were exposed from
 a stench  exhaling from gully-holes  in  the  neighborhood. M.
 Gallo, the surveyor, declared it to be produced by the percola-
 tion of gases and animal compounds from the overcharged church-
 yard of St. Margaret's, immediately opposite.  Mr. Walker, in 
158
a letter to  the  "editor of  the  Journal of Public  Health,"  in
which he had stated the fact just given, writes, in addition :  " I
have frequently demonstrated that a single inspiration of  the
products of human putrefaction has, in innumerable individual and
collective instances, instantly destroyed life; in others produced
lingering consumption, typhus,  scarlet fever, &c.  &c, whilst  in
other cases ruined health and crippled usefulness  have been  the
clearly traceable consequences resulting from exposure to human
remains in  a state of  decomposition."  A case related by Mr.
Chadwick, and  which came under his own observation, may be
related here, as serving to point the moral of a longer history in
the same vein.   In one of his walks with Professor Owen, he
met with a butcher, who, in reply to some inquiries about  his
health, stated the following particulars.   This man  had lived  a
long time in  Bear-yard, near Clare market, where  he was  ex-
posed to two deleterious influences—shambles on one side, and  a
tripe-house on  the  other.  His attention to  his  own impaired
health, under such circumstances, was quickened by  observing
that it  was  impossible for him to keep birds, of  which he was
extremely fond, in this place.   "You may hang up a cage," said
he, " in any window  of the corn-houses  round Bear-yard, and
not a bird will  live  out the week."  What most  annoyed them
among  the  congregation of  odors was the vapor rising from the
fat in the process of preparing the tripe.   Some time before this,
he had  occupied a room in Portugal Street, overlooking a crowded
churchyard, from which he  often saw a  dense vapor rise, that
had a very  offensive  odor.  The butcher's  birds  died  there in
brief time, and  the good man found that he could only preserve
new purchases by removing his  quarters to Vere Street, beyond
the range of deleterious emanations.
   Among the many wise laws enacted for the benefit of the
people  by the government of the  republic, after the  subversion
of the  monarchy in France, were those relating to  interments.
By a decree of the 23d prairial, in the year XII. of the Republic
(12th June, 1804), burial in churches, temples, synagogues, and
all other edifices devoted  to religious worship, or in the limits of
any city, town,  or village, was prohibited; and at the same time,
provision was directed to  be made for  interring the dead  in
cemeteries beyond  town limits.  It was decreed in 1808, under
the empire, that there should be no dwelling  built, or well dug,
within  125 yards of  the new cemeteries.  In Prussia, the dis-
tance of cemeteries from  towns varies from 100 to 1,000 yards.
Some English  writers recommend an interval  of six  to seven
hundred yards between the  two.   The French law requires that
five years must  elapse before the same grave can be opened  for
a second interment, so that time may be allowed for the decom- 
159
position of the body first inserted, before another is deposited in
its place.   In the case of the city of Marseilles, with a popula-
tion  of 100,000  inhabitants,  and an annual mortality of 3,000
persons, it has been estimated that 6,000 square metres, or about
6,500  square  yards of  ground would be  required for  the  pur-
pose of interment during a single year; assuming that  to  each
body, separately, to be buried, there ought to be allowed a space
of two square metres, or six and a half square feet.   But as five
years  must elapse between successive  interments  in the same
spot, the entire extent of ground necessary for the burial wants
of a population of 100,000 persons is 30,000 square metres, or
about  32,500 square yards.   Various estimates have been made
of the  time that must elapse before the entire decomposition and
destruction of  the body, leaving only the skeleton or the bones
entire. Some, like Gmelin, make the period thirty to forty years;
others, with  Walker, at  seven  years; Orfila, again, found,  by
actual experiments instituted for the purpose, that a body,  even
when inclosed  in  a coffin, would, after interment, be reduced to
the  state  of a skeleton  in a period varying from fourteen to
eighteen months.   Much, in all these calculations, must depend
on the nature of the soil in which interments  take  place.  The
legislation on  the subject  of the  time  that  should intervene
between the deposit of dead bodies in the same grave also varies.
In Hesse Darmstadt, and in Prussia, an interval of«30 years is
exacted;  in  the  city of Leipsic, 15 years ; in Milan, 10 years;
in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, 9 years.  The law in France,
as above stated, may be considered as meeting the exigencies of
the  case.  Much less difference occurs in the  enactments pre-
scribing the depth of the grave  opened for the reception  of a
dead body.  In  most countries, including Russia, this is some-
what  more than  six feet;  in Frankfort  on the Main, it is four
feet seven inches: and in Lindon, the bishop used to direct a
depth  of  between four and five feet.
   Danger to the public health does not end with the permanent
closure of a cemetery, and by the discontinuance of burial within
its limits.  Years must elapse  before the soil can be broken up
for other purposes, such as the construction of houses or the dig-
ging out  <jf trenches or drains.   It has been found  that the soil
of a burying ground, in which a succession  of bodies in large
numbers  has been laid, becomes, in process of time, unfitted to
bring  about the  putrefactive changes in bodies of  more recent
deposit, so as to render them, in a great degree, innocuous.  The
soil, under such circumstances, becomes saturated, to adopt lan-
guage of  recent introduction,  as  applied to  this  subject,  and
animalized to such a degree,  that it cannot be disturbed without
exhaling  poisonous vapors and  gases, which,  in many instances, 
160
have proved  suddenly fatal to those who inhaled them.   Vicq
d'Azyr tells of the  breaking up of the soil of an old  cemetery
in the  heart of the town of Riom,  in Auvergne, with a design
to public  improvement, which was followed, soon  after, by an
endemic disease, that carried off a large  number of the inhabit-
ants, particularly of the poorer classes;  and it was noticed that
the mortality was greatest in the neighborhood of the cemetery.
A similar  calamiiy, from the same cause, had occurred six years
before, in  a smail town called Ambert, also in Auvergne.   The
spot on which had stood a convent of the  Daughters of St. Gene-
vieve, at Paris, was  eventually appropriated for the erection on
it of several shops.   All the first occupants of these new shops,
and especially young persons, suffered from diseases  nearly of
the same kind—effects attributed, with good reason, to the exha-
lations from the bodies of those  who  had been  buried in  this
ground.  M.  Tardieu, to whose work—a Dictionary of Public
Hygiene,1 &c.—we are indebted for the preceding  details, writes,
that he has heard  many of  the  old inhabitants  who  occupied
houses  near the church of St. Severus, in Paris, say, that when
the weather was mild and damp, there  arose from  the ground,
which had been used for so many centuries as  a place  of  inter-
ment, a dense vapor, of such a sickening nature as to force  them
to close the windows in order to  escape  serious  consequences.
Another incident, to  the same purport, which  occurred also in
Paris, is worthy of  notice.   After the  memorable three days of
July, 1830, great difficulty was experienced in procuring imme-
diate sepulture for those who  had fallen  in the  fight.  A pro-
visional inhumation of a certain number was directed to take place
in the ground of the Market of the Innocents, the  spot  anciently
occupied as a cemetery, in long use.   A  trench was accordingly
dug, of about  twelve feet in length,  by seven in width, and ten
deep.   When  the  pavement was  taken up, and a layer of  sand
of about six inches in depth removed, a dark  and greasy earth
was exposed to view, mixed with bones  and remains of coffins,
which it was necessary to break up.  The exhalations arising, in
consequence, were so fetid and poisonous as to suffocate immedi-
ately one of the workmen.
   Taking into consideration the alarming and often fatal effects
following the disturbance of the soil of old  cemeteries, the first
republican  government of France  enacted as one  of the clauses
of the  law respecting interments,  of which we have previously
spoken, that no cemetery after the final closure, should be appro-
priated  to any other purpose short of a period of ten years.
Grass or grain might be sowed in it and trees planted, but no

  1 Dictionnaire d'Hygiene Publique et de Saluhrite.  3 vols.  Paris, 1854. 
161
deep digging, or foundation for buildings should be begun, until
permission was  regularly granted  for the purpose.  Reference
being  had to the  different opinions held  respecting the time
required for the entire decomposition of a body after its inhu-
mation, it  may  be  readily  supposed that there would  be  cor-
responding differences in  the  legislative enactments in different
countries, in regard to the period that  ought to elapse before a
cemetery, finally closed, could be  used for any other than  its
original purpose.
   If we appeal  to chemistry for aid in  detecting the deleterious
gases  given  out from graveyards, and more  particularly from
the soil after it  has been dug, on opening a grave, or from vaults
in which the dead  had been  deposited, we learn  that  the  gas
most largely extricated is carbonic acid, then  some  of  the car-
bonates, and also carbonate and sulphydrate  of ammonia.   Dr.
Reid states, that in some churchyards he"has "noticed the ground
to be absolutely saturated with carbonic acid  gas, so that when-
ever a deep grave was dug,  it was filled in some hours afterwards
with such  an amount of  carbonic  acid  gas, that the workmen
could not descend without danger. Deaths have, indeed, occurred
in some churchyards from this cause."   But chemistry still fails
to enlighten us fully respecting the nature or composition of those
subtle poisons called miasm, which under so many circumstances
generate wide spreading and fatal disease.   The vitiation of the
air of the hospitals, dormitoriesMn barracks,  and in crowded as-
semblies is, to  a'certain extent, made  explicable by a minute
increase of carbonic acid in these places.  As evincing the great
penetrativeness  of  these  miasms, Dr. Reid tells us that he has
detected their escape from graves more than twenty feet deep.
   The extent  of the facts now collected  respecting  the  evils
attending  the practice of interments in  cities in  different parts
of the world, and the almost  uniform course of legislation, both
civil  and  canonical, prohibiting the  practice,  can  hardly fail
of being applicable to the actual condition  of  things in our own
country.   Looking at the large and increasing population of our
chief cities, the  dearness of ground, and the economy of building
space  now so carefully studied, every question relating to the
public health becomes of more and more importance.   All pre-
ventable causes which diminish the  purity of the air, or vitiate
it by the addition of deleterious gases and miasms, ought to be
as far as possible withdrawn.   The increase of rural or suburban
cemeteries for the  burial of the dead has doubtless had a share
in abating the  mischief which universal  experience shows to be
the frequently  incidental, if not constant effect of interments in
its more crowded districts.   It is desirable now to take a farther
and final step, and to ask that the growing partiality for extra-
       11 
162
 urban cemeteries  should become not  only a  common, but  a
 universal custom  sustained and  enforced by formal  municipal
 enactment.
   Several years since, the  sanitary committee of the Board of
 Health of Philadelphia, made a report on this subject, and offered
 among others, a resolution, that in the  opinion of the Board of
 Health, interments of the dead within the densely populated parts
 of the city of Philadelphia and adjoining districts,  ought to be
 discouraged.   A carefully drawn bill accompanying the resolu-
 tions of the Board was sent to  Harrisburg for legislative action,
 but without effect.  The period that has intervened between that
 and  the present  time has not diminished  the evils complained of
 nor rendered a reform less  necessary, for the relief  afforded by
 the voluntary extra-urban interments has not kept pace with the
 increase of population.   The following language of  the sanitary
 committee, just  referred to, is  as full of warning and monition
 to other cities as it is to the people and  the municipal authori-
 ties of Philadelphia.   " Your committee  are convinced, that the
 grounds of our own metropolis are even  now sources of  danger
 to the health of our  citizens, and  that  every year  the  danger
 resulting from these must augment.   Scattered as they are  over
 every neighborhood, surrounded by a dense and constantly in-
 creasing  population, and many of them  already  comparatively
 crowded  with dead bodies,  which are carelessly and in many
 instances, superficially interred, some of the grounds, particu-
 larly those belonging  to the colored congregations, are,  even
 now, decided nuisances, injurious to the  health of the neighbor-
 hood in  which they  are located."   Dr. Wilson Jewell,  after
 careful personal  inspection and inquiry, has no hesitation in de-
 claring that there is not a burial ground in the thickly populated
 parts of Philadelphia  which has been in use during  a period of
 fifteen to twenty years, which does not contain twice the number
 of bodies that the ground is capable of allowing to be decomposed ;
 in other  words, that it has passed its point of saturation.   In
 some cemeteries  in this city, it is no uncommon thing to deposit
 three, four and even five bodies in one grave, until their decompos-
 ing remains reach within eighteen inches, and even a foot, of the
 surface.   There are graveyards in the city of modern date which
 already show  marks of being crowded with the dead, and although
 when first opened they  were on the borders of the  city  and
 almost rural, they are now surrounded  by streets, regularly
 built, which, ere  many years have passed, will become densely
inhabited.  One  of the cemeteries thus  situated, and the  first
we believe laid out as a  private speculation, a little  more  than
thirty years ago, has  received during this period, as Dr. Jewell
was  informed, upwards of 11,000 bodies.   It occupies a  space 
163
equal to one  of  our  Philadelphia  squares.   Mr. White,  some
years ago  city inspector  of New York, in  his report for 1850,
speaks pointedly  of the nuisances of many of the graveyards of
that city.'  He had some of them closed during  the  prevalence
of the  cholera in 1849.   Under  such circumstances, a sudden
addition to the number of interments in these places,  as in times
of epidemic  diseases, would  not be without danger,  and might
give rise to  catastrophes  on  a large  scale, analogous to  those
which  occurred in foreign lands, and some of which have been
recorded in the present report.
   Not having been required to inquire into the whole subject of
interments, we do not deem it necessary to specify the kinds of
soil  most favorable for the purpose of accelerating the desired
changes in the decomposition of the body interred, nor have we
inquired into  the sanitary influence of plantations of trees in
cemeteries, with a view to the purification of the air of these spots.
We  must not  omit, however, referring to a  plan recently sug-
gested, and in some  places carried into effect, in England.   It
is to surround the bodies of the  dead, before  they  are  finally
inclosed, with a layer some four inches thick of finely powdered
wood or peat charcoal.  By this means the decay of the animal
textures would go on rapidly  and without  giving rise to danger-
ous  exhalations.   In the burial of the poor  this plan merits a
favorable consideration, and  it must  indeed  commend itself as
worthy  of adoption  by  all  classes.    The experiments of  Dr.
Stenhouse place  the subject of the operation of vegetable char-
coal on dead  bodies in a  new and instructive light, by showing,
contrary to popular belief, that, although a deodorizing and  dis-
infecting agent, it is not an antiseptic proper, which gives stability
to organic  matter and prevents  its"  decomposition.   Charcoal,
and in less  degree  clay, produce a species of slow.combustion,
by which the miasms are gradually consumed.
   Without being called  upon  to look at the subject of intra-
mural interments under  its  purely moral and religious aspects,
we  are  nevertheless free to allude   to the depressing,  and in
such times morbid influence, exerted on  the  community  by its
being  compelled  to  witness  the frequent,  and in visitations of
certain  fearful  epidemics, the almost continual succession of
funeral processions.   This is a matter of  public health, in  dis-
cussing which, medical testimony cannot be  overlooked.  Were
it necessary, clerical experience could also be invoked in favor
of  suburban burials in preference to  those in the city, whether
 regard be had to the desirableness of the uninterrupted solemni-
 ties of the burial service, the  avoidance of whatever  would grate
 on  the  already  harrowed feelings of  attending relatives  and
friends, and the preserving unbroken the associations of an ele- 
164
vated and religious character, with the sight of the memorials to
the dead and of the spot where their bodies rest.
  There are yet other matters worthy of notice which  might
serve to show still further the importance and economy of sani-
tary measures to cities, and of which we  might wish  to  treat.
Among these are the  proposed  plans for an improved  sewerage
of London; the mode of disposing of the sewage, after its deodor-
ization, for agricultural purposes, and the pecuniary profit  to the
city treasury thence resulting.   A  topic of  considerable moment
in all commercial cities is  the structure of  the wharves, so that
there shall be nothing in the materials of which they  are made
susceptible of decay and decomposition.   So  also of  quays in
every town on the banks of a river, and their construction so as
to narrow the channel  and diminish  the exposed surface at low
water on both of the sides of the river.   One measure in the
internal hygiene of cities would be a careful supervision  of all
stables, cow-houses, and piggeries, and vigilance in the removal
of heaps of manure  accumulated under no matter what excuse.
Ascending the scale of the dulies of sanitary supervision,  would
come that of manufactories and of workshops, which may be termed
public by their extent and the number of persons employed : also
of all buildings in which people assemble  in numbers  at  stated
times; minute  inquiries  are  made into the  structure and ar-
rangement of the rooms, and the number and plan of fireplaces,
furnaces, and  stoves,  before  an insurance  against fire can  be
effected.   Why then  should  there be any hesitation about  a
similarly careful investigation by the sanitary authorities, with a
view to insurance against preventable diseases among the inmates
of a house.
  It is a cause of regret, in concluding this report, that we have
not been able to a give a  synopsis of its contents, and thus to
compensate in degree for the want of a rigidly methodical man-
ner  of treating the various topics which have come under our
notice.   We submit,  however,  that  while  adhering with some
closeness to the terms  of our instructions,  we have made  out a
case  showing  the  paramount necessity for  a methodical  and
liberal, yet prudent, system of sanitary legislation, and the wis-
dom of adopting such a code as the Metropolitan  Sanitary one,
which will  be  presented to the  Convention by one of  our com-
mittee.   The time, we may hope, is not far  off when the  writer
on sanitary subjects, especially if  he desires exactness of detail,
and  comparisons and results of  an  authentic kind,  set   forth
numerically, will not  be  obliged, as he now is, to procure most
of his arguments and enforcements of reform from abroad,  owing
to the deficiency of statistical  knowledge and underrating its va- 
165
lue here at home, so that he is deprived of the  requisite  data
either to show with accuracy the extent of existing evils, or to
point out the  means  for their removal.  One measure of the
highest importance, and without which nothing trustworthy can
be  learned  of  vital statistics, direct or comparative, is a system
of births, deaths, and marriages, regularly carried out in every
State of the Union. 
 
DRAFT  OF A SANITARY  CODE  FOR  CITIES.

      (reported to the committee on internal hygiene.)

        By HENRY G. CLARK, M. D., of Boston,

                    ONE OF THE COMMITTEE.
                           [Copy.]
                             " Quarantine and Sanitary Convention,
                                   " Baltimore, April 30, 1858.
  "Resolved, That the Sanitary Committee, or Committee  on Internal
Hygiene, be also instructed to prepare some detailed and specific plan for
regulating  the internal sanitary condition or hygiene of Cities, which
shall embrace all the subjects which may properly come within  the pro-
vince of preventive medicine, and to report the same to the next meeting
of this Convention.

                                        Boston, February, 1859.
  Sir : The above resolution having been referred  to  me  by
yourself, as Chairman of the Committee on Internal Hygiene, I
have the honor now to transmit the accompanying  Draft of a
Sanitary Code for Cities, as my Report thereon.
                           Very respectfully,
                                    HENRY  G.  CLARK.
  Thomas Miller, M.  D.,
      Washington, D. C. 
168
CONTENTS.
Public Health Act,
Sanitary Code for Cities,   .
          Sanitary Survey,
          Sewerage,
          Cleansing,
          Slaughter Houses,  .
          Markets,
          Dram Shops and Drinking House_s,
          Lodging Houses,
          Cellars,  .
          New Streets and Houses,
          Supply of Water,
          Ventilation,
          Pleasure Grounds,  .
          Epidemic and Contagious Diseases,
          Vaccination,  .
          Interment of the Dead,
          General Provisions,
Appendix,   .... 
DRAFT
OF AN ACT FOR ESTABLISHING- GENERAL AND  LOCAL BOARDS OF
         HEALTH, AND FOR OTHER SANITARY PURPOSES.

An  Act, in addition  to existing Acts, for promoting the
                      Public Health.

  Whereas it  is expedient that further and more effectual pro-
vision should be made for improving the sanitary condition of
populous  places:  Be it therefore  enacted by the  Senate and
House of Representatives in  General Court assembled, and by
the authority of the same, as follows; that  is  to say:—

  I.  This Act  may be cited for all purposes as " The Public
Health Act, 1860."

  II.  The Governor of the Commonwealth, with the advice and
consent of the Council, shall appoint five discreet and suitable
persons, who, together with the  Secretary of  State for  the time
being, and the  Governor, ex  officiis, shall together be  and con-
stitute a board, to be  called "The General  Board of Health ;"
and shall have  and  execute all the powers and duties necessary
for superintending and promoting the general sanitary affairs of
the State.

  III. They shall hold their offices for five years, or until others
are appointed  in  their place;  and they shall be sworn to the
faithful performance of their duty.

  IV. They shall meet at  such convenient times as they  deem
expedient, and their necessary official expenses shall be  paid out
of the  treasury of  the State, but  they shall receive no other
compensation for their services.

  V.  They shall appoint a competent person, who may also be
the  Register General, to be the Secretary or  Actuary of the
Board, who shall receive such a salary, not  exceeding
dollars  per annum,  as the  Board shall  determine.  They  shall 
170
also appoint, if need be,  a competent  physician, who shall be
styled a Medical Health Officer, and another competent  person
for Surveyor, who shall be removable at their pleasure, and who
shall receive such fees or other compensation as  the  Board may
from time to time determine.
   They may also appoint and employ such other persons as may
be necessary to carry into effect the sanitary laws  of the State,
and delegate to  them the necessary powers, subject to  the  ap-
proval of the Local Boards of Health, hereinafter provided for.

  VI.  They shall  consider and decide  upon sanitary questions
submitted to them  by the  State, cities,  towns, or Local Boards
of Health.

  VII. They shall, by reports or otherwise, diffuse information
to the  inhabitants of the State on sanitary  matters;  and shall
aid, by regulations,  suggestions, and  by furnishing blanks, &c,
the various Local Boards of Health.

  VIII. The corporate authorities of the various cities and towns
of this Commonwealth are hereby authorized and empowered to
establish Local  Boards of  Health, and to  enact  and enforce,
generally and severally, such laws, ordinances, and regulations
as they may  deem  expedient  or necessary  for  promoting  the
sanitary condition of the said cities and towns,  as are not incon-
sistent with the constitution and laws of the State, or the authority
of the  General Board of Health.

  IX.  And the said authorities are  also authorized to delegate
to the  said Local Boards of Health, or other agents,  all  the
powers necessary for the convenient execution of said laws, ordi-
nances and regulations.

  X.  All Acts and parts of Acts incompatible  with this Act  are
hereby repealed.
   DRAFT OF AN ORDINANCE FOR PROMOTING THE HEALTH OF
                          TOWNS.

                 Sanitary  Code for Cities.

  Whereas by an Act of the Legislature in the year 1860, en-
titled "The Public Health Act," this Corporation has been  duly
authorized and empowered to make all needful rules and regula-
tions for the preservation of the health of its inhabitants : Be it 
171
therefore ordained by the Councils of  the Town of-------, and
by authority thereof, as follows, to wit:

  I. This  ordinance  shall  be cited  for all purposes as " The
Sanitary Code for Cities."

  II. The duty of executing and enforcing  the provisions of this
"Code" is hereby invested  in the  Board of Mayor and Alder-
men, [or,  in  towns, in the Board  of Selectmen, or such other
persons as shall be chosen by the  legal voters of said  towns or
districts,] and they are hereby constituted the Local  Board of
Health, with all  the  powers and  privileges  usually invested in
Boards of Health, and with such further especial powers as may
be conferred by the provisions of this Ordinance.
   «
  III.  And  said  Local  Board, or its authorized  agents, shall
have the right at all times to enter into or upon any premises for
the purposes of this  Ordinance, and also  to call upon  any of
the officers or of  the police, to aid them in the execution of its
provisions.

  IV. In the construction,  and  for the purposes  of this Ordi-
nance, the following words and expressions shall have the mean-
ings hereinafter assigned to them; that is to say :—
  The  term "person," and words applying to any individual,
shall apply to and include corporations, aggregate or sole.
  The term "owner" shall mean the person for  the time being
entitled to the rent of the land or premises in  connection with
which the term is used, whether on his own account, or as trus-
tee or agent for any other person.
  The expression  "improvement commissioners" shall mean the
commissioners, trustees, or other persons, entrusted by any local
act  with powers of cleansing, paving, or otherwise improving any
town.
  The  term "town" shall also include "cities," or  any other
municipal corporation.
  The  term "land" shall include messuages, buildings, lands,
and hereditariments of every tenure ; also rivers, streams, wells,
and waters of every description; also easements of any descrip-
tion in respect of the foregoing particulars.
  The term "drain" shall mean any drain  of, and used for the
drainage of one building only, or premises  within the same cur-
tilage, and made merely for the purpose of communicating there-
from with a  cesspool  or other like receptacle for drainage, or
with a sewer, into  which  the drainage of two or more  buildings
or premises, occupied  by different  persons,  is conveyed. 
172
   The term "sewer" shall mean and include sewers and drains
 of  every description, except drains to which the word " drain,"
 interpreted as aforesaid applies.
   The term " slaughter-house" shall mean and include the build-
 ings and places commonly called slaughter-houses and Knacker's
 yards, and any building or place used for slaughtering cattle,
 horses, or animals of any description.
   The term  "district" shall  mean  the entire area,  places, or
 parts of  places, comprised within  the  limits of any district to
 which this  " Code,"  or any part thereof, shall be applied.
   The term  " street" shall include a  square,  circus, crescent,
 terrace, place, row,  mews, alley, court,  passage,  or other like
 place, in which the houses are continuous, or separated  only by
 small intervals of space.
   The word "house" shall include schools, factories,  and other
 buildings, in which more than  twenty persons are assembled at
 one time.
                      Sanitary Survey.

  V. There shall be made, annually, a thorough sanitary survey
 of the town or district, as the case may be;  and at  any other
 time, when it shall appear from the returns to the Registrar that
 the number of deaths shall exceed, annually, that of twenty-five
 to a thousand of the population of such place.
  And the Board of  Health may, if in their discretion they think
 fit, direct the Medical Health Officer to cause  public inquiry to
 made as  to the following matters  and things,  or any of them;
 that is to say:—

     As to  the sewerage, drainage, and water supply;
     As to the number and sanitary condition of the inhabitants;
     As to  the accumulation of filth;
     As to  any other matter of which the Board may require to
       be informed.

  VI. The said survey shall  be made  in the manner following,
to wit:—
  The inspecting Medical Health Officer shall have the right to
call upon the Chief of Police,  who shall detail for this service a
sufficient number of the regular patrol force,  who shall  act as
inspecting health officers.
  Upon receiving his instructions, each officer will commence and
diligently prosecute his inquiries ; carefully noticing the state of
the streets, lanes, courts, passages, common stairs, houses, rooms,
cellars^ yards or vacant lots, in his assigned district; reporting,
in detail  and in  writing, all  accumulations  of filth; all cases 
173
where the drains or water-closets are foul or obstructed; all cases
of prevailing sickness, especially where there is  great over-
crowding, or unusual destitution ; also, all cases of dead bodies
found in single living-rooms.
  The reports  may be  made in the  manner of the blank forms
hereto annexed.  (See Appendix.)

  VII. When  any nuisance  or other  source  of disease is  dis-
covered, notice, in the proper form, is  to be served upon the
owners  or occupants forthwith to  abate the same, and in case of
refusal  or neglect for a period of     hours, the Medical  Health
Officer is authorized and directed  to cause the same to be abated
or removed in the most  summary manner;  and  he is  hereby
authorized to call  upon the Chief of Police, the Engineer, the
Registrar, and  the Superintendents of  Health, of Streets, and of
Drains, to aid him in such removal.
  The expense of such removals or abatements of nuisances (of
which  an accurate account is to be kept) shall be  chargeable to
the owners or occupants of the premises.
  These measures shall be so continuously pursued as to prevent,
as far  as possible, any re-accumulation of the causes of disease,
sought  to  be  removed, and  each officer shall be held  strictly
responsible for the sanitary condition of his assigned district.
  All persons, acting under and  by the  authority of this order,
may be authorized to enter upon  and into any premises which it
may be necessary to visit  in compliance with its provisions; but
their object in so doing must be first stated to the occupants, and
all unnecessary annoyance to them most carefully avoided.

                          Sewerage.
  VIII. The said Board  of Health may, if they shall think fit,
cause to be prepared, or  procure, a map, exhibiting a system of
sewerage for effectually draining their  district for the purpose of
this  Ordinance, upon a scale to  be  prescribed by  the  General
Board of Health;  and every such map shall be kept at the office
of the said Board,  and shall, at all reasonable times, be  open to
the inspection of the tax payers of the district to which it applies.

  IX.  All sewers, whether at present  existing, or which  shall be
hereafter constructed, shall be entirely  under the  management
and  control of the Board  of Health.

  X. The Board of Health shall cause their district to be effect-
ually drained upon the plan recommended by the General Board
of Health of Great Britain ;  and they shall  have power within
such district from time to time  to do any of the following things: 
174
  (1.) To repair, arch over,  enlarge, lessen  or otherwise alter
         any existing sewer or drain.
  (2.) To construct any new sewer or drain, with a like  power
         of repairing and altering the same.
  (3.) To discontinue, close up,  or  destroy any sewer  or  drain.
  (4.) To carry any sewer, drain, or pipe for the  distribution of
         sewage, through, across, or under any turnpike or other
         road, or county bridge, or any street or place laid out
         as, or intended for a street, or under any cellar or vault
         which may be under the pavement  or carriageway^ of
         any street or intended street, upon condition of making
         good all  damage done by them;  or  if  it is deemed
         necessary  by the Surveyor of the  Board, into, under,
         or through aiiy lands whatever, upon making  due com-
         pensation  for the same  ;

  Subject, nevertheless, to the restrictions hereinafter  mention-
ed ; that is to say:
  (1.) All sewers and drains shall be so constructed and kept as
         not to create a nuisance, or be injurious to health.
  (2.) If, by the exercise of any of the above powers, any person
         is deprived of the lawful use of any sewer or drain, the
         Board  shall provide for  his use some other  sewer or
         drain  equally convenient.

  XL  The Board of Health are hereby empowered, upon making
due compensation, to  do the following things; that is to say :
  (1.) To  construct, either above  or under  ground, such  reser-
         voirs and  other works as may be necessary for holding
         the sewage flowing from the sewers  of their district, or
         to provide outfalls for the same.
  (2.) To cause the sewers to empty into such reservoirs or out-
         falls,  by  means  of connecting sewers,  or such other
          means as  they think fit.
  (3.)  To contract  with any company  or  person  for the sale of
         such sewage,  or for the distribution of it  over  any
         land; and any such company for these purposes shall
         have the same privileges and  be subject to  the same
          conditions as would the Local Board.
  (4.)  To contract  for, purchase, or take on lease any buildings,
          engines,  materials, or apparatus  for the purpose of
          receiving, storing, disinfecting, or distributing  any such
          sewage, and to lease or assign such buildings, engines, 
175
         materials or apparatus to any company or person with
         whom the  said  Board  of  Health  may  contract, as
         aforesaid.
  (5.)  To purchase or take on lease any land where such pur-
         chase or leasing  is necessary for carrying into execu-
         tion the above objects.

  XII.  No person shall, without  the consent of the  Board of
Health, do the following things, or any of them :
  (1.)  Cause any  sewer or drain to communicate with or be
         emptied into any sewer of the Board of Health.
  (2.)  Cause any vault, arch, or cellar to be newly built or con-
         structed  under any public  street ;  and if any sewer,
         drain, vault,  arch, or cellar is made, in contravention
         of this Ordinance, the Board of Health may  cause the
         same to be pulled down, if they shall think fit, and the
         expenses incurred by them in so doing shall  be repaid
         to them by the offender, and be recoverable  from him
         in a summary manner.

  XIII. Any owner or occupier of premises adjoining any  dis-
trict, may, with the consent of the Board of  Health, cause  any
sewer  or  drain  from such premises  to  communicate  with  any
sewer of the Board, upon  such conditions as they shall mutually
agree.

  XIV. Whenever it appears  to the Board of  Health that any
house or other  building, already built, is  without any drain, or
water-closet, and emptying into such place  as is  sufficient for
effectual drainage, the Board may by notice require the owner
of such house or  building, within  a reasonable  time therein
specified, to make a  sufficient drain  of a construction approved
by the Board of Health, emptying as follows ;  that is to say, if
the sea, or a sewer of the  Board of Health, or any sewer which
they are entitled to use, is within one hundred feet of the site of
such house or dwelling, emptying, as the Board may direct, either
into the sea or such sewer ; but if no such means of drainage are
within that distance, then emptying  into such covered cesspopl
or other place,  not being under any house, and not being within
such distance from any house, as the Board of Health directs;
and if  the person on whom such notice is served fails to comply
with the same,  the Board  may themselves do  the work required,
and assess the expenses to the owner or occupant aforesaid. 
176
   XV. The  following rules shall  be observed  with  regard to
drains of houses not already built:
   (1.) The drains of every such new house or building as afore-
         said, shall be covered in, and be of such size  and mate-
         rials, at such level, and with such fall, as may be effect-
         ual, in the opinion of the Surveyor or Engineer of the
         Board, to  secure a proper  drainage of such house or
         building, and its appurtenances.
   (2.) If the sea, or a sewer of the Board  of Health, or a sewer
         which they are entitled  to use, is within  one hundred
         feet of any part of the site of such new house or build-
         ing, the drains so  to be constructed shall  communicate
         with such one of those means of drainage  as the Board
         directs.
   (3.) If no  such  means of drainage are within that distance,
         then the  last-mentioned  drains  shall communicate with
         and be emptied into such covered  cesspool or other
         place, not being under any house, and not being within
         such distance from any house, as  the Board of Health
         directs.
   (4.) Any  house or building  which, during the process of  re-
         pairs, shall be pulled down to the  ground floor, shall be
         subject to  the  same  regulations  as  if  it  were a new
         house or  building.

   XVI.  If any house or building is built or rebuilt,  or any drain
constructed, contrary to the foregoing provisions, the  owner of
such house or building shall be subject to the following liabilities;
that is to say :
   (1.) He shall  incur such  a  penalty for each offence as  the
         Board may determine ; or,
   (2.) The Board  of Health, after  due notice and his  failure to
         comply  therewith, may  thereupon proceed to do  the
         work required, and assess the expenses upon said owner.

                         Cleansing.
   XVII. The following works shall be done in respect to scav-
enging :
   (1.) All  public  streets,  together  with  the foot pavements
         thereof, shall  be  properly cleansed  and watered ;  all
         roads shall be properly cleansed,  and the  whole or any
         part of such roads  may,  in the discretion of the Board
         of  Health, be watered. 
177
   (2.) All dust, ashes, and rubbish shall be carried away from
         the premises of the inhabitants.
   (3.) All  privies  and  cesspools shall  be from time to time
         emptied and cleansed.   And the Board of Health may
         themselves  undertake, or contract with any person to
         undertake the aforesaid works, or any of them.

   XVIII.  No person, except by direct authority of the Board,
shall undertake to remove any of the substances mentioned in
the preceding section, or obstruct the Board or its agents  in so
doing.

   XIX. In cases where the Board of Health do not themselves
undertake, or contract with any person  to undertake, the  works
heretofore named, they may make by-laws imposing on the occu-
pier of any premises any or all of the duties of cleansing.  They
may affix reasonable  penalties for the breach of said by-laws.

   XX. Whenever the Board of Health shall be  satisfied that
the number of persons occupying any tenement or building is so
great as to be the cause of  nuisance, or sickness,  or a source of
filth; or that any tenements or buildings  are not  furnished with
vaults constructed according to the provisions of this Ordinance;
or with a sufficient number of privies or water-closets with under-
ground drains;  with  proper  ash-pits, or with a proper  water
supply;  or that, from any cause, they are in a condition  which
is prejudicial or dangerous to the public health, or to the health
of the occupants themselves; they may thereupon issue  notice
in writing  to  such  persons, or any of them ; that is to say, the
owner, agent,  or occupant, or either of them, to cause  either or
all of these deficiencies to be supplied, and the premises put into
a  cleanly and proper condition, within such reasonable time as
they shall appoint: and in case of neglect or refusal to obey such
notice, they may themselves cause the alterations and cleansings
to be done forthwith,  and the expense of it shall be paid by such
owner, agent,  occupant, or other person.  Or they may, if they
think fit, issue notice  to the persons inhabiting  such tenement,
or to the owner or agent, requiring  them to remove from and
quit  the premises,  within  such  time as the Board  may  deem
reasonable; and if the person or persons so notified, or any of
them, shall neglect or refuse to  remove from said tenement or
building, the Board of Health are hereby fully authorized and
empowered thereupon forcibly to remove  them.

  XXI.  The Board of Health may make and issue by-laws for
the prevention of nuisances arising from filth, dust, ashes, and -
       12 
178
rubbish, or from the keeping of animals, and may annex reason-
able penalties for the breach of said by-laws.

  XXII.  The  business  of a  blood-boiler, bone-boiler,  bone-
burner, fell-monger, slaughterer of animals of any description
not fit for human food, soap-boiler, tallow-melter, tripe-boiler, or
other noxious, or offensive  business, trade or manufacture, shall
not, without the consent of the Board, be established within the
district; and the Board may make such regulations in regard to
these occupations as they may deem expedient.

  XXIII.  When the contents of any sewer,  or any accumula-
tions  of filth are discharged into any river or stream, in the bed
of which the quantity of water is so much diminished, either by
drought during the  summer or by any other cause, as to be insuf-
ficient to keep the channel clear, the Board of Health may, by
excavations or  other operations, so deepen the channel as that
the flow of water will be  accelerated, and the contents^ of said
sewers or drains be thereby prevented from  accumulating  and
stagnating in parts thereof, to the injury of the health, and the
annoyance of the surrounding population.

  XXIV.  No person, without the license of the Board of Health,
shall throw into, or leave in or upon any street, square or vacant
lot, or into any pond or body of water, within the limits of this
town  or district, any  dead animal, dirt, sawdust,  soot,  ashes,
cinders, shavings, hair, manure, oyster, clam,  or lobster  shells,
waste water, rubbish or filth of any kind, or any refuse animal
or  vegetable whatsoever.   Nor shall any person  throw into, or
leave  in or upon any dock, flats, or tide-water within the juris-
diction of this district,  any dead animal or other foul or offensive
matter, except as above provided.

   XXV.  The owners and occupants of livery and other stables
within the limits of the town or district, as the case may be, shall
not wash  or clean their carriages or horses,  or cause them to be
washed or cleaned in  the streets, nor otherwise  encumber  the
same; they shall keep their stables and yards clean, and shall
not permit more than four cartloads of manure to accumulate in
or  near the same, at any one time between the first  day of May
and the first day of November; nor within that period suffer the
same to be removed, except between the hour  of twelve at night
and two hours  after sunrise.

   XXVI. Swine shall not be kept within the  limits of the town
without a permit from the Board of Health. 
179
                      Slaughter-Houses.
   XXVII. No  place  shall be used or occupied as a slaughter-
 house, except by permission of the Board of Health;  and they
 may make by-laws with respect to their management, and for
 keeping the same in a wholesome state.

                        The Markets.
   XXVIII.  The Medical Health Officer or either of the Inspect-
 ors or Agents of the  Board of  Health may, at all reasonable
 times, enter into and  inspect  any shop, building, stall, or place
 kept or used for the sale of butcher's meat, poultry or fish, or as
 a  slaughter-house; and  to examine any animal, carcass, meat,
 poultry, game, flesh or fish, which may  be therein;  and in  case
 either of them, being intended for the food of man,  shall appear
 to be unfit for such food, the same may be seized; and if it prove
 to be unwholesome, he shall order the  same to be destroyed, or
 be so disposed of as to prevent its being again exposed for  sale.

   XXIX.  No person  shall be  permitted to bring into town for
 sale, or sell, or offer for sale, any fresh  fish, until the same shall
 have been  cleansed of  their entrails and refuse  parts;  and such
 entrails  and parts  shall be thrown overboard below low-water
 mark; and shall never be kept beyond the flowing of the  next
 tide; and until so thrown overboard, they shall be kept in a close
 and safe manner on board the vessels or boats  in which the fish
 were brought.  And no person shall sell or offer for sale fish, of
 any kind, unless  the same be kept in covered  stalls, fish boxes
 or other houses, which shall always be clean and in good order;
 or, in clean covered carts, or boxes, well secured from the  rays
 of the sun.

  XXX. No person shall have in his possession for sale, or shall
 sell or offer for sale within  the limits of the town, any vegetables
 whatever, excepting green peas  in  the  pod, and green  corn  in
 the inner husks, which  have not previously been divested of such
 parts  or  appendages as are not commonly used for food.

  XXXI.  No person shall land on any  wharf or other place,  or
 shall bring into town any decayed or damaged  grains, vegetables,
 or fruit, without a permit from  an officer of the Board of Health,
and in such manner as he may direct.

  XXXII. No person  shall sell any adulterated or unwholesome
food or drink; and  if,  upon being notified by the Board to  dis- 
180
 continue such practice, he shall neglect or refuse to obey such
 order, he may be ejected from the precincts of the market, and
 such articles of food or drink may be seized and destroyed.

   XXXIII.  If any person shall falsify any milk, by adulteration
 with water or otherwise, or by the abstraction of its  cream or
 any other substance  originally belonging to it; or, if any person
 having reason  to believe it to be so  falsified  shall sell the same
 or cause it to be sold; he shall  be  liable to have it seized and
 destroyed, and to fine and  imprisonment, and  to  have  placards,
 stating his offence  and the sentence imposed, posted up at his
 place  of business or elsewhere, as  the Board may determine.
 This shall also  apply to milk  from diseased cows.

   XXXIV. All bread  shall  be  sold  by weight.  And  if, on
 examination by the  proper officer, any  of the loaves shall be
 found  to fall short of the weight required by the  Board, the
 whole  may be seized and distributed  to the poor.

   XXXV. And the  Board of Health is also  hereby authorized
 to make, promulgate, and  enforce such by-laws for the govern-
 ment of the  market-houses and the sale  of provisions, as they
 may think expedient.

             Dram-Shops  and Drinking-Houses.
   XXXVI. All unlicensed dram-shops and drinking-houses for
 the  sale of intoxicating drinks, are  hereby declared to be nui-
 sances, and may be abated  as such by the  Board of Health.


                 Common Lodging-Houses.
   XXXVII.  No  person shall  keep a common  lodging-house
 without a license from the Board of  Health, after inspection by
 the Medical Health Officer  of the Board.  And a register shall
 be kept, in which shall be entered the name of every person
 applying to register any common lodging-house kept by  him, and
 the situation of every such house;  and the said Board shall from
time to time make by-laws for fixing the number of lodgers who
may be received into each house so registered;  for promoting
cleanliness  and ventilation therein;  and with respect to the
inspection  thereof, and the conditions and restrictions under
which  such inspection  may be made;  and the person keeping
any  such  lodging-house shall give  access to the same  when
required by any person who shall  produce the written authority
of the. Board,- for the  purpose of inspecting the same, or for 
181
introducing or using therein any disinfecting process; and the
expenses incurred by the  said Board in such process, shall be
assessed and collected from the keeper of said house; and if any
such keeper of such lodging-house shall neglect or refuse to obey
the directions of the Board of Health, he shall forfeit his license.

                           Cellars.
   XXXVIII. No cellar or underground room shall be let or
occupied separately as a dwelling, without being registered and
licensed by the  Board,  and unless it possesses the following
requisites ; that is to say:
   (1.) Unless the  same is in  every part thereof at least seven
         feet in height,  measured from floor to  ceiling  thereof;
         nor,
   (2.) Unless the same  is at  least one foot of its height above
         the surface of the street or ground adjoining or nearest
         to the same ; nor,
   (3.) Unless there is outside  of  and adjoining such cellar or
         room, and extending along the entire frontage thereof,
         and upwards  from six inches below  the  level of  the
         floor thereof, up  to the  surface of the said  street or
         ground, an  open area of at least three  feet wide in
         every part; nor,
   (4.) Unless the  same is well  and effectually drained,  and
         secured against the rise of  effluvia from any  sewer or
         drain;  nor,
   (5.) Unless there is appurtenant to such cellar or room  the
         use of a water-closet or privy, as  the Board may re-
         quire ;  and of  an ash-pit, furnished with proper doors
         and coverings; nor,
   (6.) Unless the same  has  a  fireplace, with a proper  chimney
         or other ventilating flue; nor,
   (7.) Unless the same has an external  window of at least nine
         superficial feet in area, clear  of the  sash  frame, and
         made to open in  such manner as is  approved  by the
         Surveyor of the Board.
   And whosoever lets, occupies, or continues to let, or knowingly
suffers to be occupied, any cellar or underground room, contrary
to this section, shall be liable to forfeit his  license, and shall be
subject, if  he persists, to such other penalty as the  Board may
determine: and  every cellar,  or  underground  room,  in which
any person passes the night, shall be deemed to be  occupied as 
182
a dwelling within the meaning of this Ordinance;  but the above
rule shall be qualified in respect to areas as follows :
  (1.)  In any area adjoining a cellar or underground room, there
         may be placed steps necessary for access  to such cellar
         or room, if the same are so placed as not to be over or
         across  the said external window.
  (2.)  Over or across any such area there may be steps neces-
         sary for access to any building above the cellar or room
         to which such area adjoins, if the same be so placed as
         not to  be over or across any such external window.

                  New Streets and Houses.

  XXXIX. The Board, with the consent of the town councils,
and with the advice and aid of the engineer or surveyor, shall
fix and determine the following matters; that is to say :
  (1.)  With respect to the level  and width of new streets,  and
         the provisions for the sewerage and paving thereof.
  (2.)  With respect to  the structure of walls of new buildings,
         in reference to stability and the prevention of fires.
  (3.)  With respect to the sufficiency of the space  in connection
         with buildings,  to  secure a free circulation of air,  and
         the ventilation of buildings.

  (4.)  With reference to the  drainage of buildings, to water-
         closets, privies, and cesspools in connection with build-
         ings, and to the closing and prohibition of  buildings
         or parts of buildings unfit for human habitation.
  They may annex such penalties, and further provide  for the
observance of these regulations  by such by-laws as they think
necessary; and may  alter or pull down any work begun or done
in contravention of such by-laws ; Provided, however, that  no
person shall be deprived  by any by-law of such right of appeal
as is hereinafter  given in respect of by-laws.

                      Supply of Water.

  XL. The following provisions shall be  observed with  respect
to the supply of water :—
  (1.)  All public wells, pumps,  conduits, or other works used
         for the gratuitous  supply of water  to the inhabitants,
         shall vest in, and be under the control of, a Board of
         Improvement Commissioners, or  such persons as may
         be chosen for that purpose by the town  councils, with 
183
         the approbation of the Board of Health, who shall have
         the right to direct the use of the water  for any sani-
         tary  purpose.
  (2.)  A sufficient quantity shall be supplied for  domestic pur-
         poses, the takers paying such fixed  rates therefor as
         may  be determined ; and
  (3.)  May be supplied to any public baths or wash houses, or
         for manufacturing purposes,  on such terms  and con-
         ditions as may be mutually agreed upon.
  (4.)  A sufficient quantity shall be provided for flushing sewers
         and  drains,  for  putting  out  fires,  for  cleaning  and
         watering the streets, and for other public purposes.
  (5.)  The expense of providing a supply of water for the fore-
         going purposes, over what shall be paid by the takers,
         shall be assessed  on  the inhabitants, or paid in such
         other way as the  councils  shall determine.

  XLI. Any  person who wilfully wastes or fouls  the  water, or
injures any of the works for its supply, shall be liable to such
penalties as the Board or  the  Commissioners  shall determine,
and shall be also liable to a suit for damage at common law.

  XLII. When it shall appear that any house or tenement let
to other persons than the owners thereof is  not in  any way sup-
plied with water, the owners of such house or  tenement shall be
notified by the Board of Health to supply the same;  and in
case of refusal or neglect to do so within a reasonable  time, the
Board  may supply the same at  the expense  of the owner, or, at
its option, vacate the premises.

                         Ventilation.
  XLIII. No cellar, lodging-house, or other " house," intended
for the constant occupation of not less than ten persons, or for
the occasional  assemblage of large numbers of  persons, shall be
used or occupied, except under the following conditions ; that is
to say:—
  (1.)  Unless  the same shall be provided  with some effectual
       means  of ventilation, as follows:—
           a.  By ventiducts for supplying fresh air of a suitable
         temperature, which shall have  a  capacity of not  less
         than  one hundred square inches  for twenty-five per-
         sons, and in the  same proportion for any greater or
         less number; or, 
184
          b. By some other mode capable  of supplying  pure
        air  to each person  at the rate of four cubic feet per
        minute.
          c. By discharging ventiducts, which open  directly
        into heated flues, or which are conducted into the outer
        air above the roof, and then  terminated by a  suitable
        cowl or cap, and which  shall have  a capacity not less
        than two-thirds of that of the admitting ventiducts ; or,
          d. By an open fireplace, an Arnott's valve, an open-
        ing into some other ventilated apartment;  or,
          e. By some other effectual method of expelling the
        foul air.
  (2.) Or unless the drains, vaults and water-closets are securely
      trapped and effectually ventilated :—
           a. By connecting them with the  rain-water spouts;
        or, if within the house, as in the case of  water-closets,
        by
           b. A ventilating  flue opening above the roof, or
        which  is connected with a heated flue.

                    Pleasure Grounds.
  XLIV.  The Board of  Health may, with the approval of the
town council, hold, purchase by agreement, take on  lease, main-
tain, lay out, plant, and improve land for the purpose of  being
laid out as public walks  or  pleasure  grounds, and  support or
contribute towards any premises  provided for such purposes by
any person whomsoever*.

             Epidemic and  Contagious Diseases.
  XLV. When any epidemic, endemic, or contagious disease
shall threaten the town, or affect any part of the same, in order
that measures  of  precaution may be  taken with  promptitude,
according to the exigency of the  case, the Board of  Health may
issue such directions and regulations as they may think fit;  and
they shall provide for the  frequent cleansing  of  streets  and
public  ways, and for the cleaning,  purifying, ventilating,  and
disinfecting of houses by the owners or agents ; for the removal
of nuisances ; to provide  for the sick by establishing and opening
temporary hospitals, and for the speedy interment of the  dead ;
and generally for preventing or mitigating  such malignant dis-
eases,  in such  manner as to the said Board  seems expedient.
 And if any vessel, having  any  contagious  or other malignant
 disease on board, or having come from ports where such diseases 
185
are prevailing, shall arrive at either of the wharves, or come to
anchor near them, she shall be ordered  by the Health Officer to
proceed to Quarantine, there to report herself to the Quarantine
Physician.

                     Public Vaccination.
 ^ XLVI. In  order to prevent the spread of  smallpox, and to
diffuse the benefits of vaccination, it is hereby ordained, that
there shall  be provided a  suitable apartment  for the  Medical
Officer of the Board, at which place he shall attend at such times
as the Board may direct; and  he shall vaccinate without charge
any inhabitant of  this town not previously vaccinated, who may
apply for that purpose.  And  he  shall give certificates of said
vaccination, without which  no child  shall  be  admitted to the
public schools.   And he shall also always  have on hand,  as far
as practicable, a sufficient quantity of vaccine lymph to supply
the physicians of the  public institutions.

                   Interment of the Dead.
  XLVII. The Board of Health, with the consent of the coun-
cils, shall, from time to time, provide, in such places, as, having
regard to the public health, may appear to them expedient, and
within or without the limits of the district, burial grounds of
sufficient  extent  for  the decent interment of the  bodies  of  all
persons dying within  the district; and it shall be  lawful for the
said Board, in case it appears to them necessary or expedient so
to do, to  enlarge  any burial ground provided by them  under
this Ordinance, and  to make  any road to such  ground, or  to
enlarge or improve any existing road for facilitating the approach
to such burial ground ; and for providing any such burial ground,
or  improving  it, they may purchase  any  lands which it may
appear to them expedient to purchase for that purpose.

  XLVIII. They may inclose and lay out the burial  grounds
thus provided, and build therein suitable chapels for the perform-
ance of the burial service, and such  other buildings and works
as may appear to them fitting and proper.

  XLIX. When the  said Board shall be of opinion that  inter-
ment  (otherwise than in the burial  grounds provided in this
Ordinance) should  be discontinued,  wholly, or subject to any
exception or exceptions, in  any part  or parts of  the town [or
district], they shall, after due notice, order their discontinuance;
and the grounds so discontinued shall bo closed or fenced up in
such a manner as to protect the public health, and secure proper 
186
respect to the bodies interred therein.   And this section shall
also  be  considered as applying  to vaults under  churches  and
chapels as well as to the open burial grounds.

  L. No burial shall take place or be permitted in any" of the so
closed grounds, or under or in any churches or chapels to which
this order shall have been applied, except in the cases following;
that  is to say:—

  (1.) In case of long previously existing private rights of sepul-
         ture, the Board may in  their discretion give a license,
         under such restrictions as may seem to them proper.
  (2.) Or if, on  representations  properly  made  to  them,  they
         may deem the permission, if granted in  exceptional
         cases, not prejudicial to the public health.

  LI. But any and all persons who may have, by any such dis-
continuance or closure of any burial ground, as  provided for in
section XLIX., been deprived of any  rights of  sepulture, shall
have in  the newly consecrated ground  the  same  rights as  they
respectively would have had in the burial places thus closed and
discontinued; or  they shall be otherwise equitably compensated
therefor.

  LII.  The  relatives of any deceased  person, with  the consent
of the Registrar, or other  person having charge of the closed
ground in which the body of the deceased has been interred, and
subject to the regulations of the Board, may cause such body to
be removed  to, and  reinterred in any burial ground provided
under this Ordinance.

  LIII.  The Board from time to time may make regulations as
to the depth and formation of the graves and places of interment,
the nature of the  coffins to be received  in the burial grounds thus
provided, the time and mode of removing bodies, and generally,
as to all matters connected with the  good order of such burial
grounds, and  as  to the conduct of funeral  processions, and the
convenient exercise of the rights of interment therein: and such
regulations  shall  be printed and published, and shall  be  fixed
and  continued on some conspicuous part  of every such burial
ground.

  LIV.  All  burials  shall be registered  in books  to be kept for
the  purpose, in the  manner directed,  and  by  the officer whose
duty it  shall be made by the Board of Health. 
187
  LV. No burial shall take place except upon the written permit
of the Registrar or Coroner, who, before issuing said permit, shall
require to be furnished with the name, sex, age, rank, profession
or occupation,  and the residence  at  the  time of death of said
person; nor shall such permit  be then issued, except the cause
of the death of said deceased  person shall be fully certified to
the Registrar  or  other  permitting officer, by  some regularly
licensed and competent physician or surgeon.

  LVI. The Board may at  any time after the passage of  this
Ordinance, build, or otherwise  provide,  in suitable and conve-
nient locations, houses for the reception and care of the bodies of
the dead, previously to and until interment, and  make arrange-
ments  for the  reception and care of such bodies  therein,  and
appoint fit officers for  such houses of reception;  and they may
also appoint or provide medical or other officers, who, in  cases
where  the friends of the deceased so desire, may  cause the  body
of the deceased to be  decently removed  to one of the houses of
reception provided for under this section.

  LVII. The Board may, from time to time, fix, according to a
just and regular scale of  charges, the rates in  classes, varying
according to circumstances, of prices for  the conduct of funerals,
but so that in  respect of the lowest of such classes, the funeral
may be conducted with decency and solemnity.

                      General  Provisions.
  LVIII. There shall be  elected or appointed  annually, or at
such times as  shall be determined by the town councils, for the
purposes of this Ordinance, the following officers, who shall  re-
ceive such compensation,  and  perform  such specific duties, as
shall be from time to time determined; that is to say:—

  (1.)  A Registrar, whose duty it  shall  be to record the births,
         deaths, and marriages.

  (2.)  A  Medical  Health Officer, who  shall be the principal
         physician-in-ordinary  to  the Board of  Health,  who
         shall  superintend, under the direction of the Board of
         Health,  all  the sanitary  measures  ordered by  the
         Board; and who shall advise them generally as to all
         matters relating to the public health.

  (3.)  A  board  of five  Consulting Physicians, who shall be
         elected annually, and whose duty it shall be, in  case 
188
        of an alarm of any contagious or other dangerous dis-
        ease occurring in the  district, to give the Board  of
        Health all such professional advice and information  as
        they may request, with a view to  the prevention  of
        such  disease, and at  all convenient times, when re-
        quested, to aid and assist them with their counsel and
        advice in all  matters that relate to the preservation of
        the health of the inhabitants.
  (4.) An Engineer, or Surveyor, whose duty it  shall be to fur-
        nish all plans required for the use of the Board;  to
        advise in relation to the construction and grade of the
        streets;  the structure of the drains; the water supply;
        and, generally, with regard to all plansfor improving
        the surface and substratum of the district.
  (5.) Superintendents  of Streets, of  Drains, and of Burials;
        whose duty  it shall be to supervise,  and direct, and
        execute the details of the various departments to which
        they shall be  assigned, under the direction of the Board,
        of the Health Officer,  or of such other persons as the
        Board of Health may  direct.
  (6.) Such other officers as the councils may from time to time
        determine.

  LIX. Any person  who shall violate the  provisions of this
Ordinance, or any of them; or who shall obstruct the Board,  or
any of its authorized agents, in the performance of their lawful
duties;  or who shall  do any act or acts by which the public
health is endangered,  shall be fined therefor not  less than
dollars,  nor more than      dollars, for each and every offence,
and he shall be subjected to such other penalty  as the  Board of
Health, with the approval of the councils, may fix and determine,
and which are not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the
State, or in violation of the regulations of the General Board of
Health.

  LX.  If any person  feels  aggrieved by any order of the Board
of Health, or by the orders or acts of any of its accredited officers
or agents, he shall always have the right of appeal to the Board
of Health; or, if  he so elects, he may prosecute such  appeal in
the courts of law, in  accordance with the Bill of Rights, as in
such  cases made  and provided: but no such  appeal  shall be
entertained by the Board of  Health, unless said appeal is made
within four months next after making  such order, or  the doing
of such act, nor unless ten days' notice in writing is given to the 
189
party against whom the appeal is  brought,  stating the nature
and  grounds thereof:  nor then, unless the appellant  enter  into
sureties duly to abide the decision of the Board, or to prosecute
his appeal in the proper court.

   LXI.  All Ordinances and parts of Ordinances  heretofore
passed, inconsistent with this  Ordinance, are hereby repealed. 
190
APPENDIX.
   The Health Officer, or Inspector, after ascertaining  the con-
dition  of  his district, shall make his report  in the following
manner, viz:—
   "Health Officer, A. B.------, District------, reports the  condition
of premises No.------,------street, to be as follows:—
   1. Prevalent Sickness.
        (Under this head state what  the disease is, and how  many are
          affected.)
   2. Overcrowding.
        (State in figures the number of persons occupying the rooms or
          houses in badly situated localities.)
   3, Ventilation.
        (State if there is any:  and, if so, whether it is by doors, win-
          dows, or fireplaces; especially when the apartments  are closed
          at night.')
   4. Drainage.
        (State simply if there is any. and whether it  is "good"  or
          "bad.")
   5. Filth and Rubbish.
        (State the kind, quantity (by estimate), and its specific  locality.)
   6. Water Supply.
        (State if there is a supply of water for cooking, washing,  or
          bathing, and of what kind.)
   7. Dead Bodies in Single Living-Rooms.
        (State the cause of  death, and  the  general condition  of the
          apartment and its inhabitants.)
   He  shall  also make a  record, in a  book to be furnished him
for that purpose, of  the same facts in a tabular form. 
 
 
 
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