The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1874-07-19
Responsibility for Preventable Deaths,
Almost 1MroRrANT srsJEcr.

The Sanitarian for July opens with an excel
lent paper by the editor on the waste O
Life" taking for his text the medico-legai ex
oerpt that =" it is held in law that whoever
acoelerates death causes it," and under this
citation phrasing an indictment with MANY
commits against those whose official duty i,
should be to protect human life and health
The unreqaited sacrifice of numerous yictims
BY the falling of recklessly constructed build
inge, the Ronstrous iniquity of the Mill River
disaster, the too-soon forgotten founderin gs ol
iengthened steamships and explosions of neg.
!ected boilers, and railway collisions, are ad
duced as examples of the common carelessness
OF human safety throughout the country. Ant
these, the occasional and patent deeds of ac-
tual violence, are of minor import compared
with the moro insidious and persistent crimes
against humanity in which the civil iauthori.
Iies take part as accessories before the fact
fivate residences and public buildings are al
lowed to be erected lover old burying.places
vaults and cesspools, and within provided with
oil possible accessories for the retention of the
poisonous gases evolved from the soil, in ad.
nants ta 20 'ne 1eoi air generated by their ocou
beautiful exterior relations of shade trees and
verdure, but with neglected graveyard prey
lmities' and other death streams beneath and
around, with privy vaults, oesspools and wells.
AL IN close proximity, are the common meats NJ
typhoid fever all over the country" The vii.
famous arrangements of sehoolhouses, public
institutions appropriated to the nurture of dis.
ease and the acceleration of death :" the st;ij
greater horror of tenement houses, reekinn
With. With NTH TN and vile odors, bounded by foul
stEeets and fouler inner court yards, breeding
disease and vice in twin birth, killing thons'
anos OF the infants that struggle into life be-
meath their murky roofs (and more than half
the children of New York are born in tenement
houses ~ these and other preventable canses
OF mortality arising from public negligence or
private greed furnish themes whereon the
sanltarlan may well hold forth and indignantly |
proclaim that, The lesson is yet to be- ton0ht
in this country that man has no right to noison
his neighbor; that to poison the air for his
neighbor to breathe is no less criminal than to
children in schools and tenement houses os IN
other places, is infanticide; that to accelerats
me death Of any individual Is to cause it, and
that y the crime is homicide" And why not
injury by reason of defective Highway. the
law s,ives him redress from the mupicinal;tH
Whoh S1is ought to keep that highway in safe con-
ruined by defective drainage or improper sews
,rage be entitled to like reparationf Whv
should not the Police Commissioners be held
legally Gas they are morality for
he fostering street filth which it is their bust
isss to removed An accident whereby o score !
! lives are lost rouses our ire for time, but
en1der % os o take mote OF the continual slow
he total annual mortality of the United States
.bout one-half Cor nearly quarter of n mil. 2
,on dsaths) are caused by diseases due for !,
NO most part to miasms consequent upon soil !
aturation and stagnsnt water; p in eyery town !
nd hamlet throughout the land life is wasted t
hfongh neglect OF the simplest sanitary pre- =
autions; and this waste giving the lie To onr 1
aunted civilization, is ever sapping the foun- a
ationS OF our productive industry and adding =
the burden of public charity. Truly saws !
he writer, 1t is time for the authorities to't q
arn that it costs less to have human habi- o
'tions constructed with regard to the proteo. Q
on OF life; with provision for an abandant q
eanly streets, efficient drains and sewers T.
IAN 1t does to neglect these provisions: that n
lperfectly constructed houses, mill dams.
eamships, and other human habitations and .
ghways, all fall under the category of neg O
cted measures, accelerAting death" q