New-York tribune., 1878-11-22


of proper machinery. II its agents are paid,
mercenary men crowd into the places, who
put no heart in their work if not paid, men
who really have heart for the work can
seldom afford to do it for nothing.
With regard to this business OF sanitary
science, however, we, as nation, scarcely
know its theory, even in the alphabet. HOW
much the present conference will add to our
knowledge remains to be proved. The hrst
day or two were consumed in speeches OF well
come, in the usual allusions to RichmOnd's
trials during the war, all of which were nat
ural enough and not to be avoided, but hardly
pertinent to the matter in hand. Even the
recital of details of individual herolsm ana
suffering during the prevalence of yellow fever
should be cut as short as possible. AS the
editor of Memphis paper said the other day,
"We've all been heroic now we've had enough
"Ofhcroism; let's have drainage" The business
before this convention is so urgent vital in its
Importance, SO new to the general public, and
so inexorably practical, that they should not
waste moment in sentimentalism, but go to
practical work. The present convention is, in
fact, our first step in tins work. which III
several European countries has for many years
Dttll Uldut ~ SClflAS' III i%hSA"hhj
public attention was directed to sanitary science
as ours is now, by the prevalence OF frightful
pestilences. The Public Health Department. has
been established there for just twenty years.
1t is a well paid, leisurely, purblind depart
ment; and the appointment OF municipal health
boards in all English cities except London is
optional yet with all this indifference and
incflicicncy, the Improvement i'll public health
III these twenty years has been great and
steadily increasing. The death rate in certain
cities, from typhoid and malarial diseases,
was reduced by the reform of tho sewerage
and house drainage, the removal OF cesSpoOlS
and the supply of pure water, from 20 to 90
per cent The reduction of the death rate
from scarlet fever made by the strict legal
regulations for the disinfecting of houses and
isolation OF patients is as great as that made
in the deaths from smallpox by the practice
of vaccination.
The statistics Of sanitary science are dry read
ing, but they would be especially profitable to
our people just now. They prove indisputably
that typhoid, intermittent, and yellow fevers
can be brought wholly under the control of
sanitary or dictetic measures 1t remains to
bc discovered whether these, and indeed all
diseases popularity called contagious and epi
dcmic, disseminate their poison or not by
means of bacteria or living germs which
plant themselves and grow in blood,
lungs or bowels but 1t is fact, known now
to the most ignorant, that these diseases
do spread and carry death by means
of the excremcntal pollution from the sick,
absorbed into the ground, the water we
drink, the very air we breathe. 'For pop
"ulation," says Mr.. Simon, "to be thus pois
"oned by its own pollution will one day be
"deemed ignominious and intolcrable." How
to prevent this poisoning is one of the prob
lens before the country just now; how to en-
force isolation and disinfectiOn in cOnta
gious diseases is another how TO dispose of
the dead is yet another. The Association in
Richmond may do much to awaken public at
tention to these things outside Of the spec
ial subject of yellow fever. But each
town and village must work for itself.
I'm one English town, where the drainage is
good and the water pure, the death rate is III
in 1000; in n neighboring village, as filthy
as some of our inland villages where cess
pools and cemeteries drain into the water
springs, il is 20 in 1000. A foreigner might
well think that Americans are in love with
death. Even in this the metropolis, il is i'm
possible To carry out necessary hygienic
measures on the ground of hygiene alone.
Philadelphia, poisoned in every house by
sewer-gas, has debated for years the spending
of few thousands to amend her drainage,
while the ignorance and neglect of sanitary
precautions are greater the further we pcne-
trate inland. II is for this Association to tell
us what we need, and that in as plain and
direct words as possible.