The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-06-07

The APPROACH Of the summer season, when we
may expect for weeks and months a succession of
hot days and sweltering nights with frequent
and more or less prolonged Interruptions of the
trade w~inds-brings to mind the subject of the
sanitary condition Of this city. During a num-
Der Of years past we have not failed in our duty
on each succeeding season to call public attention
to the danger we are mourning by tie continued
neglect Of proper sanitary regulations. As the
city increases in population and is more compactiy
built and more shaded with trees, the danger Of
a pestilence proportionally increases. Already
the premonitOry symptoms are yearly advancing
in the shape Of fevers and other ailments that
were quite unknown here twenty-five or thirty
years ago. And does it not strike any mind that
such must inevitably be the result, when it is
remembered that in a city of say fifteen thousand
inhabitants such q thing as cleaning out the cess
pools and common sewers has been unknown dur
ing the past forty years, the invariable custom
having been whenever such receptacles became
full to simply cover them with earth, there to lie
and tester? By actual count it has been ascer-
tanned that there are no less than fifteen hundred
of these pestilence-breeding pits within a radius
Of thirty acres in this city The wonder is that
we have not been visited by the pestilence ere
this, and we may unquestionably attribute our
escape to the prevalence of the trade wind. But
we cannot always expect this immunity from the
consequences Of our own sloth. The city Of
Buenos Ayres, as its name indicates was formerly
considered one Of the healthiest spots in South
America but in 1872 it was almost depopulated
by q petilence of q novel character, which for q
while puzzled the doctors and swept off daily over
two hundred persons. Scientific investigation
however showed that the pestilence was owing to
the same evil Of which We complain as existing
here-the neglect of the common sewers. Later
still, in 1876, the city Of Rio fundamentally
a very salubrious position was similarly visited
by a pestilence, and from precisely the same
cause, the neglect of sewage, and one hundred
persons died every day for a month or more.
These examples should certainly awaken us to a
realization of the danger which is impending and
which will surely some day Oyertake the inhabit-
ants of this city.
But, il Will be asked, what can be done to
remedy the evil and avert the danger? In the
absence of legislation, the Government has no
power to build sewerage works for Honolulu,
which would necessarily be extensive and costly.
The Board Of Health Is by law " charged with
the general oversight and care of the public
health, - and it has authority to order the re-
moTal Of any . nuisance, source Of filth or cause
of sickness found on any private property; " but
where the sources Of filth and causes Of sickness
are so numerous as in this city to-day, the task
of removing them would be like the cleansing of
the Augean stables, and like that could only be
accomplished by turning q river through the
city. 1t is not to be expected that any future
Legislature will be induced to provide proper
sewerage for Honolulu until after the city shall
have been visited by a pestilence. In the mean
time we advise as a necessary measure of precau-
ton, the general adoption Of earth-closets
throughout the city, instead of the present system
Of fever-breeding vaults. The construction of
these closets is simple and cheap, and we doubt
not that any desired information on the subject
can be obtained through the Board of Health.
Since the foregoing was written, n gentleman
Of this city informed us that he had read in q
recent American publication q very simple for
mula for a disinfectant, which was recommended
by high scientific authority. 1t consists merely
of about n tablespoonful of spirits of turpentine
in a bucket of water poured into a cess-pool.
Our informant, on trial, found it to be quite
effcaciOus.