Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-01-02
Timely Sanitary Suggestions.


EDITOR LEDGER-The present cold
weather seems to throw our citizens
off their guard, that is, in a sanitary
point of view, although your paper
has repeatedly urged the necessity to
have our city put in thorough sani-
tary condition, nay, the press" in a
unit have urged it, but no steps have
been taken yet / consider the press"
as the voice of the people, who de-
mand of our city government that
something be done now, Delay is dan
gerous. AS time rolls on, and before
we know the summer is at our doors.
too late then to agitate foul airs and
matters accumulated in cellars and
vaults, and to these two apartments /
would like to call special attention.
Let us not be deceived by theories
that the freezing of foul air or matter
will destroy itsvitality. Nature teaches
us better. Every spring calls our at
tention to the fact, when uncountable
insects make their temperance, ap-
parently perished, yetstill in existence,
and all the ice from the Artic region
cannot destroy a single insect or its
germs, for God created it thus. A
piece of meat kept frozen for any
length of time, when subjected to a
continued sunheat, say of 750, with
addition of moisture from nightly dew,
will be transformed into a living mass
of maggots. And strangely, meat sub
jected to freezing undergoes a more
rapid transformation than meat not
thus treated. This teaches us to re-
move all refuse matter from human
habitation. Accommodations of vaults
are the great sources from whence all
plaques derive their origin; history
and almost yearly occurrence teach US
thus.
Plaques of some kind or the other,
have annihilated whole populations, es-
pecially in warm climates, because they
allowed their excrement to accumulate
about them for years. Let us look
back hundred years and read the
accounts Of the great plaques which
visited even Northern Europe. Why
do these pestilences not occur so fire.
quent now, or not at all? Simply
because all large European cities are
kept now under strictly sanitary regu-
lations: vaults are cleaned out every
year; in short, the human excrements
are removed somehow, either by sew
erage or carts. As we have no sewerage
let us, for the present, use carts Our
capitalists and financiers should devise
some mode by which money could be
raised to enable the health officer to
enforce the board Of health ordinance
so it may become a practical insti-
tuition, and not mere farce. Let the
ordinances be enforced to the very
letter then our houses will have to be
cleaned and freed from refuse and
foul air from the garrets to the eel
'lers, yard and vaults or it cost us
% or $00 hne, for G'sobedlence of san
7tay laws.
Our little bayou whereof so much
ingenuity has been exFounded as to
which way its water ought to flow, |
viii say. " although | am not an engi-
neer, it matters little which way it
flows so it flows When life is in
danger and people have no money they
must not be too particular in how
they go to work or how il suits their
fancy | suggest to put our chain
gang on to the work, TO clean out the
bNyou and deepen the bed where it is
needed to give the water freer flow.
This can be done at a comparatively
small expense Let there be heavy
fine imposed for committing a nui-
sance such as throwing dead animals
or any refuse in the bayou. A few
heavy fines would stop that, and the
bayou trouble for the present be at an
end, provided our health officer will
faithfully call attention to it and have
it watched. &. II. b.