The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-10-08
SEWERAGE.

much sickness has there been in Houston,
fortunately, however, of tractabe type In
the main, that reports have been circulated
abroad that yellow fever prevailed in the
city. In Marshall it has been reported that
two deaths Of recent occurrence we're from
yellow fever. II is not true that there has
been any yellow fever in Texas, but 1t is
lament BILE fact that vast deal Of sickness
has prevailed in nearly every town and city
in the state, and of that character, too, en-
gendered by poisonous exhalations from
cesspools, filthy cutters, Accommodations Of
refuse matter and want of sewerage. That
there should ever be causes for sickness from
uncleanliness in any town or city is simply
criminal on the part of the inhabitants OF
such town or city. Where people
come together and live in communities as
they do in towns and cities, there is an accu-
mutation of otIsl, of excrementitious mat
t,r that no natural causes will remove or do
stroy. To suffer it to remain, growing daily
greater in quantity and more ditiused
through out the community, fostering and
fermentng under the heat and damps Of
summer, and emitting nauseous odors and
blood poisons that arc taken up into tho air
to be breathed by the people, foul, fetid gem
orators OF sickness, disease and death, is it
not criminal, weasT, on the part of the peo-
pie to permit it There is but one thing tho
poop can do n their own behalf, and that 10
to al whatever natural causes there may be
at hand for the removal or destruction of the
filth rs fast as it is produced, by artificial
means. Tho most feasible artificial means in
use is thorough drainage, through
the medium OF n system Of sur.
face and underground sewerage
as perfect and complete as il can be made.
There ia not sane man in Dallas who will
voluntarily swallow arsenic, or inject into
his veins an over-quOntity of morphine. Yet
every day the people, for the most part,
knowingly breathe an atmosphere laden
with a Understanding etluvia just as deadly
in the end, though not SO speedy in its eff
fects, MS eithor arsenic or morphine. 1t will
cost some money to construct sewers and Sc
cure drainage, yet that tempting dross, not n
cent Of which We can take into the next
world with us; not millions nor multiplied
millions of which will loosen the grip of
death; not billions nor multiplied billions of
which could induce the man with heart IN
him, to willingly witness the anguish of the
disease wracked body, or behold the dows Of
death clustering on the brow OF wife,
daughter, son or mothar-yet that tempt
inG dross makes the people of Dal-
las hesitate, makes them refuse. TO
preserve their health, TO ward
of sickness, 10 save suffering and
m ,urling. Tla time was when medical
science had not advanced and developed to
that degree that tho causes of peStilences
epidemics and the various ills of man could
DO Osccrtained. The physical said the disease
is in the air, but no didn't know what caused
II to be in tho air, he could not trace it to its
source and removing that source stop the eff
feet. He went on with his drastics, his
phlebotemy, his hot baths, his cold douches,
his emetics and his filling up of grsveyards,
and the Illness that prevailed "made countless
thousands mourn" The world knows better
now. Not only do the physicians know better,
but The people themselves know better. They
not only know how 10 trace effects to causes,
not only know that the accumulations of
closet vaults percolate all the soil, satursting
it with deadly matter, the ,illuvia and
poison from which is emitted through the
surface and taken up by the atmosphere,
that tseaps into the wells and impregnates
the water used for cooking and
drinking purposes with its dreadful
impurities not only know all these
things, but they know how to remove said
causes, how to remedy, to eradicate iadeed
those evils Knowing this, then is it not
criminal on their part to permit death to lurk
in the very air wo take into our lungs, tho
very water with which we quench our thirst,
that is necessary in the culinary department
of our homes? Ask any intelligent physi.
clan in the country, any well informed man,
and he will toll you that in city of the size
of Dallas, as compactly built as ii is, with the
whole earth within its confines, honey
combed with closet vaults and wells of drink.
ing water, almost ifnot quite as plentiful as
said vaults, 1t will take but very little while
year or less time, for the entire soil to be-
come saturated with the foul reekings of
these vaults, and the emptyngs into the gut.
tiers and the well-water, but liquid poison
every inanitesimsl portion Of which /,
ladened with typhus, malarial, cerebo-mnlarial
bilious, pernicious or some other kind of
fever, that delights to enter the system of
man, and hold high carnival as his hot blood
leaps madly through his veins laughing in
horrid glee as his body is twisted and dis.
tortod with pain, and enscting It's feudish
orgies in the halls and corridors Of his mind,
dethroning reason, and erecting its madden
inc affairs for sacrifice, to its god of death.
Dallas is in fearful sanitary condition to-
day. The physicians of the city know that
every case Of fever they have been called
upon to treat during the summer and ssrlv