The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-11-19
Practical Results Of Sanitary Science.

l would submit the enclosed letter
written to the Council of our Society o.
Arts, to show the money gain, as vel
as the gain in health and life, achieved
here, as vet by incomplete, rudimentary
sanitary measures. hope to see early
examples of their more complete appli
cation in the United States:
The first British army went out ia
Crimea under the established curative
or medical service, and it was lost.
Sanitary commissioners, trained in serv-
ice under the first General Board Of
Health, were then sent out to reform
the condition of hospitals and camp,
and within three months reduced the
sickness and mortality from a plague
rate down to an ordinary standard Of
health, and by the end of the summer
of 1855 to a rate lower than that of the
best hospitals at home; and the War
Minister declared in Parliament that by
the application of their science the Sec
ond army had been saved. Formerly
the death rate in the Indian Army was
SO per 1000 per annum. The average
mortality from 1869 to 1878 was only
2O.41; there was, therefore, a gain of
4S. SO per 1000, or, on the present force
out there, a gain of $3.50 men. The
death rate of the army at home was
formerly Is per 1000. In the year 1879
it was 7.55, being a gain of 1855 per
1000. As the strength of the army in
that year was $1,000, the gain was 843
per annum. The total gain to tii5'army
in India and the army at home, and the
rest of the army, will be 3,433 men per
annum. AS each soldieris estimated
at f100, this represents in money value
9344, 900, or more than a third of q
million. 1t is not very easy to get at
the real amount of the Sickness; but the
total gain, including the diminished
death rate, is considered to be underra-
ted at f500,00 per an1um.
"The total numberof men killed on
the battlefield and On the deck, in
Guiding those killed st Waterloo, Ira
falgar and the most severe battles DUR
ing the twenty-five years war, was,
according to the army returns, 1896.
The lives saved rom premature de-
struction by the ciTil sanitary service,
during each of the ten years of the de-
cade, was $4,000. The wounded during
the twenty-five years. war were 1900;
but, taking a serious sickness as equiv
alent to wound, the achievement of
the sanitary service has been, during
the same period, some 5000, 900 of cases
saved by the civil sanitary service. The
deaths by steam explosions, in mines
and on railways, amount to about 5000
annually, but the lives saved by the
civil sanitary service in England and
Wales are tiEe-fold greater than the
lives thus destroyed by civil accidental
violence. A reduction of the death rate
by four and one-half per cent. is only
an installment of sanitary progress. Thus
in the instance of Croydon, visited by
the delegates of the Congress, the
death rate has been reduced from twen-
ty-five to sixteen per one thousand,
chiefly by the methods introduced by
the first General Board of Health, by
which spring supplies of pure water are
carried into the houses and the fouled
water carried at once out of the houses
and out of the town, by one local board
authority, while all putrescible mat
ter, instead of remaining for months
and years in conditions of putrefaction,
is undecomposed, and flows upon the
land within two hours. So in Salisbury,
bennington and number of other
places. At Croydon, it has been stated
by DR.. Alfred Carpenter that, by COM
plete sanitation the death rate might be
reduced to ten in one thousand. In the
metropolis the death rate among the
wage classes in their common dwellings
is upward of thirty per one thousand. In
the model dwellings in London it is how
ever about sixteen or seventeen, even
with surrounding deteriorating condi-
lions. On the demonstrations of vari-
GUS model instances it may be held that
the reduction of the general death rate
by four and one-half per cent, as re-
ported, satisfactory as this is, cannot be
considered more than one third of the
results obtainable by advanced sanitary
administration and further sanitary
works. "-EdUm Chado0ick, m the San
atary Engineer.