The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1881-04-28
Our Own and Our Neighbours Health.

The old notion that anything could
be put INTO the cellar as a convenient
storage place, without harm resulting,
IS fast dying out. People now perceive
that the purest air they breathe, in the
winter time especially, is just only as
pure as that contained in the cellar, be-
cause from that place it is in many
houses drawn up into every room. Or
dinarily, intelligent men and women
would greatly prefer to keep refuse in
the garnet than in the cellar. 1t is a
great step to have the cellar, that i'm
portant breathing-space for our offices
and homes, kept well whitewashed, as
far as possible from damp and rubbish,
and scrupulously exempt from animal
or vegetable refuse. Good plumbing
is also receiving its just share of atten-
ton A year or two hence the system
will be greatly improved. 1t is not
meant that the various cisterns and
pipes will be constructed as to render
repairs very infrequent, but that
they shall be so arranged as to supply
pure water and to carry off sewage
without leaving noxious gases and germs
to make the life of adults miserable and
to make the life of children brief. Bad
plumbing is quite SIS criminal as quack-
doctoring.
A household may, however, be clean
personally; may see to it that every liv-
ing, or sitting, or bedroom, is all that
sanitary laws require; may have pure
water and may have every requisite to
assure good air within the house; yet
something more is required A very
carefully edited contemporary gives this
painful instance of dire mischief COM
ing from one neighbours neglect of
ordinary precautions: "Five cases
OF diphtheria appeared in a household
where the utmost care had been taken
with the plumbing. The obvious in
terence was that the causes of the COM
plant were exterior to the dwelling. 1t
Was found that the mouth of the airbox
through which the exterior air entered
to supply the heating furnaces, was on
q level with the top of cemented pit
on the adjoining premises, in which ac-
cumuiatlons of kitchen refuse. animal
and vegetable, and barn manure were
promlscuously stored and allowed to rot
for fertllizing purposes. The foul air
from this pit was drawn into the house
through this one avenue, and the poison
ing OF its unfortunate inhabitants, four
OF whom died in quick succession, was
the result
Now these neighbors did not know
lnIgiy desire to send four persons into
the grave through poisoning the air
they breathe. They erred doubtless
through ignorance. But they took a
sure way of killing these victims of |
ediiphthera as though they had gone de-
liberately and put poison in the water
they drank. There is no excuse for any
such murderous ignorance. Reading is
well known and widely practiced art;
and the newspaper deals now with all
topics affecting the welfare of mankind.
w neither terrible case like the above
is punished adequately by man or not,
lt Will certainly leave tormenting con-
science in the breasts of those who
brought it about. 1t is hardly unfair,
with all the means of knowledge at the
disposal OF society, to presume that, as
With criminal statute law, so with SAM
AIRY law, no man shall be deemed ieno-
ant OF its requirements, and that he
snail be held therefore fully responsible
or their neglect.-N. Y. Witness.