The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-04-22
The Public Health.
From The San Francisco Ne,es Letter

(From The San Francisco .Ners Letter.)
The public mind is greatly more exercise d by
the veto of the Chinese bill than it is by the
loss of six hundred lives by preventable disease.
We may surely anticipate a score or SO of public
meetings to denounce the action of the Presi-
dent, but none will be held to arraign the Super
visors or question the actien of the Board of
Health. The fact is that, while all American
citizene have been educated to take a deep inter
est III political questions, nothing has been done
to teach them the economy of health. And yet
the competition of the Chinese is neither more
keen nor more fatal than the fight with death.
The one cuts down the income of the family just
as surely as the o~ther-perhaps more so. Think
for a moment of the tax inflicted upon the labor
ing family by a case of typhoid fever. The doc
tors bill, the nurse and laundryman, the medi-
cines and costly foods, to say nothing of the
loss of services and anxiety of mind. What is
Chinese competition to the household which has
lost the father from pneumonia or the mother
from puerperal septicOmia, induced by a poi
ssoned drain ? The cost of the extra funerals
this year has already passed a hundred thousand
dollars, TO say nothing of the cost of mourning.
On this score alone the city tax for preventable
mortality is at the rate of half a million yearly,
or more than sufficient to put the sewers in a
safe condition. ~Unhappily, however, no one
considers the economy of health. Death has
been so habitually regarded as inevitable that
no extra or unnecessary mortality is likely to
arouse the people to the extent of their suffering
and loss, or to make them take a lively interest
in the reform of sanitary administration. And
yet the mortality returns Of the past three
months are enough to startle the most a~pathetic
from their sanitary lethargy. The death rate is
nearly sixty per cent. higher than it was last
year. Sixteen hundred and ninety-one persons
have already died. The annual death rate is
28.SS per thousand, or nearly double what it
should be. 1t is no eXaggeratiOn to affirm that
nearly 600 persons have this year been murdered
by preventable disease.
1t is not Chinese competition nor the poverty
of the people. 1t is not the badness of their
dwellings, nor want of clothes and warmth. 1t
IS neither the quality nor insufficlency of food.
1t is not the rigOr of the winter, nor the vicis-
STUDIES of the season. None of these have
caused the appalling result but simply the ig-
norance of the people on sanitary questions.
This ignorance is reflected in the laws and gov
ernment-in the Board of Supervisors, in the
habits and customs of the people. If the cult
walton of physical health formed a part of edu-
cation, and was put on an equal footing with
intellectual education, no landlord would dare to
make a house drain without proper ventilation.
No Supervisor would dare to make sewers with
out sufficient fall and proper outlet, and the
Coroner would be ordered to hold an inquest in
cases of death from typhoid fever, in order to
fix the guilt upon the murderers. No better
evidence could be afforded of official ignorance
and incapacity than the resolution of the Super
visors requesting the advice and opinion of the
Academy of Sciences. Have they not already a
Board of Health, whose duty it is to assist them
in this strait +? Why not refer the matter to
them ? Why not defer to their opinion and
carry out their wishes ? We fear the Board in
question does not possess the confidence either
of the Supervisors or the public. 1t is, in fact,
a clique without influence or power. 1t eXer-
cises a little mild patronage Ill the interests of
the predOminating party, but 1t is powerless to
reform the sanitary administration of the city,
or remove the monstrous evils which have been
created under the existing charter. The appeal
to the Academy would be Il laughable, were it
not a lamentable, evidence of sanitary ignorance.
The learned A~cademlclans are requested to sug-
cost nma IN TgUpHu The eSCUDp nf GaNCa
gases. Just what is not required. The problem
is not holc 10 remedy, but hog 10 facilitate the
escape of sewer gases. If the Supervisors had
ever seen a sewer, they ought to have found out
that it is by necessity a channel for the trans
portation of foul water; that no sewer can exist
without sewer gases. Not all the Academicians
of San Francisco can prevent the formation of
sewer gases, but they will render a great public
service if they will teach the Supervisors the
importance of sewer ventilation, whereby the
evil may be reduced as much as possible.
But the Academy can confer upon the COM
munity a still greater boon. Let the committee
appointed to consider this question put sanitary
science in the very first place IN the future
operations of the Academy. At the present mo-
ment it is the subject of paramount interest of
which the public are profoundly ignorant. Let
geology, etymology, astronomy and other COM
parativeIy useless subjects give place for d time
to sanitary science. The Academy has recently
received a noble gift. But the stuffed animals
and the fossils of the past will not save a single
life. They contribute much to the intellectual
cultivation Of the citizens, but they Will not
teach any one how to live safely in an unwhole-
some neighborhood. Surely some millionaire
might be induced to pay Il lecturer to discourse
ON the gospel of cleanliness and health. Let
the Academy invite an exhibition of sanitary APP
pliances, and diffuse information with respect to
the precautions against impure air, impure
water and adulterated food. Let it be shown
that the most practical science of humanity is
the knowledge how to live, and that this every
dav business is not beneath the attention of
scientific men.
Once again do we repeat that sanitary reform
must come from the people themselves With
out the wide diffusion of sanitary
charters are useless and laws will fail. The
Nuisance Inspector is powerless where he acts
in direct opposition to the wishes and habits of
the people. The evil he remedies is created as
soon as his back is turned. Let the Academy
report that sanitary knowledge is the best scaV-
enger and the best remedy even IOr sewer gas l