San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-01-04
GOOD SANITATION.
VALUABLE SUGGESTIONS FOR LOCAL
BOARDS OF HEATH.

Health Hints for Those Who Live I'm VII
Iages-Dangers of the Cesspool-A Mat
ter to BE Looked After-Aids Of House
Cleanliness.
The writer leaves to the intelligent and OBJ
serving reader the application of DR.. Simon's
remarks in regard to English usages to the
conditions prevailing in towns and country
places in America The recognition of the
truthfulness of the description given as APP
plicable to our own shortcomings in this re-
spect, and the realization of the dangers at
tendant upon such condition of things
ought to arouse not only individuals, but
communities, to proper sense of the duties
which they owe to themselves, as well as to
their neighbors, in the matter of proper sani-
tation of dwellings and their surroundings.
To quote DR.. Simon again: "In order to re-
duce that vast quantity of preventable dis
ease which has its type in enteric fever, and
in relation to which each individual case Of
enteric fever which occurs ought to be re-
garded as having an important local signif-
canoe, the one essential condition is cleanli-
ness. That local sanitary authorities, pro-
ceeding to act upon this principle, with clear
intelligence of what cleanliness really means,
their respective districts can within few
years reduce by some tens of thousands the
annual mortality of England is, think, at
least so certain as that such ought to be the
aim of their existence"
In certain districts cesspools should either
be abolished altogether or so reconstructed
and guarded as to be as little of a nuisance
as possible either TO the users or their neigh
bors. Privies with Enclosed vaults should be
abolished and pail SYSTEM or something of
a nature approximating to it, adopted. The
local authorities should undertake, through
their boards of health, tks removal of excre-
mental and cesspool matters. 1t would be
cheaper to employ two or more men and
carts to do this than to pursue the present
method of hiring a man to do the work at
excessive rates. Then the matters, frequently
removed and composted under the system
suggested, would have a manurial value
which the contents of privy vaults as now
allowed to remain through stages Of fermen-
tation cannot have.
SOMETHING TO BE LOOKED AFTER.
While in Medford, the writer encountered
gang of men who were engaged in cleaning
out cesspool vault. He asked one of them
where they disposed Of the matter they
carted away. oh" he replied, I'VE take it
away up in the woods in Winchester, and
dump it there" Noting the look Of surprise
on the face Of his questioner, he added:
There is a place there where we dump it,
and man there takes care Of it." This re-
minded the writer Of his own experience in
Revere, where for two seasons he was annoyed
by the foul exhalations coming from refuse
privy matters which were dumped not far
from his house on some vacant land near the
public highway, until one night he caught
the parties in the act, and so frightened theI
with the prospect of fine land other COZ
siderations' that they did not again repea
the nuisance. Now the board of health o.
Medford have duly authorized man toI
clean out the ceSspools and privies of their!
town Do they follow him in the disposal of
the filth no removess 1t is safe to say they
do not.
But in the neighborhood where this offal
is disposed of there arr watersheds or supply
basins for several large communities, and
such matter emptied on any of them must,
in its soluble parts at least, which would in
clude the germs of disease if they were pres
ent, find its way eventually into the water
supply, with tho attendant results of such
pollution on the health of the users. This is
another strong argument in favor of the
town authorities undertaking the removal as
well as the proper disposition of excrement
and cessnool mattsV .-Ih2n Z. Stric...Eystem
To n COHsnrSLI