Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-14
SOME VALUABLE POINTERS.
DR.. English Shows How Cable Cars and
Electric Lights Improve the HenIth-A
PAPER on City Hygiene.

DIR. English Shows How Cable Cars and
Electric Lights Improve the HcnIth-A
Paper on City Hygiene.
In enumerating ''some of the hygienic ad.
vantages of modern city buildings, with
special reference to the respiratory organs, II
in paper read before the State Sanitary
Convention. DR.. W. T. English says among
other things that casual view of >our
streets, alleys and courts reveals an advance
in street paving, Belgian block substituted
for cobble stones on the streets and concrete
or asphalt on alleys and courts.
He quotes Rudolph Herring, who says
that one horse can draw as much weight on
an asphalt pavement as would require two
horses on Belgian block and seven and four
fifth horses on cobble stone. Township
Road Supervisors ought to hunt up the
authorities, and "when found make a note
ont" but Dr. English is more concerned
with the subject in a sanitary view. He
urges the Belgian block and asphalt ON &C
count of hygienic considerations Streets
so paved are more easily cleansed. The air
contamination is reduced, dust decreased
and the streets are largely cleansed by
rainfall.
DIR. English also finds that cable and
electric railways in Pittsburg and Allie
gheuy, when completed, will remove 1000
horses from the streets, and the absence of
offal incident to such herd of animals, ex-
halations of eff1uvia, dust, gas and odors in
Vulnerable constitute only small portion
of the benefits.
On the reduction of oxygen waste by
the use of electric lights instead of
gas, the doctor finds that the 10000
street lamps of Pittsburg and Allegheny
represent an oxygen waste that would
supply city of 30, 900 or 40, 900 inhabitants,
and the grand total OF oxygen waste saved
indoors and outdoors or streets, in business
houses and printing Offices, factories, ETC.,
by electric lighting in these two cities, he
finds enough to supply city of 10000
people.
He quotes from DR.. Haller and Kriell, of
Germany, to prove that inhalation of super
heated air is destructive of bacilli, and
finds that the use of natural gas in baking
the air of public assembly rooms, after the
departure of the audience, is valuable for
the destruction OF mIcro-organisms and the
rendering of the air aseptic, after which the
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its wonted place.
He indorses the proposition that in all
cities there should be provided homes, or
hospitals, Tor consumptives, When deemed
advisable the rooms could be heated beyond
the temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit,
at which bacilli perish, and when thought
necessary the patient could be advised to
inhale for some time the air at the same alti-
tude which would render the lungs aseptic
In 1888 the relative death rate in Pitts
burg from consumption was nearly II per
cent. In five years preceding 1889 it never
reached more than the average of 9.96 per
cent.
On the whole DR.. English believes that
with cleanliness. electric lighting, etc., the
cities are improving in both physical and
mental health, and that Fairs law of
density, which assumes that 1.-The nearer
men live to each other the shorter their
lives, may be reversed by statistics of future
cities. 1t is in large cities that the greatest
progress has been made in hygienic require
ments, and in small cities the proportionate
death rate is the largest