Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-01-25

Still, thanks TO the porous nature OF all build
| ings. We could hardly keep fresh air out of our
houses ii we did not earnestly cultivate an in.
ferno Of noxious vapors below our houses, Eve
per cent OF all the gas made leaking into the
soil, forming choke damp, and sewage distill-
| ing Its three or four corrosives. any one Of
which Stays like Sennacherib's angel DR.. Bow
ditch Of Boston says in his powerful argument
| for sanitation
THE CHIEF GASES IN SEWER EMASArroSs
are carbonic acid gas. whose fatal effects We all
know. sulphurettef hydrogen, which gives the
strong smell of drains before storm and IL Q
powerful narcotic poison, which in concentra-
tion Kills as suddenly as prussic acid. 1t kills
strong men cutting river tunnels, when hardly
to be recognized by the odor. or by the test OF
lead paper, not more than 100, 00Oth part being
present in the air. The third poison is sulphide
Of ammonia. the pleasant gas reeking from
livery stables in cities, which generates
aiphtheria, and prostrates the neighboring
houses with malarious symptoms, referred
vaguely to some unknown depravity of town
posing heaps next door. Drs. Barker and
Letheby OF London, who analysed sewer gas
with thoroughness never excelled, report that
this ammonia produces asphyxia, liquefes the
corpuscles OF the blood and produces symptoms
OF typhoid. Worse is its dreadful property
OF conveying the less volatile products
or putretactlon into the air, giving validity
to the putridities of streets and rivers
curing hot weather, holding in sus-
pension the offensive matters of coal gas.
The light hydrogen found in sewers ia
what accumulates and explodes. blowing the
covers of manholes every once in a while The
organic vapor IN sewer gas propagates its own
decay, with terrible consequences in the living
pouy ana symptoms OF most active poisons.
NOW MARK THESE SYMPTOMS
with care. The appetite fails the bowels are
disturbed, chronic diarrhea sets in, distress,
sufocation and nausea, giddiness and witch
ing. Excessive prostration follows until the
sufferer is worn out by exhaustion or falls into
low fever. What difference is there between
these symptoms and those of the grip? II is a
| complete diagnosis of the disease which in the
last fortnight has Frustrated thousands all over
the country from one and the same reasons, in
town or out of lt-blood poisoning by neglect of
proper drainage and disposal of animal waste
The humidity of the atmosphere, the wave of
yltlated air imagined to roll across the 1000
| leagues of ocean between US and Europe could
never produce disease were not the conditions
| OF deadly epidemic cultivated our civiliza-
ton. small percentage of dryness in the air
and our winter frosts are all that continually
stand between us and pestilence, which is but
modern form of the plague of the dark ages.
The prostration, the purging, the giddness.
the treachery of the disease too nearly resem-
bles the plague to be mistaken for anything
but its lineal descendant. For too many poor
souls 1t might as well be the plague outright
for disease can do no more than kill.
BURIED SEWAGE.
The difference between our sanitary habits
and those of the dark ages is that thew kept
their sewage above ground at the doors Of
their houses and we bury it under the floors
1t Is not our costly sewers which prevent worse
plaques than ever decimated Europe, but our
pavements, which partially seal the gases of
death from escaping into the air We breathe
The dark, close sewers condense deadlier gases
than otfal heaps oxydized by sun and cir.
These are not my words at all, but what able
scientific men, sanitary engineers and doctors
have been trying for fifty years to teach the
world, and which the grip comes as avant
courier to proclaim before cholera and plague
come as destroying angels to enforce. The
world will not learn, though one rise from the
dead to teach; it must go down to death itself
and insisted upon. The conditions of our
sanitary matters in town and coun-
try alike are simply heathenish.
The filth of cities, the ignorant sanitary Gus
toms OF country places where, the perfume Of
roses and apple orchards cannot hide the smells
of death from unsafe drains, are SO many crimes
against humanity which must meet fearful
penalty. The types of disease become more
virulent year by year as the sites of human
habitation saturate the soil with surface water.
gas and sewage. That must overtake our civili-
cation which caused the destruction OF the old
cities of India and the great towns Of antiquity
like Sardis Laodicea and Niuevah. which Sir
Henry Acland, Md, says from his travels in
Asia Minor came to an end because it was i'm
possible longer to inhabit those filthy and
fever-stricken places that the soil by long resi-
dence was SO deterlorated that towns could
not move they ceased to be habitable.
IMPURE AIR IN HOUSES.
Nor is this all. Not one house in a hundred
has its supply of pure air direct from outdoors,
but is content to breathe air of the cellar
drawn through the furnace, bringing smells
uncomfortable to senses used to better things.
In the streets we are compelled to breathe
dangerous dust, loaded with every foulness, or
lnhale the fumes of putrefying garbage. Pub
lie conveyances are vehicles OF contagion in
the breath of their inmates. w. r. Nichols of
Boston found more than twice as much deadly
carbonlc acid in the air of passenger cars than
in the Berkeley street sewer. AS Prof. Kerr
vigorously said before the royal institute of
architects, "A house in this climate is closed
box from which the cleansing air is apt to be
excluded. Beside its own vitiated air the house
Is in communication with
AN UNDERGROUND WORLD OF SEWERS
In which the gases of decomposition are con-
stantly generated, and all pipes from the
house to this uncleanness are pipes to the house
therefrom, the sewer air forcing its way in with
still greater energy than the cleansing atmo-
spheric air. We will not speak yet the dreaded
names of chNera and yellow fever, but typhoid
| is sure to fol Wv upon the prostrstions of this
winter, and Dill cost the country millions more
before the year is out unless searching reforms
II sanitary matters are made matters Of first
moment After the ten commandments the
first thing taught by Moses was sanitary law,
which should be the great ruling interest with
priests and politicians. teachers and society till
1t is comprehended and fulfilled. All our
schemes of education. wealth and pleasure 60
halt for want of health. If we do not suspend
them long enough to learn this great lesson
pestilence will suspend them for US and force
US to learn.
There should be no question of means when
the alternative is our lives and those Of our
| children. A foe is at the doors worse than
English ironclads or Spanish privateers. Gov
eminent sanitary bonds should be as good in
vestments as any three per cents in the mar
kets, if the work cannot be better done. Men,
fathers. brothers OF America, we women APP
peal to you for protection against the foe
which walks in darkness. Upon our pleasant
things falls the shadow of the wing OF a de-
stroying angel. Shall it depart from our coast
before 1t has taken the youth. the health the
loneliness out of our homes? SHIRLEY DARE.
A Bet Declared OF.
From the New York Sun.