St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-07-14
NOT ENTIRELY CIVILIZED.

OIL us increased CIV lllZdllOu, II 10
the improvement and general adop-
ton of sanitary methods and appli-
ances. Whatever affects the health
of the people commands ready and
interested hearing. You have but to
whisper ''microbe' or bacillus" and
you get the ear of the public
authorities. The chief contrast which
we draw between the cities of to-
day and those of an earlier or an
inferior civilization is less a differ
ence in stateliness or cost Of the
structures which line their streets,
than in the completeness and ade-
quacy of their sanitary provisions.
You could hardly offer a greater
insult to a public-spirited citizen, or
do more to convince him of the
depth of your own ignorance, than
to tell him that our progress in the
adoption of measures and policies
looking to the preservation Of the
public health is as slow as it is in
almost any other direction. Yet this,
as matter of fact, is the case. We
have got a little way along in
knowledge, but not very far in the
practical application of it.
The first requirements of urban
health and decency are two. One, the
removal of sewage, garbage, and
other offensive matter, and the sec
ond, an ample supply of pure
water. 1t is within the knowledge
of every. one that there is scarcely
a city in this highly developed age
and country which has satisfactor-
lily met those two elementary re-
quirements. Our cities in gen
eral are provided with sewer
systems. But these are, for
the most part, crude and unscien-
tific. They generally discharge into
stream at some point where they
will be offensive to those dwelling
in the vicinity, and dangerous to
those who draw their water supply
from the same source. But the por-
ton of population in every city
which does not use the sewers at
all is immense. There is no COM
pulsory provision, as a rule, and a
large proportion of the diseases that
are most fatal in city communities
are due to this fact. AS to the dis
position of garbage and offal, we
are advanced only a little beyond
the primitive stage. Taking our own
city as an example, we have, finally,
after years of agitation, succeeded
in establishing a crude method of
getting rid of this offensive stuff.
We do contract with a company to
go about the city and collect it once
in so often, and if any citizen allows
his back premises to get into a state
of too riotous indecency an inspector
is likely to report him to headquar-
tiers. Still it requires only a
short excursion through alleys and
back yards to show that there is
no such thing as a really clean city
of any size in America.
Considering what is even more es-
sential, the matter of water supply,
there are less than a dozen cities,
we believe, in the United States,
perhaps not half as many, which
have followed the instructions of
modern science. We know now that
the most dangerous epidemics of
disease to which a community is
water supply. We have been able
to trace typhoid fever almost ex-
clusively to that cause. We know
that scarlet fever and diphtheria
and other scourges are propagated
in the same way. We know that
where a city's water is drawn from
lakes or streams at distance it
is impossible to protect it entirely
against contamination. We know, as
chemical analysis has shown, that
the purest and best quality of such
water contains, even when free from
disease germs, organic and other
matter that is inimical to the health
of the people. A highly civilized COM
munity would not rest until these
substances were eliminated, and the
1slf n Il &c
frame, hunger and thirst, could be
satisfied without at the same time
inviting the possibility of hideous
death.
Now science has told us how tc
do this, at least as far as water
supply is concerned. 1t has beer
demonstrated over and over agair
that water can be purified by filtra
ton, and that it cannot be certain
ly made chemically pure in any Other
way. If we We're really a civilized
people, we would be able to thinl
and talk OF nothing else but thi:
great discovery. We would not res
| for one moment until every city il
the land had its filtration plant
We would no more consider the ex
pense Of it than we should that OF
any other absolute necessary of life
Yet there are, as we have said, prob
ably not over half a dozen cities il
the country, and not one of those
of the first rank, which have adopted
the simple method indicated by
scientific investigation for giving t.
their people a supply of water chem.
ically pure and innocuous. 1t would
be possible to take up almost any
other department of the associated