PRESENT PROBLEMS 83 



demonstrated conclusively that the disease had its origin in Fair 

 Haven, where the oysters eaten by these Wesley an students had been 

 fattened in an infected stream. It may be noted also that recent ex- 

 periments in the bacteriological laboratory of the New York Depart- 

 ment of Health have tended to show that the icing of infected shell- 

 fish does not destroy the virility of the germ-life therein. 



With these facts accepted, what excuses the sanitarian from main- 

 taining a most careful supervision over the culture and sale of shell- 

 fish? Especial attention should be given to the so-called "fattening" 

 process, which is most often conducted in the brackish waters of 

 streams adjacent to tidewater. The liability to infection in such 

 waters is too obvious for argument, and the fattening process should 

 either be stopped, or restricted to locations where there is no danger 

 of pollution. 



An important field is now opening to the sanitarian in the in- 

 vestigation of manufactured food-products. The extent to which 

 commercial adulteration and substitution is now practiced would 

 be absolutely incomprehensible to the layman. Competition in trade 

 has become so keen and the substitution of inferior constituents in 

 foods so general that the honest manufacturer has hardly a chance 

 to succeed. Even to name a small part of the many frauds of this 

 character would consume more than the time allotted to this paper. 

 The use of injurious preservatives has also been practiced to a 

 scandalous extent. The only remedy for this evil condition w T ill be 

 the passage and enforcement of a federal pure food law; such a 

 measure has already been before Congress, but in the absence of an 

 aroused public opinion, the mysterious influences which bar the 

 way of much good legislation at Washington have been able to kill 

 it. Several of the states already have pure food laws, arid a begin- 

 ning has been made under them, but this reform will only come after 

 one of the longest and hardest fights which the public sanitarian 

 has ever know r n. 



Much the same opportunity is offered in a campaign against the 

 vender of patent medicines and secret nostrums. Few people under- 

 stand the extent to which these articles undermine the public health, 

 and there has been little or no attempt to assume official control 

 over their production and sale. 



These nostrums are of several kinds. Some of them are prescrip- 

 tions which have been commercialized by some sharp business-man, 

 with all the help of advertising and guarantees of the remedy as 

 a "cure-all." Gullible people, who seem to be legion, are led into 

 the error of imagining that all diseases of the same general descrip- 

 tion will yield to the same remedy; they fail to recognize the 

 important factor of idiosyncrasy, and the result is that nine out of 



