596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The usual hasty charges of corruption and incompetence, it will be 

 observed, and the usual expression of a belief that matters could be 

 mended by turning the incumbent officers out of their places and put- 

 ting green men in their stead ! 



Meanwhile the Council of Hygiene was busily at work tracing the 

 source of these odors, and endeavoring to find means of suppressing 

 them. The " Journal Officiel " of October 7, 1880, contains the report of 

 a commission appointed for this duty, in which they take strong ground 

 with regard to the harmlessness of the odors, so far as the public 

 health is concerned. It has always been maintained by the Board of 

 Health of this city that the odors complained of by our citizens were 

 not detrimental to health, but only destructive of comfort, and its 

 officers have been much ridiculed for this opinion. It is not unpleas- 

 ant, therefore, to find that the corresponding board in Paris takes the 

 same view. The following extract will show this : 



" The commission deems it necessary, in the first place, to reassure 

 the public with regard to the influence exercised by sewer emanations 

 upon mortality and upon the diffusion of contagious or epidemic dis- 

 eases. In a communication to the Academy of Medicine, March 6, 

 1877, M. Bouley has stated that the proof of this contagious action, 

 far from being demonstrated, was contradicted by certain observa- 

 tions. This doctrine has been maintained in the Council of Hygiene, 

 by MM. Bouchardat and Hillairet, whose authority in such matters is 

 well known. The emanations from the mouths of sewers, as well as 

 those from the great chimneys of our factories, do not contribute, in 

 any degree whatever, to the development or propagation of ej^idemic 

 affections." 



In this report, the bad odors complained of in Paris, especially 

 during August and September, penetrating to the center of the city, 

 are attributed to the ventilating shafts of "fosses d'aisance," the 

 depots des vidanges at Billancourt, Aubervilliers, and Les Hautes- 

 Bornes, Arcueil. As remedies they recommend the prompt prosecution 

 of persons who discharge night-soil into the sewers (which is not al- 

 lowed in Paris, and accounts for the cleanliness of her sewers), the 

 thorough flushing of the sewers, a vast increase in the water-supply 

 for cesspools and water-closets, the ventilation of the sewers, and the 

 strict supervision of fat-rendering establishments. And they add that, 

 "in seeking these means of prevention, we do not lose sight of the 

 just recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, 

 dated January 7, 1878, that tJiey ought to be practicable and suscep- 

 tible of being put in operation without entailing the suppression of the 

 manufactures themselves.'''' (Italics in original.) 



The report lays great stress upon the facts that the odors from 

 poudrette-works, fat-rendering establishments, fertilizer-works, etc., 

 are not injurious to health, and that a suppression of these works, such 

 as the public demands, would result in great inconvenience and even 



