SEWER-GAS. 5 



The special poisons to which I now refer are the gases resulting from defect- 

 ive plumbing, to which all classes the poor occupants of tenement-houses, those 

 who are able to command the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life, and 

 those wbo live in the most expensive houses, and whose ricbes can buy every- 

 tbing but health are alike exposed. None but pbysicians can know how gen- 

 eral this poison is, and how positively it explains much of the disease that tbey 

 are called upon to treat, and of the many sad deaths which follow. 



When I assert that it is a daily experience with me to see persons whose 

 general health is suffering from this poison, as manifested by malaise, loss of 

 appetite and strength, slight febrile symptoms, diarrboea, physical and mental 

 depression ; and that I have seen infants, children, and adults suffering from 

 diphtheria, scarlet fever of a mild type, complicated with this disease and 

 destroying life ; those in vigorous health, students in colleges, ambitious and 

 active young men in the professions or in the commercial or financial world, 

 stricken down by typhoid fever, some struggling through the disease and others 

 dying ; and that the cause has been demonstrated to be this poison I only state 

 facts which are common in the experience of all physicians in this city. In 

 some cases this has been the result of ignorance of the very unsanitary con- 

 ditions which environed them. For example, two young men were stricken 

 down with typhoid fever, one of whom died. They were not acquaintances, 

 but occupied offices in the same building, iu the vicinity of Wall Street. On 

 investigation, it was found that there was not a trap in the whole building. 

 In a house in which, but a few months before, several hundred dollars had been 

 expended to put the building in perfect condition, a young man died of typhoid 

 fever, and others of the family became ill, when it was found that a defective 

 waste-pipe was saturating the house with poisonous gas. But such facts as 

 these are so common and so well known to the profession that I need not dwell 

 upon them. 



It is the custom of many in this city, whose means will permit them to do 

 so, to take their families for health and pleasure to various summer resorts at 

 the sea-side, the mountains, and other attractive country hotels; but every year, 

 for some time past, some of these places have proved fatal to health, and often 

 to life, by typhoid fever. . . . None but physicians are alive to the fact that 

 many of those living in beautiful and expensive houses in this city are like 

 the inhabitants who dwell at the base of Mount Vesuvius, in a soft, balmy, 

 voluptuous atmosphere, surrounded by vineyards and gardens luxuriant with 

 the olive and the fig and the orange trees, which mask and hide the danger and 

 desolation of the lava and ashes of disease. . . . The physician should never 

 be an alarmist; he never can hoist the signal of danger, except when he sees the 

 forewarning signs of an impending storm. Unfortunately, he never can see the 

 danger from this position until its effects are already beginning to develop as 

 shown by disease. 



At tins same meeting Professor Doremns gave us the painful story 

 of the sudden prostration of his two sons, one of whom died, and the 

 other recovered only after a prolonged illness ; in both of which cases 

 sewer-gas was ascertained to be the cause of the sickness. 



' I would rather," said Professor Doremus, "have exposed my 

 sons to the deadliest poisons in my laboratory, for which we have anti- 

 dotes, while for the deadly effects of sewer-gas we have no remedy." 



But what is the need of multiplying testimony upon this point 



