328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



less, or dreaming citizens in midsummer nights, ceased to exist, 

 when privy- vaults were generally banished from New York. 



7. Care of Contagious Diseases. The prevalence of con- 

 tagious diseases, and the absence of official care and control a 

 quarter of a century since, is illustrated by the following extract 

 from the report of the Council of Hygiene, 1865 (page 137), upon 

 the sanitary survey made in the previous year : 



"With typhus fever and small-pox in nearly ten thousand 

 domiciles of the poor and the ignorant, where every circumstance 

 favored the localization of infection and the propagation of dis- 

 ease, and where gross nuisances and criminal negligence of clean- 

 liness, ventilation, and medical police demanded the presence of 

 intelligent authority, it is justly concluded that the work of sani- 

 tary improvement should, if possible, be enforced by legal author- 

 ity. The records of many a fever-nest during this survey have 

 shown that the legislative and judicial power of an intelligent 

 Board of Health is indispensable. In some instances the incursions 

 of fever into crowded tenements ravaged every family, and not 

 infrequently broke up large families, making fatal victims of the 

 parents and pauperizing their surviving dependants ; often the 

 fever has swept through the front and rear domiciles of populous 

 tenement-houses, and thence has been widely diffused by the con- 

 stantly changing tenants." 



The result of official sanitary care and of improved methods is 

 demonstrated by the vital statistics of that period and of the pres- 

 ent time. The number of deaths from small-pox was 78 in 1863, 

 394 in 1864, and 674 in 1865 ; and from typhus fever 420 in 1863, 

 764 in 1864, and 501 in 1865. With a population more than doubled, 

 the number of deaths from small-pox were 81 in 1888, one in 1889, 

 and two in 1890, and from typhus fever four in 1888, none in 1889, 

 and none in 1890. The average number of deaths from typhus fever 

 for the ten years ending with 1865 was 291, and for the ten years 

 ending with 1890 was 30, and the average number from small-pox 

 for the same periods were 372 and 92 respectively. These remark- 

 able results must be attributed to the improved sanitary condition 

 of the city generally ; to the prompt reports of all cases of con- 

 tagious disease by attending physicians ; to the immediate removal 

 of the sick to hospitals by the health officers, when advisable ; to 

 the sanitary inspection of the premises where sickness has oc- 

 curred, and the thorough disinfection of sick-rooms and of infected 

 bedding and clothing ; and to the new and commodious hospitals 

 for contagious diseases erected and controlled by the sanitary 

 authorities, in which the sick are completely isolated and receive 

 the best care and medical attendance. In cases of small-pox, to 

 prevent the spread of the disease, the persons who have been ex- 

 posed to the contagion or reside in the immediate vicinity are 



