SANITARY IMPROVEMENT IN NEW YORK. 329 



vaccinated or revaccinated as may be necessary, and are held for 

 the necessary time under official observation. Prior to 18G6 free 

 vaccination was obtainable only upon application to public dis- 

 pensaries ; now a corps of expert medical inspectors, by constant 

 house-to-house visitation, offer vaccination to all and urge its ac- 

 ceptance. With the great decrease in typhus fever and small-pox 

 official attention has been specially directed to scarlet fever, diph- 

 theria, and minor contagious diseases ; a hospital has been erected 

 for the reception of cases that can not be isolated and properly 

 treated elsewhere ; and the same rules and regulations have been 

 applied in respect to reports of cases by physicians, inspection of 

 premises, isolation or removal to hospital, and disinfection of 

 rooms, bedding, and clothing, with results so satisfactory and 

 promising that there is reason to hope for a continued decrease in 

 the sickness and mortality from these dangerous diseases. 



8. The Food-supply. The frequent inspections, by a corps 

 of experts composed of physicians and chemists, have so improved 

 the supply of milk brought to the city and offered for sale, that 

 this important article is now rarely found diluted by water or 

 otherwise impure. The markets for meat, fish, fruit, and vege- 

 tables are also regularly inspected, and the large amount of these 

 articles seized by sanitary officers from time to time and removed 

 to the offal docks as unfit for human food have improved the sup- 

 ply, checked the sale of whatever is unwholesome, and secured 

 more care and caution on the part of dealers and consumers. 

 Chemical analyses of various articles used as food and in its prepa- 

 ration have also resulted in the detection of frauds and the correc- 

 tion of abuses which formerly were not the subject of official in- 

 terference or action. 



9. Plumbing and Drainage. The plumbing and drainage of 

 tenement-houses have already been noticed, but the improvement 

 of private dwellings in these particulars is not less important. 

 Sanitary engineering during the past twenty-five years has become 

 an important branch of science ; in practical plumbing there have 

 been remarkable improvements in material, fixtures, and workman- 

 ship ; householders have been educated in the importance of ex- 

 cluding sewer-gas, odors, and dampness from their dwellings ; and 

 competent official supervision of new plumbing, and correction of 

 defective work in houses erected at periods more or less distant, 

 have removed many of the dangers which formerly threatened 

 life and health in the abodes of the rich and the poor. 



Several departments of the municipal government in the per- 

 formance of their duties as prescribed by law have greatly contrib- 

 uted to the sanitary improvement of the metropolis during the 

 last- quarter of a century. The cobble-stone pavements have gen- 

 erally been replaced with block stone, and recently asphalt has 



