3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to block the onward progress of sauitation. In Pennsylvania, 

 added to indifference and ignorance, "was the direct and persist- 

 ent opposition of manufacturers of every kind, the prosecution of 

 whose business led them to dispose of their waste, no matter of how 

 offensive a character, in the least expensive way, that is, by dump- 

 ing it into the public streams." In Rhode Island there was " the 

 usual and expected objection to the prevention of the sale of glan- 

 dered and other diseased animals." In Maryland the obstacles 

 were " ignorance, selfishness, obstinacy, old habits and customs, 

 and the difficulty of obtaining such legislation as was necessary to 

 sustain the authority of the board in suppressing nuisances." In 

 Missouri it was " the opposition of all the unclean and dishonest 

 who are practicing or pretending to practice medicine, and of the 

 ignorant people outside of the profession who seem to be anxious 

 to be humbugged and defrauded." In Michigan it was " the inertia 

 due to the general ignorance of the people on sanitary subjects, 

 and the sentiment of economy prompting to opposition on account 

 of the cost ; in North Carolina, " apathy, indifference, in some 

 cases positive hostility, when the demand was made for money or 

 for work that was inconvenient " ; in Iowa, " ignorance of the 

 masses." " Ignorance," " lack of funds," runs with tiresome iter- 

 ation through many, for, though there are ample legal powers, 

 there must be money to aid in their enforcement. One writer 

 puts the difficulty very delicately as " civilization imperfectly 

 developed " ; while the Connecticut secretary comes down to 

 details thus : " The obstacles in the way have been the unsuita- 

 bleness of the persons who, ex officio, constituted the local boards 

 of health, the paralysis of these boards resulting from long 

 years of inaction and torpidity, and the settled conviction on 

 the part of the majority of the old communities, that the habits 

 and customs of their ancestors were good enough." The Rhode 

 Island man goes still deeper into the psychological mysteries of 

 the matter thus : " From the early instructions and habits of our 

 first settler, Roger Williams, we have all been led to believe that 

 we severally and individually are a law unto ourselves, and as soon 

 as any new law or change is ordered, even by the representatives 

 of the individual, it becomes at once our duty to oppose it"; and 

 the secretary of Tennessee says, " Those obstacles usually encoun- 

 tered by missionaries in any field, who come to teach the new 

 gospel that *' thou art thy brother's keeper.' " 



The third question was, " What positive results has your Board 

 achieved ? " Before going into details, we would say the first 

 great collective beneficial result of sanitation is in the moral realm 

 the successful propagation of the idea that a man has no more 

 right to poison the water which his neighbor must drink, or the 

 air he must breathe, than he has to put strychnine in his food 



