SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 281 



be habitable. The swamps aucl lagoous of Louisiana are as healthy 

 as the uncultivated prairies of Illinois. The natural decay of the 

 seasons renders the one portion almost uninhalutable, while in 

 the other locality the almost constant growth of vegetation ren- 

 ders it salubrious. Growing trees about ponds and water holes of 

 farms would be entire protection against any evil that might result 

 without these. Also, about barnyards, they would be a help to ab- 

 sorb tiie exhalations from the various decaying vegetable substances. 



A certain school of medicine claims that the more a substance 

 is diluted the more potent it becomes. We know that the more 

 these noxious gases, or whatever they are, are diluted with pure, 

 fresh air or oxygen, the less potent or poison they become. The 

 ablest scientist has not been able to show us what this deadly 

 agent is. The most ignorant observer can tell where it is. Decay- 

 ing vegetation is life to the soil, but death to the owner, always 

 supposing the decay to be caused by warmth and moisture. Cold 

 is the most certain antidote, dryness next. As we can not always 

 have either or both, and we wish to occupy such locations and 

 live in health, self-preservation must seek a remedy, for ill-health is 

 sure to follow. Moist, loamy soils are most productive of vegetable 

 life, either natural or cultivated, which, as long as they grow rapidly, 

 are conducive to health by absorbing the miasma that is known to 

 cause the disease. If by some process this growth could be pre- 

 served from decay, low grounds and marshes might be safely habit- 

 able. 



There are three remedies, close pasturage, or burning, or thor- 

 ough tiooding. As the last remedy is not always applicable, owing 

 to variable rainfall and drouth, if the flooding can not be kept nearly 

 uniform, it would be safer to conduct the excess away by drainage in 

 any manner that would be most {)racticable. If that could be 

 accomplished so that pasturage would be practicable a good sanitary 

 condition would exist. 



The proper drainage and purity of the home surroundings are 

 entitled to much consideration. Buildings that have water supply 

 in different parts require the most scruj)ulous care to see that no 

 leaks occur. Dampness causes decay, and in that decay lurks many 

 a disease. Badly drained cellars with decaying vegetation are very 

 prolific sources of disease. Cess-pools are equally so, more particu- 

 larly when drainage may be conveyed to wells. However, germs of 

 disease taken into the stomach through the medium of food and 

 water are not nearly so dangerous as when breathed info the lungs, 

 and thus carried more directly to the blood. Bad smelling odors are 

 not necessarily sources of infection, though popularly considered so. 

 A community will go into hysterics at the proximity of a dead ani- 

 mal, and yet live for months over musty cellars, and near the filth 

 of barnyards, alleys aiul cess-pools, aside from the intolerable nuis- 

 ance, the stench of slaughter pens, pork houses, glue factories, and 



