1884.] CIVILIZATION AND ITS WASTES. 267 



gees from towns, immigrants directly from the ship, etc. The 

 malarial wave of those days, Mr. Chairman, was a long streak of 

 contagion, branching as the people spread to find their new homes. 



How did our western brethren ever get over their sickness ? 

 Some didn't. Others — the more prudent, careful, thoughtful, and 

 industrious, with fixed and steady habits — soon strengthened them- 

 selves in quiet, well-ordered plantations, like the best of those 

 among their old homes, where their water and filth were kept sep- 

 arate. 



Why did we never have intermittent fever in New England in 

 old times? We did have it in spots. Several bad spells are 

 recorded, where new people were coming in and settlements were 

 crowded and nasty. President Hunt, of the National Health Asso- 

 ciation, says our factory people always had more or less of these 

 filth fevers. 



Isolated farming communities among the hills and upper valleys 

 of Connecticut didn't feel these modern plagues much until the dis- 

 order of the old rural society ran into decay. Moths don't lay eggs 

 in worker cells, bee-keepers will tell you, while swarms are numer- 

 ous and the hives of home industry are strong. We didn't own to 

 the presence of filth disease in particular — we didn't have this ma- 

 larial racket — until after the great mixing of the war and subse- 

 quent commerce; when immigration was constant, and our streams 

 were becoming dreadfully polluted; when all the machinery was 

 complete for injecting our headwaters with fresh imported virus 

 — direct from the Pontine marshes, if you please. 



Now, with filthy emanations ubiquitous and omnipresent, false 

 science or quackery — traitorous alike to the soil, to society, and the 

 purity of the world — is able to discover and boast of its mysterious 

 " waves " of bad air or malaria. 



To check the waste of civilization at its fountain-head — to abolish 

 these malarial waves — let us check the malarial ripple of our sew- 

 ers, and all the fecal waste we possibly can. Teach the people to 

 BE CLEAN, and these waves of malaria — as the old farmer said of 

 the dollars, if we take care of the cents — will take care of them- 

 selves. 



The Chairman. The audience I know will be happy to 

 hear from Prof. Brewer, if he has any light to throw on the 

 subject. 



