REPOKTS OF DEPAETMENTS. 29 



GENEEAL WORK. 



A good deal of work has been done for the public outside of my regular class 

 room work. Numerous analyses of substances for the benefit of farmers, and 

 in advancing the cause of public health, have been made at this College. Much 

 of my spare time has been occupied in an elaborate investigation of the influence 

 of Paris green when applied to destroy the potato beetle. It may seem that this 

 work belongs more properly to the State Board of Health than to the Agricul- 

 tural Collesre. It is true that this work was undertaken for the State Board of 

 Health, and for the American Public Health Association (in which I was ap- 

 pointed a member of a committee on "the use of Poisons in Agriculture"). 

 But when we consider that j)rominent scientific men at the east have publicly 

 charged that the application of Paris green to the potato crop would poison the 

 soil so that wheat raised on such soil would contain arsenic, and thus be unfit for 

 human food, and when we realize how easily an alarm of this kind might ex- 

 tend to the old world, and drive American wheat from the world's market, we 

 see it is of the highest importance to the farmer to have this question settled, 

 and settled in such a way as will not leave his grain to rot in his barns for want 

 of a market, 



SAKITARY INSPECTION". 



During the vacation last fall, at the request of the Board of Commissioners of 

 Penal, Pauper and Keformatory Institutions, I visited the State School at Cold- 

 water, the State Prison at Jackson, the House of Correction in Detroit, the 

 Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, and the Blind at Flint, and the Eeform 

 School in Lansing, making a thorough inspection of their sanitary condition in 

 regard to ventilation, sewerage, heating, and water-supply ; and made a full 

 report to the Secretary of that Board. This report was published in full in the 

 Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Health for 1874. 



This tour of sanitary inspection, and the preparation of the report, consumed 

 nearly a month of the vacation. It was disagreeable and thankless work, but 

 it may yet bear fruit in ameliorating the condition of the helpless and pauper 

 classes contained in our public institutions, as Avell as those confined for crime. 



PUBLIC LECTURES. 



I have given five public lectures during the year : a lecture before the House 

 of Representatives '"on the relations of Chemistry to the public health and to 

 agriculture ;" an address to the students of the State University at their Medi- 

 cal Commencement ; an address as President of the State Medical Society, on 

 Ozone; a lecture on "The Soil," and another on "The influence of diificulties 

 in stimulating the pursuit of knowledge," both of these before the students and 

 faculty of this college. 



Respectfully submitted, 



R. C. KEDZIE, 

 Professor of Clicmistrij. 



