840 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



morning the entire line of buildings was leveled, and one of the most 

 outrageous abuses that had grown up under political pi'otection was 

 abolished. 



Among the numerous sanitary reforms secured by the present 

 Board of Health, may be mentioned the system of gratuitous house- 

 to-house vaccination established in 1874, which has already resulted 

 in vaccinating over 360,000 persons, and the complete suppression of 

 small-pox ; the reform in the construction of tenement-houses ; the 

 employment of a special corps of fifty physicians during the five hot 

 and damp weeks which occur in the latter part of July and the early 

 part of August, and which were formerly so fatal to infants, killing 

 sometimes eight hundred or one thousand in a week. The physicians 

 make a house-to-house visitation, prescribe for the sick children, sup- 

 ply medicines, and distribute printed directions among the mothers. 

 The Health Department in its varied work of recording the marriages, 

 births, and deaths, preventing and caring for contagious diseases, dis- 

 infecting, sanitary inspection, and the abatement of nuisances, meat 

 and milk inspection, employs a corps of one hundred and thirty men, 

 besides the special summer corps of fifty physicians and the fruit-in- 

 spectors and extra disinfectors — requiring an annual appropriation of 

 8250,000. The return for this large expenditure is seen in the remark- 

 able improvement in the public health. In 1866, fifty-three per cent, 

 of the total deaths were of children under five years of age. This 

 percentage has steadily diminished, till it is now less than forty-six, 

 which proves an actual saving of four thousand children's lives in a 

 single year, to say nothing of all the sickness prevented in our popu- 

 lation of over 1,100,000. 



The sanitary chemistry of water has been a special subject of in- 

 vestigation with Dr. Chandler, and he has been relied upon to decide 

 important questions with regard to the selection of water for supply- 

 ing Albany, Yonkers, and several other cities. He has also been en- 

 gaged in several important investigations on the pollution of water by 

 factories, and the prevention of boiler incrustations. 



During the past summer Dr. Chandler was made chairman of a 

 committee to draw up a scheme for disinfection, to be adopted by the 

 National Board of Health. The other members of the committee were 

 Drs. Vanderpoel, Janeway, Henry Draper, Barker, and Remsen. 



Professor Chandler's most elaborate chemical work has been the 

 investigation of American mineral waters. With the aid of his assist- 

 ants he has analyzed sixteen of the springs and artesian wells at Sara- 

 toga, besides many more sulphur and other springs at Chittenango, 

 Florida, N. Y., and elsewhere. 



Dr. Chandler, in connection with his brother. Professor W. H. 

 Chandler, of the Lehigh University, started a monthly journal of 

 chemistry, called " The American Chemist." It contained the results 

 of many researches, and was a valuable periodical for those engaged 



