68o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a block of ice. But the typhoid-fever germ can he present in water, 

 so far as we know, only when it is contaminated with refuse from 

 persons suffering from the disease ; so that, if we can be certain that 

 our ice was cut from water uncontaminated with sewage or human 

 waste, we have nothing to fear from its use so far as this disease is con- 

 cerned. All of the pond and lake ice supplied to New York is of 

 fairly good, and most of it of excellent quality ; and no doubt the 

 danger of contracting typhoid fever from the use of the larger part of 

 the Hudson River ice is quite remote. But a considerable quantity of 

 the Hudson River ice is cut just below Albany, where the stream is 

 so greatly contaminated with the sewage of two large towns, Troy and 

 Albany, as to be absolutely filthy. In both of these towns typhoid 

 fever is of frequent occurrence during the period in which ice is form- 

 ing, and the waste from the victims passes directly into the river. 

 There would, therefore, seem to be a very real danger in the use of 

 some of the Hudson River ice. 



The responses which one commonly meets when he has occasion to 

 point out the possibility of danger from the use of impure ice are apt 

 to be, " How horrid ! Why do you add another misery to life ? " or " Our 

 fathers have never suffered from the use of ice, and why should we ? " 

 etc. No sanitary danger has ever been pointed out, and no improve- 

 ment instituted, which had not to steni just such o|tposition. The 

 cesspool has given way to the sewer, and the well to the distant water- 

 supply, in the face of the same sort of silly protest on the part of 

 many of those whose own most vital interests were at stake — persons 

 who ignore the fact that an ever-increasing vigilance is necessary to 

 ward off the dangers which the aggregation of large numbers of people 

 in cities invariably entails. The danger from the use of impure ice in 

 New York, though wide-spread, is not very alarming, so far as the 

 liability to extensive outbreaks of typhoid fever are concerned, because 

 most of the ice which is furnished appears to be of fair quality. But 

 if the risk of an attack of the disease can be warded off from one in 

 ten thousand of our fellows, the gain is worth the effort. We do not 

 need to be unduly squeamish, but it is well enough to be intelligent in 

 the face of sanitary dangers. The ice companies, unless controlled by 

 the State Health Department, will doubtless continue to cut and to 

 furnish sewage ice along with the rest just as long as their customers 

 will tolerate it. But if householders would insist upon the assurance 

 that their ice should not come from the immediate vicinity of Albany, 

 or from directly -below other towns draining into the river, the com- 

 panies would soon recognize that acquiescence in this reasonable 

 demand is the wiser and more ])rofitable course. 



We are a long-suffering people here -in New York, and, if our com- 

 mon manifestations of patience were commendable instead of con- 

 temy)tible, we should be deserving of monumental record. We are, it 

 is true, saved in a measure from swill-milk, bob-veal, and numerous 



