33 



City Dust — Cause and Kffkct. 



Robert Hesslkk. 



This paper is in line -with oue read a year ago on "Cold and Colds" 

 and is leally a continuation of the same subject. The influence of dust 

 on the health of man is, however, such a vast one that in a brief paper 

 lilie this only one or two phases can be taken up. 



In a general way we can say that dust is a product and an accompani- 

 ment of civilization. There are of course special kinds of dust with 

 whose production man has nothing to do, such as the dust of sandy 

 deserts, volcanic dust, and the dust arising along the trails of animals 

 going to salt licks, etc., but in a general way the terms dust and man go 

 together. Dust is solid matter in a state of fine division, so fine that 

 it can 'be wafted or blown about by the Avind. Among primitive people 

 there is little dust, their mode of life forbids its formation and their 

 nomadic or out of door existence prevents its accumulation. 



Paradoxical as it may seem, the amount of dust in a modern city 

 is not an index of a high degree of civilization, no more than is the 

 presence of dirt and filth or its accumulation in a house an index of a 

 high social standing of a family. 



In a general waj- it may be said that accumulation of dust in a 

 city is the result of the ignorance of common sanitary laws, of apathy 

 on the part of the citizens, and rt bad politics in those having the man- 

 agement of municipal affairs. A housewife who allows dust to accu- 

 mulate is said to be slovenly; a tidy housekeeper is one who gets rid 

 of the dust as soon as possible and does not allow it to acctimidate. "We 

 have not yet reached a point where we can make similar distinctions be- 

 tween cities— we simply speak of one place being less dirty than another. 



Cosmopolitan travelers tell us hoAV clean some people and their cities 

 are and how the streets correspond witli the interior of their houses. 

 The Japanese and the Dutch seem to stand at the head of the list, but 

 I have no doubt that in the cotirse of time other nations will reach 

 the same standard of cleanliness, and, I may add, of general health. 



Kinds of Dust: Confining ourselves to the kinds of dust due to the 

 activity of man and disregarding special or rare kinds, such as factory 

 dust, for instance, we can in a general Avay distinguish two kinds. 



3— A. OF Science, "04. 



