PUBLIC HEALTH WORK—JORDAN. 605 
cleaning, but the problem is essentially not one of public health. At 
present in some cities the department of health is burdened with the 
task of caring for the city waste, and its success or failure as a con- 
servator of the public health is too often measured by the frequency 
with which coal ashes are scattered in alleys or the length of time that 
decaying vegetable matter remains in tin cans in hot weather. In 
some cases the larger part of the annual health department appro- 
priation must be expended for garbage collection and disposal, leaving 
only a pitifully small residue for other needs. To mention a single 
instance, the collection and conservation of garbage and ashes cost the 
Minneapolis health department in 1909 about $57,000, leaving 
approximately $43,000 for all the other activities of a health depart- 
ment serving a city of over 300,000 inhabitants. 
One thing should be clearly understood by municipal authorities 
and by the general public, that regular collection and cleanly hand- 
ling of ashes and table scraps is not one of the surest and most profit- 
able ways of protecting health and preventing disease. Efficient 
administration of this branch of public work should not be allowed 
to take the place of measures that directly affect the public health. 
Few dangers to health have loomed larger in the public eye than 
that from sewer gas. Elaborate and amazingly expensive systems 
of plumbing are required by law to be installed in every newly 
erected dwelling house in our large American cities. Plumbing 
‘inspection to-day occupies a large part of the working force of many 
municipal health departments. In Baltimore in 1908, to cite a 
single instance, this work was carried out by one inspector of plumb- 
ing, seven assistant inspectors of plumbing, and one drain inspector, 
at a total salary cost of $8,250, or about one-tenth of the total salary 
appropriation for all public-health work. And yet, if all the most 
recent and searching investigations, such as those of Winslow and 
dthers are to be believed, the actual peril to health involved in the 
entrance of small quantities of sewer air into houses is so small as to 
be practically negligible. It may be questioned whether plumbing 
inspection, as ordinarily conducted, can be shown to save a single 
life or prevent a single case of disease. There is certainly no reason 
to suppose that any infectious disease 1s due to germs carried in 
sewer air. It might reasonably be maintained that slightly leaky 
gas fixtures are a much more serious menace to the health of house 
dwellers than defective plumbing. At all events, our present knowl- 
edge affords small justification for the expenditure of public money 
to insure that the odor of peppermint does not enter our houses 
when oil of peppermint is designedly introduced into the house 
3 ; 
1 Anyone who fancies that to depreciate garbage disposal as a health measure is flogging a dead a 
will be disabused of this impression if he has experience with the beginnings 2 a soaetre anes be 
i ion is di ignificant issues like water supply, mu 2 
learns how often public attention is diverted from signi 
and contact, by appeals to the prejudice against slovenly ways of handling harmless household refuse. 
