1868. ] The Public Health. 287 
been read and discussed with much energy and intelligence. Ab- 
stract reports of the papers and discussions have been published in 
the local papers, and, as a matter of course, the interest felt in the 
subject is very general among intelligent people. The wet systems 
and dry systems, water-closets and earth-closets, the separation of 
liquid from solid sewage, house from street sewage, and the refuse 
of chemical works from both, irrigation and discharging into the 
sea, have all had their advocates; and frequent references have been 
made to Croydon, London, Carlisle, Wolverhampton, Paris, Naples, 
the Craigentinny Meadows at Edinburgh, and other illustrations of 
more or less successful attempts to dispose of the sewage refuse 
of large communities. It is to be hoped that the proceedings of 
the Glasgow Sewage Association may soon be published, so that any 
valuable information contained in the papers and discussions may 
be placed at the disposal of other people who are interested in 
sanitary progress. It is likewise to be hoped that the eminent 
engineers already named may soon mature such a plan for Glasgow 
and the Clyde as will be a pattern to other large towns that have 
the same difficulty to overcome as still meets the sanitarian in the 
Scottish commercial metropolis. 
Apart from the two questions already referred to, a good deal 
of sanitary work is being accomplished in Glasgow by and through 
the Police Board, and especially by the Sanitary Department. 
Acting on the maxim that bad drainage and damp, dark, ill-venti- 
lated, and overcrowded dwellings are a fruitful source of typhus 
fever, the members of Dr. Gairdner’s Sanitary Staff are continually 
on the alert to check and remove the causes of this and other forms 
of epidemic disease. But with all their alertness, typhus is constantly 
asserting its presence in the midst of the community. During last 
year, no fewer than 3,143 cases of fever were reported to the Sani- 
tary Committee of the Police Board, as against 3,541 in 1866, 
7,707 in 1865, and 4,294 in 1864. A large number of the fever 
cases are treated in the Fever Hospital, erected especially for the 
treatment of free patients a year or two ago. In it there are 120 
beds, of which only 20 were reported to be unoccupied at the end of 
January last. ‘The numbers of cases of fever reported at some of 
the fortnightly meetings held in December, January, and February 
last, are 156, 144, 165, 176, 189. Small-pox also shows itself in 
Glasgow, for in December, 1867, there were as many as 3) cases 
reported, notwithstanding that Jenner lived, and that medical schools 
since his day have never ceased to indoctrinate their pupils in the 
sanitary truths which he taught and practised during his profes- 
sional career. 
At a recent meeting of the Glasgow Police Board, attention was 
called to the existence of a range of buildings close to the West-end 
Park, in a district otherwise entirely occupied by the wealthy mem- 
