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. 1 



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 

 others 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 is 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 



i Anyone who fancies that to depreciate garbage disposal as a health measure is flogging a dead horse 

 will be disabused of this impression if he has experience with the beginnings of a typhoid epidemic and 

 learns how often public attention is diverted from significant issues like water supply, milk supply, 

 and contact, by appeals to the prejudice against slovenly ways of handling harmless household refuse. 



