SANITARY SCIENCE. 



727 



sewers are in " a defective and disgraceful con- 

 dition," remarks that every physician appreci- 

 ates the difference between the case of simple 

 pneumonia and a case of pneumonia compli- 

 cated by malarial poisoning. The tendency of 

 the one is to recovery; the other frequently 

 terminates fatally. Dr. Willard Parker re- 

 marks that if two scarlet-fever patients are 

 placed, the one in a house that has pure air, 

 and the other where sewer-gases abound, it 

 will be found that the most intelligent treat- 

 ment on the part of the physician can not save 

 the last patient, while the other may recover 

 simply by good care and with little medicine. 



The effects of sewer-gas in poisoning food 

 and drink, especially water and milk, require 

 special reference. Many epidemics of typhoid 

 fever have been traced to this source. In hun- 

 dreds of homes, receptacles for food are ar- 

 ranged in such a faulty manner as to expose 

 their contents to cess-pool and drain air, with 

 very serious results. It is of the utmost im- 

 portance that refrigerators should be absolute- 

 ly cut off from all chance of such contamina- 

 tion. The slime from melted ice, if allowed to 

 putrefy in waste-pipes or traps connected with 

 refrigerators, will alone cause very offensive 

 odors. Milk is especially susceptible to pollu- 

 tion, and the utmost care should be taken with 

 all places where it is stored. Col. Waring 

 mentions a case where four persons were taken 

 sick in a single day in one household, through 

 the influence of sewer-gas, and he declares that 

 the worst sanitary defects are found in the finest 

 residences. In houses where certain forms of 

 sickness prevail, foul odors from sewers or 

 cess-pools are usually prevalent, while in many 

 instances the relation between the defects and 

 the sickness are positive and undeniable. Fur- 

 thermore, when these defects are corrected, no 

 further complaints of sickness were made. 

 There are streets in New York city that are 

 notorious for their defective sewers. Some 

 of these are in the upper part of the city, where 

 the sewers were laid under "Ring" rule in 

 a negligent manner; others, in the business 

 portion of the city, consist of rough flat stone 

 drains, intended originally to carry off surface- 

 water, with little if any fall and no flush, so 

 that they are constantly foul and throwing off 

 their gases into the neighboring office-build- 

 ings. In these locations malarial sickness con- 

 stantly prevails. Hundreds of families are to- 

 day living amid sanitary conditions that they 

 fully understand are not wholesome, yet they 

 are unable to improve, them because of the apa- 

 thy or greed of landlords. Hence, they continue 

 in a constant state of anxiety and dread, vain- 

 ly striving to bar out the subtile foe with such 

 feeble expedients as stopping up basin over- 

 flows, sprinkling chloride of lime, carbolic acid, 

 and other disinfectants about plumbing fixt- 

 ures, and eagerly buying every cheap device 

 for eradicating sewer-gas. In one case, three 

 artist sisters occupied a studio together near 

 Madison Square. Their living-rooms -were in 



the same building, and contained the foulest 

 plumbing fixtures, which their constant care 

 could not keep sweet and wholesome. All 

 three were attacked with symptoms of blood- 

 poisoning : one died insane ; a second lingered 

 for months and also died; and the third is a 

 confirmed invalid. In another instance, a . 

 young married couple, returning from their 

 wedding- tour full of health and spirits, leased 

 a charming house in a suburban city. Almost 

 immediately the health of the bride declined, 

 and after weeks of illness it was discovered 

 that the house connected directly with a foul 

 sewer and contained scarcely a single trap. In 

 Brooklyn, another young couple leased rooms 

 in an elegant boarding-house on the Heights, 

 and, after they had been there a few months, 

 the whole household was attacked with mala- 

 rial symptoms, due, as examination showed, to 

 an old lead soil-pipe eaten through by sewer- 

 gas. Both husband and wife have since been 

 ill for months, and the health of the latter is 

 shattered. Such cases might be multiplied in- 

 definitely, yet there is no reason for their oc- 

 currence, if the public were sufficiently enlight- 

 ened. 



Safeguards. In view of the risks to which 

 householders are exposed from having their 

 drains directly connecting with the sewer, the 

 natural conclusion would be, to shut off the 

 latter from the former by a suitable form of 

 trap. This plan is approved by the best engi- 

 neering authorities, both in this country and 

 abroad, and is coming into general use. It is 

 officially enforced by the New York and Brook- 

 lyn Boards of Health in all new buildings. 

 Among the sanitary authorities that favor 

 such a disconnecting trap are the eminent 

 English engineers, Mr. Rawlinson, Baldwin 

 Latham, Bailey Denton, Rogers Field, Dr. 

 Parkes, author of the standard work on hy- 

 giene, Prof. Henry Robinson, S. S. Hellyer, 

 Prof. Corfield, and Prof. Fleeming Jenkin; 

 while in this country Edward S. Philbrick, 

 George E. Waring, Prof. C. F. Chandler, Dr. 

 John S. Billings, W. Paul Gerhard, and Ru- 

 dolph Hering, together with most intelligent 

 plumbers, are among its advocates. The argu- 

 ments advanced in opposition to such a trap 

 are based upon the supposition that sewers 

 are clean, well flushed and ventilated, and 

 free from dangerous gases. It is therefore 

 assumed that it would be an advantage to 

 allow the sewer to breathe through the house- 

 drains; but, as has been shown, sewers as a 

 rule are far from cleanly, and are forcing- 

 houses for creating impure air, and, while the 

 plumbing in most dwellings is so defective as 

 to afford a ready, escape for such gases into 

 living-rooms, it seems desirable to exclude 

 them as far as possible from the house-drains. 



Recent experiments by a German physicist 

 show that the usual direction of the currents 

 of air in sewers is toward their outlet, or par- 

 allel with the flow of their contents; and it 

 has therefore been argued that the risk of an 



