No. XXXYI.B.] APPENDIX. 397 



are blown over in the sewage-ground when the ground is water-logged. 

 Rose- trees, &c., are shown, in the committees of the Houses of Parliament, 

 as samples of sewage culture, which could not have existed on water-logged 

 sewage- grounds as now ordinarily conducted. 



It has been stated that there is at the present time no town sewage 

 ground which does not exhale its detestable stench, and which does not 

 leave all the slush on the surface or on the grass. It is a curious fact that, 

 when the slush is left on the surface of the ground, it still exhales, after 

 the earth is dry, the faint, nauseous odour of sewage ; and I have walked 

 over sewage fields in the depth of winter, when even intense frost has not 

 prevented the faint and sickening exhalation from dry ground. 



When the earth is dried after sewage irrigation, vegetation is prodi- 

 gious, oats attain incredible growth of straw, monster cabbages are raised, 

 extraordinarily-sized onions may be grown, but then, without particular 

 care, their juices are impaired, and their texture is so imperfect that they 

 have a tendency to rot. 



It is necessary for the perfection of the vegetable tissue that the sew- 

 age should be commingled with the earth and changed in its nature before 

 it is absorbed by the plant. Asparagus watered with putrid manure is 

 most offensive, even after having been cooked. The strawberry, if watered 

 too late with liquid manure, becomes disgusting ; and it has been noticed 

 that cabbages become bad, and cauliflowers nauseous, if grown in unde- 

 composed foul manures. 



Sewage produce is grown at one spot and transferred to another ; so it 

 is almost impossible to trace its baneful effects. Cartloads of watercresses 

 are sold in London, where some sewage (for they will not grow in pure 

 sewage) rims directly over them, so that their stalks are smeared with the 

 excrete of typhoid fever cases, with the epithelial scales of scarlet fever, 

 and with the ova of entozoon. And what may not happen, if we are again 

 afflicted with the scourge of cholera, if persons eat vegetables besmeared 

 with cholera virus ? Sewage produce not only contains within it, but has 

 disposed upon its surface, the germs of all contagious diseases, and who can 

 tell how many isolated cases of disease may have happened from this 

 source ? for who can tell whence their food has come ? and who can tell 

 where sewage produce goes ? 



The followers of social medical science should take steps that persons 

 may not be poisoned unawares, and, when the mother goes to market to 

 provide the necessary fresh vegetables for her offspring, that she should not 

 buy at great cost a scarlet fever, a typhoid fever, a diarrhoea, or a cholera. 

 One town produces the poison, another, perhaps far distant, is affected by 

 it ; and as the peer, as well as the poor man, in the great metropolis, has 

 to depend upon the public markets for his vegetable supplies, competent 

 authorities ought to take care that wholesome food, and not contagious 

 poison, is sold to the public. 



To the influence of sewage food upon cows I have lately called the 

 attention of the public. It seems to be worse at one season than at another. 

 When the experiment was tried in the spring, the milk became putrescible, 

 and so did the butter. Both were so bad that they could not be used. 

 Here again the difficulty arises as to how the wholesome milk can be dis- 

 tinguished from the putrescible. As far as I as yet know, the best plan is 

 to place aside some of the milk in a warm place, when, in a few hours, if it 



