460 [Assembly 



containing the remains of a relative; he had been in but a few mo- 

 ments, when the effluvia was so offensive and powerful, as almost 

 entirely to overcome him. He immediately retired, returned home, 

 and when I saw him, three hours after, he was laboring under a con- 

 siderable degree of fever, and other disordered symptoms, which he 

 said had all come on since his visit to the vault. He thinks the 

 vault must have contained not less than two hundred bodies. The 

 place has before been complained cf, and it is difficult to avoid the 

 belief that more or less injury must be inflicted by it on the health 

 of the neighborhood. « 



Not the least important of the results which should be obtained 

 from the appointment of an officer to superintend the affairs of pub- 

 lic health, is that of keeping a constant watch upon the progress of 

 diseases, drawing the proper inferences obtainable from a careful 

 inspection of the mortality returns, and giving them to the public in 

 a suitable form and manner. Living as we are in constant subjec- 

 tion to attacks of bodily disease, induced by the circumstances of 

 life, the lances of death held constantly " in rest," by a thousand 

 unseen hands, waiting only the stirring of the breeze to thrust them 

 at our unconscious frames, such an officer should be as a sentinel 

 upon the tower, watching with an intelligent and never closing eye, 

 the manceuvres of the w^ly enemy, and with a ready pen, alert to 

 send the alarm to every quarter, and prepare the city for a defence 

 against his approaches. The inhabitants may be, some, reckless of 

 danger, and careless of life, others may affect to despise the warn- 

 ings of the watchman, and scoff at the " philosophy of diseases," 

 but it is no less the duty of the faithful magistrate and officer, to 

 see that at all points the constituency are guarded, wi:h whatever of 

 science and virtue they can find. 



There is in this city but one officer in the receipt of the certifi- 

 cates ot death — the only source of knowledge of the diseases which 

 prevail. He is the city inspector. It is by law made his duty to 

 publish every Tuesday, a list of the draths occurring during the pre- 

 ceding week, and in January, " to publish the whole number of 

 deaths which shall have occurred in the city of New-York during 

 the preceding year, with the sexes, ages and diseases of the persons 

 so dying." This is the letter of the law, and any boy who has the 

 quantum siifficit of reading, writing and arithmetic, with a fair pro- 

 portion of patience, may make out the tables in the unscientifically 

 alphabetical mode in which it has usually been done. But of what 

 use is this ? We learn by it that 9,000 or 10,000 deaths occur an- 



