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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 397 



Other American cities are also afflicted .with 

 overcrowding. More yet are cursed with 

 dwellings that are unsanitary in other re- 

 spects. It is well known that the death rate 

 in all such buildings, poorly ventilated, with 

 deficient water supply and defective plumb- 

 ing, is abnormally high. The death rate is 

 but a partial index of the harm done by over- 

 crowding, for the results are moral as well as 

 physical and there is no death like the death 

 of virtue. Where large fractions of the popu- 

 lation are packed together under such condi- 

 tions that personal cleanliness, modesty and 

 decency, and even sexual morality, are prac- 

 tically impossible, the problem is one whose 

 speedy solution demands the attention of the 

 moralist and the philanthropist, as well as the 

 sanitarian." The author makes a strong plea 

 for model tenements at reasonable rentals, and 

 Chapter XXXII. sets forth the necessities and 

 advantages of municipal parks, playgrounds 

 and gymnasiums, all of which will find a sym- 

 pathetic response in the hearts and minds of 

 those who have the welfare of the human race 

 at heart. Part V. deals with administration, 

 finance and public policy, including city char- 

 ters, municipal experts, tlie department of 

 public works, the work of the board of health, 

 municipal franchises, ownership and expan- 

 sion and many kindred subjects. 



Dr. Rideal's first edition on sewage and the 

 bacteriological purification of sewage appeared 

 in May, 1900, and enjoyed such a rapid sale 

 in England and America that a second edi- 

 tion was called for in June, 1901. The work 

 is divided into twelve chapters, and is of in- 

 tense interest to the engineer and sanitarian. 

 The introductory chapter deals with the char- 

 acters of sewage and primary methods of dis- 

 posal, committal to earth, cremation, cesspools, 

 sewers, scavenging, conservancy systems, in- 

 filtration, ofiicial regulations, water-closet 

 system, dilution in rivers, tidal discharge. In 

 this chapter will be foxmd a historical resume 

 of the siibject of sewage disposal. In speaking 

 of the location of privies and middens, he re- 

 fers to the danger of wells, springs and rivers 

 from infiltration and points out a number of 

 cases where such pollution took place; in one 

 instance the contaminating influence was 



about a half a mile distant. He also refers 

 to the reports of the medical officers of 

 health in 1900, notably those of York and Dur- 

 ham, who give statistics showing the connec- 

 tion between outbreaks of typhoid fever and 

 midden privies. He quotes from an address 

 by Sir William Preece before the National 

 Health Society, October, 1899, wherein he re- 

 ferred to the city of Leeds, with a population 

 of 400,000, with a reduction during the twenty 

 years 1875 to 1895 in the death rate from 28 

 to 18 per 1,000 in consequence of the comple- 

 tion of sewers and the introduction of a better 

 water supply, and continued, 'if this has been 

 accomplished in one city by acting on those 

 principles of applied science, what might be 

 the total number of lives saved throughout 

 the country by the operation of those whose 

 duty it was to carry out the details of the sci- 

 ence of sanitation?' The same question may 

 very justly be applied to our own country when 

 we consider that only about 30 per cent, of 

 the population live in sewered towns and 41 

 per cent, live in towns having public water 

 supplies. During the census year of 1900, 

 there were 35,379 deaths from typhoid fever, 

 which means an annual prevalence of 350,000 

 cases and a loss to the commonwealth of 

 $185,000,000 per annum from one of the so- 

 called preventable diseases. The undue prev- 

 alence of typhoid fever in unsewered towns 

 and suburbs has already been pointed out and 

 explained by the writer in a former review in 

 Science, November 8, 1901. Chapters 2 and 

 3 deal with the chemical analyses of sewage 

 and effluents. Chapter 4 with the bacteria in 

 sewage and possibility of the survival of path- 

 ogenic organisms. Chapter 5 points out the 

 chemical changes produced by bacteria. 

 Chapter 6 discusses the ultimate disposal of 

 sewage and treats very fully of irrigation and 

 sewage farms. The treatment of sewage by 

 subsidence and chemical precipitation, by 

 heat, chemicals and electricity is disposed of 

 in Chapters 7 and 8. The next three chapters, 

 which are the most important in the book, 

 deal with bacterial purification in a most exact 

 and painstaking manner. On the whole we 

 may conclude that sewage farming will have 

 a very promising future in the West, where 



