804 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 804 



drawn from streams and pools. This 

 statement is true even when we compare 

 the present city conditions with the 

 country when it was sparsely settled and 

 when the family lived quite by itself. The 

 same is to be said in regard to the disposal 

 of sewage. That is, these are purely me- 

 chanical problems which have been solved 

 by our sanitary engineers. By using water 

 from a good city water supply we are in 

 less danger of contracting disease than in 

 using country water; we are in less danger 

 from the pollution and contagion result- 

 ing from sewage in the city than we are 

 in the country. 



This is not the only respect in which 

 preventive medicine has been not merely 

 remedying the evils of close dwelling to- 

 gether, but making them a positive good. 

 It would take an extensive survey of 

 widely connected groups of facts to show 

 the relation of food supply in the city to 

 the food supply on the old, isolated 

 country farm. I do not think it is open to 

 the danger of much serious criticism to 

 say that the food supply available in our 

 cities is more varied and better suited to 

 support life and to make eating a pleas- 

 ure, than it is in the country. The day of 

 the all-round country farm has nearly dis- 

 appeared. Those who come to the farms 

 in summer find that the farms are to a 

 considerable extent dependent upon the 

 same sources of food supply as are the 

 cities. It is not a fact that many of our 

 farms have regular supplies of fresh veg- 

 etables to be consumed during the various 

 seasons of the year. This is far less true 

 in the city, where the food supply is made 

 up of products drawn from various parts 

 of the country and other parts of the 

 world. By living together in communi- 

 ties we are able to have fresh meat regu- 

 larly; this is rarely the ease on the farm. 

 I do not think it is too much to say that 



the milk supply of a modern, well-regu- 

 lated city is better than the milk supply 

 of the average farm where the dairy is un- 

 supervised, the udders of the cattle un- 

 washed, and the hands of the milkman in 

 a not easily described condition. My own 

 experience as a boy working on a farm and 

 in a dairy forms the basis for some of 

 these judgments. In regard, then, to milk, 

 butter, eggs, meat, fresh vegetables and 

 fish — those of us who live in cities are on 

 the average better off than those who live 

 in the country, who are largely dependent 

 upon what they themselves raise. These, 

 again, are largely problems of health, and 

 the end of improvement is not yet in sight. 

 The chief objections made against the 

 massing of people in cities, and indeed of 

 city life itself, are that the city does away 

 with privacy; that it creates dirt, dark- 

 ness and bad ventilation in our dwellings; 

 that recreation is unwholesome; and, in 

 general, that the pace of life is too fast. 

 The science of medicine has a profound 

 bearing upon these problems. Let us con- 

 sider first the problem of ventilation. The 

 most extreme conditions of artificial venti- 

 lation are those which the submarine diver 

 must face. Fresh air is forced to him. 

 The air he breathes can be and is kept as 

 fresh as that which is breathed by those 

 who are in the open. It is true that people 

 working out-of-doors in country districts 

 breathe good air. It is very doubtful 

 whether the habits of country people with 

 reference to the ventilation of sleeping 

 rooms are such as to give them any mani- 

 fest advantage over the rest of us during 

 sleeping hours. The problem of securing 

 good air is purely a problem of sanitary 

 engineering. It is not a problem of space. 

 It is possible to so ventilate a room of any 

 dimensions that it shall be entirely suit- 

 able as a place for working or sleeping. 

 The tenement as such does not render it 



