September 17j 1915] 



SCIENCE 



363 



preservation of foods by cold and by can- 

 ning, so that seasonal food scarcity is almost 

 unknown. We have invented and cheap- 

 ened rubber clothing, and especially rub- 

 ber overshoes, as a protection against our 

 almost tropical rains. "We have applied 

 machinery to the manufacture of abundant 

 and better and cheaper shoes and clothing. 

 We have proved by experiment with a na- 

 tional spitting nuisance the possibility of 

 sometimes controlling unsanitary habits by 

 education and reasonable sanitary ordi- 

 nances. 



And yet — on the other hand — we have 

 thus far failed to achieve many much 

 needed sanitary improvements. Our water 

 supplies are to a large extent either in 

 good condition or on the way to improve- 

 ment, but our sewage disposal systems are 

 still in many cases far from satisfactory. 

 In this respect the parallel between the in- 

 dividual and the community is close, for 

 while many intelligent persons attend care- 

 fully to the water they drink, most are 

 comparatively careless about their excre- 

 tions, regarding as negligible that frequent 

 and regular and complete output of the 

 body wastes which is no less necessary for 

 the conservation of health than is the in- 

 take of wholesome food and drink. The 

 most flagrant failure in American sanita- 

 tion to-day is the almost universal lack of 

 public convenience or comfort stations in 

 American cities and towns. The stranger 

 within the gates of most American com- 

 munities seeks in vain for any public sani- 

 tary conveniences. If he is well-dressed, 

 he must be referred to hotels or other semi- 

 piiblic buildings or, if poorly dressed, to 

 saloons or railway stations or other semi- 

 private or public-service places. Some 

 three months ago the leading newspaper 

 of one of the proudest and most progres- 

 sive cities of New England, which has since 

 rejoiced to find itself "in the hundred thou- 



sand class," announced that its 



first public sanitary . . . was opened Saturday 

 morning, and will be open daily hereafter from 

 6 A.M. until midnight. The opening . . . marked 

 the end of ten years of eif ort to get such a comfort 

 station built. 



Failure like this to provide proper public 

 toilet facilities for our towns and cities is 

 to fail in one of the very elements of public 

 health. 



We have also failed to reduce typhoid 

 fever as far as we should have done in 

 America. Of late much progress has been 

 made in the right direction but we need to 

 remember that it is the last step that arrives, 

 and we have always failed to attend closely 

 enough to the single, as well as to the 

 seemingly final, case. Like nature we are 

 often ' ' so careless of the single life, so care- 

 ful of the race." We have failed likewise 

 to reduce as far as we should have done 

 American infant mortality. Here undoubt- 

 edly our hot weather works against us, but 

 so also do our milk supply, which can be 

 and ought to be rendered safe by pasteu- 

 rizing, and our parental ignorance and in- 

 competence, which can and should be less- 

 ened by education and the aid of public 

 health nurses. We have as yet, and in spite 

 of ample knowledge, failed to make our 

 American milk supplies what they should 

 be. This is partly because we have been 

 too timid to insist that good milk not only 

 costs more to make but is worth more for 

 food, and must therefore be paid for, and 

 partly because we have not yet taught the 

 public as we should that the only safe milk 

 is cooked milk, and for infants, milk that is 

 pasteurized — preferably in the final con- 

 tainer. I have myself lived through the 

 last years of the period — ^now happily re- 

 mote — when no milk was pasteurized by 

 anybody; through the next in which only 

 pioneers like Nathan Straus preached or 

 practised pasteurization, while many if 



