December 3, 1886.] 



SCIJSJ^CJSJ, 



509 



showed an increase in the same time from to 5 

 pounds. During this half-hour the air in the 

 boat seemed to be reasonably pure, the heat was 

 not as great as that in the engine-room of an 

 ordinary steam-vessel, and there appeared to be 

 no reason w^hy such a voyage could not be con- 

 tinued for several hours without inconvenience to 

 those on board. 



]!fEW JERSEY SANITARY ASSOCIATION. 



The New Jersey sanitary association held its 

 twelfth annual meeting at Trenton on the 19th 

 and 20th of November. There were in attendance 

 about one hundred members. The meeting was 

 regarded by all as the most interesting and val- 

 uable the association has ever held. 



We can give but brief mention of the proceed- 

 ings. A paper on ' Disposal of house-sewage in 

 districts not provided with sewers ' was read by 

 C. P. Bassett, C.E., of Newark. In the state of 

 New Jersey there are only about a dozen of the 

 towns which have any system of sewerage, and 

 several of these are in a miserable condition. After 

 denouncing the methods in vogue in places where 

 no sewers exist and privy-vaults and cesspools 

 abound, he referred to the advantages of the 

 movable pail system in use in Birmingham, Eng- 

 land, where 40,000 pails, representing 250,000 peo- 

 ple, are collected weekly and carried to the dump- 

 ing-station, where the contents are placed in a 

 tank, treated vs^ith sulphuric acid, dried, and 

 bagged for sale. The net cost is less than a cent 

 a head annually. He next referred to the dry- 

 «arth system, but believed it could not secure 

 vride popularity, the difficulties connected with 

 the procurement of a proper supply of earth and 

 the proper subsequent management of the waste 

 being very great. The ' sub-irrigation ' system 

 was then described. 



Shippen Wallace, Ph.D., of Burlington, read a 

 paper on ' Preserved foods.' There are at the 

 present time 800 factories in the United States 

 engaged in the canning of foods. In these factories 

 500,000,000 cans are packed annually : of these, 

 50,000,000 are salmon, 72,000,000 tomatoes, and 

 25,000,000 corn. Although much has been said in 

 the public press and elsewhere about the possible 

 danger of poisoning from the contents of these 

 cans, he believed there was no case on record of 

 poisoning, either fatal or otherwise, where the 

 materials were sound when packed. In discussing 

 this paper, Professer Wilbur of Princeton college 

 thought more attention should be paiii to the clean- 

 liness of the surroundings of canning-factories. 

 He had examined one where the premises were in 

 the most filthy condition. Dr. Davis said he had 



occasion to examine a large number of operatives 

 in canning-factories, and had found sores on their 

 arms, and had reason to believe this was not un- 

 common. For this reason he thought that the 

 sanitary authorities should make periodical visita- 

 tions and inspections in all canning-factories. Dr. 

 Quimby of Jersey City thought this sanitary super- 

 vision could be advantageously exercised over 

 bakeries, sugar-houses, and candy-manufactories. 

 Dr. Amering, president of the Society of American 

 analysts, called attention to the sophistication of 

 foods and drugs. In Philadelphia it was a com- 

 mon practice to use gelatine in cream-puffs, ice- 

 cream, and charlotte russe, and the putrefaction 

 of this had caused sickness in the consumers, 



Dr, D, Benjamin of Camden followed with a 

 paper on 'The relation between drinking-water 

 and typhoid-fever.' He regarded the two as so 

 intimately connected as to make it hardly ever 

 worth the while to think of any other source for 

 typhoid-fever. Dr. Baldwin of New Brunswick 

 believed that it might be contracted in other 

 ways ; and Dr, Raymond of Brooklyn thought 

 that it not infrequently was spread through the 

 sewers, the infected discharges having been thrown 

 into the soil-pipes without disinfection, and, 

 through defects in the plumbing, sewer-air carry- 

 ing the germs of the disease found its way into 

 other houses. He regarded the two most important 

 adjuncts in the eradication of typhoid-fever from 

 towns or cities where the water-supply was good, 

 and indeed for all places, as being a thorough dis- 

 infection of the discharges, and the correcting of 

 all defects in the waste-pipes and traps. The 

 total abolition of pumps in the city of Brooklyn 

 had not produced much effect on typhoid-fever 

 in that city, where it has existed with more or 

 less prevalence from the time of the earliest 

 records. 



Other papers read were, ' Trap ventilation and 

 the fresh-air inlets thereto,' by J. C. Bayles of 

 Orange ; ' The physical laws of pipes and fixtures 

 and their contents,' by C. F. Brackett of Prince- 

 ton ; ' The duties of local inspectors, how best 

 performed, and details of method,' by Henry 

 Mitchell of Asbury Park ; ' The work of the pres- 

 ent and the immediate future for New Jersey 

 health boards,' by Ezra M. Hunt ; ' The physio- 

 logical side of education,' by James M. Green of 

 Long Branch ; ' Physical restraint and relaxation 

 in the schoolroom,' by Charles Jacobur of New 

 Brunswick ; ' The work of the plumber and the 

 modes of conveying and disposing of sewage,' by 

 J. J. Powers of Brooklyn ; ' The chief points in 

 sanitary. administration, and the requirements as 

 to vital returns and the notification of disease,' 

 by J. H. Raymond of Brooklyn ; ' What boards of 



