SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, iJ 



The United States consul at Manila, Philippine Islands, has 

 written to the State Department to announce that the disease that 

 raged during the summer at Taytay, about eight miles north-west 

 of Manila, and which subsequently spread to the latter-named city, 

 has subsided, and that there is now little apprehension of an epi- 

 demic. This disease was officially declared to be Asiatic cholera. 

 It now appears, that, just before the sickness broke out at Tay- 

 tay, a large consignment of rice, which had been stored in a damp 

 place and soured, was sold among the native shops of the village 

 by some speculative Chinamen, who had purchased it at very low 

 rates owing to its damaged condition. As far as is known, all who 

 ate this rice were attacked with what was supposed to be cholera. 

 The symptoms attending the first cases were undoubtedly those 

 of ordinary cholera-morbus, but subsequent cases showed the most 

 prominent features of Asiatic cholera. The theory that disease is 

 produced or aggravated by the imagination finds some support in 

 this case. The masses, native and European, seem to live in mortal 

 terror of cholera, which has made fearful ravages throughout these 

 islands ; and the first indication of an outbreak fills every one with 

 fear. After the disease at Taytay was pronounced genuine cholera, 

 the daily death-rate increased very rapidly ; and, although the vil- 

 lage was rapidly quarantined, the sickness spread to Manila, and 

 within a week between sixty and seventy deaths occurred. As the 

 death-rate failed to show the usual rapid increase, the hope gained 

 ground that the physicians might be mistaken, and that what was 

 supposed to be genuine cholera might be an unusually aggravated 

 form of cholera-morbus. At all events, the number of deaths be- 

 gan to decrease a few days later, and the fear that the terrible 

 plague of 18S2 was to be repeated has now quite subsided. The 

 total number of deaths in Manila since the disease appearea there 

 late in August is 186. 



THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION. 



The Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the American Public Health 

 Association was held at Milwaukee, Wis., Nov. 20, 21, 22, and 23. 

 More than one hundred and fifty members were present, represent- 

 ing almost every State in the Union and the provinces of Canada. 

 The opening address was given by Dr. C. N. Hewitt of Minne- 

 sota, the president of the association. An abstract of this will be 

 published in a future number of Science. Following the address, a 

 large number of papers were read during the session of the asso- 

 ciation, to the most important of which we shall refer. 



Benjamin Lee. M.D.. secretary of the State Board of Health of 

 Pennsylvania, read a paper on ' Memoranda of Visits to the Quar- 

 antine Stations of the Atlantic Coast, made during the Summer of 

 18S8.' In this paper Dr. Lee criticises in most unfavorable terms 

 the quarantine stations of New York. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Nor- 

 folk, and Wilmington. He sums up the defects of the entire system 

 in the following language : •' i. Want of uniformity in quarantine reg- 

 ulations, placing one port at a disadvantage [either commercially or 

 sanitivelv] as compared with another ; 2. Conflict of authority, owing 

 to the methods of appointing officials ; 3. Entire lack of apprecia- 

 tion on the part of local legislatures, whether state or municipal, of 

 the importance of the expenditure of considerable amounts of 

 money in order to render quarantines at once efficient and inop- 

 pressive ; 4. Tendency on part of local civic and sanitary authori- 

 ties to limit their responsibility to the protection of their own city, 

 reckless of the consequences which may ensue to inland communi- 

 ties if they permit infection, which circumstances render harmless 

 to themselves, to pass unchallenged to the latter." 



Dr. Crosby Gray of Pittsburgh, Penn., read a paper on the con- 

 tamination of the water-supply of a portion of that city by surface 

 drainage. The death-rate in this portion of the city (the south 

 side) was higher than that of the rest of the city, and typhoid-fever 

 had been very prevalent there. .An investigation proved that the 

 water-supply drawn from the Monongahela was being seriously, 

 steadily, and increasingly polluted by sewage, factory-refuse, and 

 by bumboat nuisances; and that the epidemic in question had been 

 caused by the sudden downwash, through rainwater surface drain- 

 age, of typhoid excrements from certain gulleys far above the in- 

 take, the disease having for some time been endemic in those locali- 

 ties in a small way. 



In the course of his remarks he called attention to the following 

 facts : "The cash value of a human life to a community has often 

 been computed, and it is a moderate estimate of the average value 

 of the 260 lives lost on the south side, over and above its just per- 

 centage of the current death-rate in Pittsburgh, at S>,275 each, or 

 §331,500 together. To this should be added the burial-expenses 

 at $50, or §13,000 in all. But, as for every death there are many 

 ill who recover, it would be a juster estimate to capitalize the sick 

 at ten times that of the death-rate. That would mean 2,600 people 

 ill. The average time these persons would be compelled to remain 

 unemployed would be, say, 30 days. This would give us 78,000 

 days' work lost. From this deduct 15 per cent for those below the 

 productive, period of life, which would leave 66,300 days lost. 

 Averaging the value of a day's work at S1.25, the total loss in pro- 

 ductivity would be §82,875. Add a quarter to this sum, on the 

 basis of but 31 cents per day, for otherwise productive time devoted 

 to nursing, etc., that amounts to §20,718 more ; to which should 

 be added certainly not less than §2 per case for medicine, i.e., 

 §5,200 more. And finally there should not be forgotten the legiti- 

 mate profit (say, one-third a day's wages) on its putative product, 

 to wit, all of §27,625 more. These amounts tally §480,918 per an- 

 num, which, literally fatal waste, might be stopped once for all by 

 the establishment of an improved water-service, drawing its supply 

 from unpolluted sources one hundred miles off, uy the timely and 

 wise investment of this sum for two or three years." 



' Yellow-Fever, Panics, and L^seless Quarantines, its Limitation 

 by Temperature," was the title of a paper by John H. Rauch, M.D., 

 secretary of the State Board of Health of Illinois. ' The Canadian 

 System of Maritime Sanitation,' by F. Montizambert, M.D., quar- 

 antine officer at Grosse Isle, St. Lawrence River, and ' The Quar- 

 antine System of Louisiana, and its Improvement," by Lucien F. 

 Salomon, M.D., secretary Board of Health State of Louisiana, 

 formed the subjects of papers presented by their respective authors. 

 One of the most valuable papers presented to the association was 

 that entitled ' Garbage-Furnaces and the Destruction of Organic 

 Matter by Fire,' by S. S. Kennington, M.D., president of the Min- 

 neapolis Board of Health. He described the Forrestal garbage- 

 crematory in use in Milwaukee, the Ryder in Pittsburgh, the Mann 

 in Montreal and Chicago, and the Engle in Minneapolis, Des 

 Moines, and Coney Island. This latter style of furnace has just 

 been completed at Milwaukee, and was put into operation for the 

 first time during the session of the association. Health-Oflficer 

 Clark of Buffalo described the garbage-crematory in use in that 

 city, and said that its entire running expenses were defrayed by 

 the lubricating oils extracted, alone ; so that even if no market 

 could be found at times, or at all, for the resultant fertilizers, they 

 might at least be used as the furnace's fuel, and thus save coal. 



One entire morning session was occupied in discussing the sub- 

 ject of yellow-fever, which was of unusual interest by reason of the 

 epidemics in Jacksonville, Fla., and Decatur, Ala. The following 

 papers were read : ' The History and Administration of Quarantine 

 in Texas, 1887 to 1S8S,' by R. Rutherford, health-officer of Texas; 

 ' The Outbreak of Yellow-Fever at Jackson, Miss., in September, 



