June 29, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



309 



animal and vegetable matter from the kitchen. Every household 

 is a workshop for garbage. In the country and small towns many 

 a family is poisoned by the careless accumulation of the same near 

 the well or sleeping-apartment. In small towns it is mostly got rid 

 of by feeding to swine and cows; in larger communities, by carting 

 off and polluting harbors or rivers. 



In the second report of the State Board of Health of Maine, 1887, 

 the secretary, Dr. A. G.Young, says, "Of the several methods 

 which have hitherto been in use (for removing garbage), it may be 

 said that none of them are free from serious objections. If the 

 garbage is carried any considerable distance into the country, its 

 transportation is attended with considerable cost. If buried, it 

 still often remains a nuisance by contaminating the air or polluting 

 the water in the neighborhood. If utilized in part as food for 

 swine or cows, there is sometimes inflicted upon the community 

 which sends it forth a retributive penalty in the shape of an un- 

 wholesome milk and meat supply. 



" In the case of a seaboard town, if it is sent seaward, the gar- 

 bage may depart from the place of its origin never to return, but in 

 large part it is strewn along other coasts. 



"The great desideratum has seemed to be some method which 

 would not require a costly transportation of the garbage, or neces- 

 sitate the defilement of our seashores, but which would radically 

 and ultimately destroy it near the place where it is produced. 



"Within the last few years, a new method of disposing of gar- 

 bage has been written about and talked about, and to a consider- 

 able extent put into operation and practically tested. It is the 

 method of destroying or cremating garbage by means of furnaces 

 specially constructed for that purpose. Where these garbage-fur- 

 naces have been put into use, there is pretty uniform consensus of 

 testimony as to their success. When rightly built, they have done 

 their work satisfactorily, and generally at considerably less expense 

 than had hitherto been incurred in disposing of the garbage other- 

 wise. But little or no cost is incurred for fuel to run the furnace, 

 as the garbage is dried more or less before it is burned, and is 

 made to consume itself. The cost of labor in attending the furnace 

 is not great, and generally there are no unpleasant odors given off 

 in the process of burning. 



" This method has not been much used in this country, but in 

 Europe, and particularly in England, it has been extensively em- 

 ployed. Dr. O. A. Horr, a member of this board, who has lately 

 returned from Europe, made special inquiry in regard to garbage- 

 cremation in England, and all he could learn convinced him that 

 this system is a success in that country. The garbage-furnaces in 

 many of their towns have been in operation many years, and, in 

 conversation with the health-officer of the city of London, he 

 learned that there are now forty-five of the English towns which 

 make use of this garbage-destruction. 



" In this country, so far as I know, the experiment of destroying 

 garbage by means of a furnace constructed specially for that pur- 

 pose was first tried on Governor's Island, New York harbor. A 

 description of this garbage-cremator was given in the Sanitarv 

 Engineer of Aug. 13, 1885, by Lieutenant Reilly, at this time act- 

 ing assistant quartermaster, U. S. A., at that post." This descrip- 

 tion is reproduced in the report above quoted. 



In the twelfth volume of ' Public Health,' containing the reports 

 and papers presented to the American Public Health Association, 

 at the Toronto meeting, October, 1886, may be found a paper by 

 Dr. George Baird of Wheeling, giving an account not only of the 

 destruction of garbage, but also of night-soil, by means of a furnace 

 contrived by M. V. Smith, M.E., Bissell's Block, Pittsburgh, Penn. 

 Dr. Baird is brief, and has " only tried to furnish proof of its capa- 

 city to solve a long-tried problem in the government of our cities 

 and large towns." 



The city authorities of Wheeling were stimulated to action by 

 those of Bellaire, O., on the opposite side of the river, but in close 

 proximity. The dumping of night-soil and garbage from Wheeling 

 into the Ohio River had become an intolerable nuisance to the in- 

 habitants of Bellaire living just below. No alternative remained 

 but to abate the nuisance. A similar alternative will soon be 

 forced upon many of our riparian cities and towns. Law will de- 

 cide that rivei-s do not belong to those who happen to dwell near 

 the source, but equally to all below, and that the upper few have 



no right to deposit their filth in floating columns upon the lower 

 many. 



In the ' Report on the Sanitary State of Montreal for the Year 

 1 886,' will be found an interesting narrative in this connection, 

 giving instructive details as to cost, showing the extent of the work 

 to be done and the complete success of the refuse-crematories, and 

 also of the night-soil crematories. It thus appears that Wheeling 

 and Montreal are the pioneer cities in arousing public attention to 

 the cremation of garbage and night-soil. 



Dr. Lindsley then sketches the later developments in the new 

 method of destruction and sanitation by fire. 



"Other cities," he says, "are taking hold of the experiment with 

 much enthusiasm. The Sanitarv News of Nov. 19, 1887, states 

 that at Des Moines, lo., a small Engle furnace is in experimental 

 use, and is working very satisfactorily. At Pittsburgh a Rider fur- 

 nace had just commenced its service. In Chicago a Mann furnace 

 was being constructed. 



" In the same valuable journal, March 17, 1888, may be found a 

 full description of the Chicago garbage-crematory, from which a 

 duplicate of the plant could be built if desired. 



"On April 14 it reports that the said crematory is doing good 

 service in disposing of about fifty tons of material a day. The 

 Sanitary Ne7i.is of March 10, 1888, reports the success of the dis- 

 posal of garbage by cremation at Milwaukee. 



"All who are concerned in this important subject will look for- 

 ward with great interest to a paper on cremation, to be read at the 

 Milwaukee meeting of the American Public Health Association in 

 November next by Oscar C. De Wolf, M.D., the eminent health- 

 commissioner of Chicago. 



" We have seen how very recent is the resort to cremation for 

 getting rid of garbage and other refuse in America, and it may with 

 truth be claimed that Mr. J. M. Keating of Memphis, familiar with 

 epidemics, first set this ball in motion. At the Indianapolis meet- 

 ing of the American Public Health Association, October, 18S2, he 

 presented a paper on ' The Cremation of Excreta and Household 

 Refuse.' He closes the paper thus : ' There is no real safety save 

 by cremation. Yankee ingenuity, once directed in this channel, 

 will doubtless be equal to the emergency, and provide just the 

 kind of cheap furnace or stove necessary for the purpose. By this 

 means, and this alone, can the ultimate of sanitation be realized.' 



" Already, in 1879, Mr. Keating had presented his views on this 

 subject through the New York Herald, and with the indorsement 

 of that influential paper. In the American Public Health Associa- 

 tion, however, he had a deeply interested auditory of experts, and 

 his views attracted much attention. He was induced by many of 

 its active members to prepare an elaborate paper for its meeting at 

 St. Louis, October, 1884, which was published under the title, 

 ' The Ultimate of Sanitation by Fire.' This is probably the most 

 complete and thorough monograph on the subject in the English 

 language. It was widely circulated in the volumes of the American 

 Public Health Association and other channels. 



" Individually, I subscribe to the principles and practical con- 

 clusions maintained and explained by Mr. Keating, and feel quite 

 'confident that in a few years Yankee inventive ingenuity will provide 

 in great perfection the apparatus necessary for daily and cheap 

 use. 



" On this occasion I have confined myself to the cremation of 

 garbage, because I am convinced that it will speedily come into use 

 throughout America with like rapidity as has electric-lighting,* and 

 will pave the way for a wider and more perfect application of sani- 

 tation by fire." 



Milk. 

 Dr. Parkes writes to the .5rz'/z'j-/2 Medical Journal as follows: 

 " Whilst not denying that the tubercular virus may find other 

 means of reaching the digestive tract than through unboiled cow's 

 milk, it appears to me that there are no sufficient safeguards in the 

 management of town dairies to warrant us in assuming that milk 

 from cows in an advanced stage of tuberculosis has no chance of 

 being mixed with the milk of other healthy cows. In every dairy 

 of any size there will probably be tubercular cows, some of them, 

 perhaps, with tubercular deposits in the udders ; and, as it is the 

 common custom with dairymen to mix together the milk yielded by 

 different cows, it is not too much to assume that tubercle bacilli 



