SANITARY SCIENCE, ETC 425 



ing from dirty water." Of course the exhibition was vastly amus- 

 ing, but, after all the guffaw was over, a sad after-thought necessarily 

 came to every thinking man as to the condition of the great metropo- 

 lis which allowed all its dearest material interests to be placed in such 

 hands as this. It may be said that this was the result of a political 

 system, but it was not. Had there been a tithe of the instruction 

 which should have prevailed — of that simple knowledge that should 

 have existed on this subject — such a thing would have been impos- 

 sible,, no matter what the political exigencies or arrangements were. 



So much for the need of popular enlightenment on this subject. 

 Look, now, at a higher tange. It is only a few years since the country 

 was startled by the outbreak of a malignant type of fever in one of 

 the leading boarding-schools in New England. The result was, that 

 several ladies from the most respectable families in the country lost 

 their lives. The school had always been considered an admirable one. 

 It was under the charge of a principal and instructors in every way 

 worthy of their calling ; but an investigation by competent persons 

 showed that causes of zymotic disease lurked at every corner of the 

 edifice, and that the only wonder was that the disease had not come 

 earlier and spread even wider. 



Look now at the want of special and technical instruction. It is 

 little over ten years since the International Commission on Quarantine 

 Matters sat in Paris. They did a great and noble work, but their 

 labors have taken no such hold upon the policy of various States as 

 they ought to have taken. What is the reason of this ? There are 

 admirable sanitarians in our own country and in others. We have 

 several of whom the country may justly be proud ; but the difficulty 

 is, that our institutions have not given us enough of them to create 

 and spread a healthy public opinion on this subject. One or two, or 

 half a dozen, cannot, in so great a country as this, accomplish so great 

 a work, and especially they cannot if they are burdened with the la- 

 borious duty of a metropolitan physician. There is a great want of 

 special instruction in our medical colleges in public hygiene — hygiene 

 in its relation to quarantine matters, in regard to the pretention of 

 epidemics, in regard to sanitary provision for the wants of great cities 

 and districts. Again, if you go into any of our interior States, you 

 will find that any thing like a thorough or carefully-thought-out or 

 wrougbt-out system of sewerage is a very rare exception to a very 

 wide-spread rule. Nothing can be more inadequate than the system 

 of sewerage of nine-tenths of our cities ; and, indeed, until recently, 

 the city of New York, with all its magnificent provision of water- 

 supply, and in spite of its splendid position for drainage, was very 

 improperly provided for in this respect. So much for the want of 

 these different branches of instruction in this great science, and now 

 as to the remedy which I would propose. 



First, as regards Public Schools, I would make provision for simple 



