December, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



489 



A Problem in Sanitation 



By Lewis W. Hine 



Illustrations by the Author 



iYPHOID Epidemic Due to Impure Ice," 

 "Disease Germs in the Water Supply." 

 When the average citizen has come to read 

 these announcements without alarm, be- 

 cause they are an old story, it is time for an 

 awakening of public sentiment. Cities and 

 villages continue to pour their poisonous 

 sewage into streams from which ice is harvested or drinking 

 water obtained. Even the fish find it necessary to move on to 

 more hygienic surroundings. 



For example, a large part of the ice supply of New York 

 City comes from the Hudson River, near Albany. The 

 sewage from two hundred thousand persons is emptied into 

 the river within a distance of six miles above the city. In 

 addition to this, the waste from hundreds of large farms and 

 dairies, and many manufacturing plants as well, increases 

 this menace to health. Another instance is found in the 

 wholesale deposit of sewage and other waste products, from 

 the millions of inhabitants living in New York City, into the 

 Hudson and East Rivers. This is washed out a little way 

 by the ebb tide, then brought back in a few hours by the flood 

 tide and carried up stream. In all these instances the unspeak- 

 able filth lies around under the wharves and near the shore, 

 no one knows how long. 

 It becomes, meanwhile, a 

 constant offense to travel- 

 ers, who naturally object 

 to such odors, to vessel 

 owners, whose boats are 

 greatly damaged by this 

 pollution, and also to own- 

 ers of docks and property 

 near by. Some of the sedi- 

 ment drops to the bot- 

 tom of the river and bay, 

 there to decay slowly, 

 sending off, meanwhile, its 

 noxious gases. Moreover, 

 the natural reduction of 

 this waste material is 

 greatly retarded by the 

 mineral salts in the ocean 

 water, which help it the 

 longer to contaminate the 

 water. Often the fish are 

 killed, and in some cases, 

 like those of Baltimore 

 Bay and Long Island 

 Sound, the great oyster 

 industries have been se- 

 riously affected. On ac- 

 count of these results, this 

 sewage can not be other 

 than a menace to health, 

 especially in the hot sum- 

 mer months when the 

 processes of decay are so 

 much accelerated and con- 

 tagion more easily spread. 

 It seems incredible that 

 the legislatures of New 

 York and New Jersey 



A glimpse of the works 



should add untold difficulties to the solution of the vexing 

 question of sanitation for the great metropolis. They have, 

 nevertheless, during the past year, approved the construc- 

 tion of two great sewers which will divert the sewage from 

 the valleys of the Bronx and the Passaic Rivers into the Hud- 

 son. A local physician, commenting upon the practise of 

 supplying his city with drinking water from the lake into 

 which all the sewage was being deposited, caustically re- 

 marked, "The Indians were certainly very wasteful. They 

 used their drinking water only once." 



The foregoing practises are clearly the result of the "lais- 

 sez faire" method of sanitation. Many efforts have been 

 made, however, to meet this great problem. Thousands of 

 years ago Moses saw the need for stringent sanitary rules in 

 dealing with the children of Israel, and he put into effect a 

 most efficient method of disposal of waste products. This 

 had undoubtedly been worked out by mere "rule of thumb," 

 for he certainly did not understand the nitrifying processes 

 that took place. At the present day our great boast is that 

 we know why certain effects follow certain causes ; yet in these 

 matters of sanitation we have delegated the responsibility for 

 so long that comparatively few ever give a thought to this 

 most important of problems. Pioneers and country people 



at first put this waste wher- 

 ever it happens to go, until 

 a severe lesson of typhoid 

 or the like forces them to 

 greater care. Then the 

 refuse will be drained off 

 a little farther from the 

 house and the well for a 

 time into cesspools. As 

 the community becomes 

 crowded, of course this is 

 not practicable, and the 

 constantly recurring cry is, 

 "What shall we do with 

 all this dirty water and 

 filth? How dispose of it 

 without danger to our 

 neighbors and ourselves?" 

 Can we ever realize 

 how much prejudice has 

 done to retard civiliza- 

 tion? About twenty years 

 ago the citizens in the lit- 

 tle town of New Rochelle 

 were horrified by a pro- 

 posal to make a scientific 

 disposition of their sew- 

 age. "L T gh, the idea. 

 Well, you can't have such 

 a thing in our part of the 

 town; it'll kill all the prop- 

 erty in the neighborhood. 

 No new-fangled notions 

 for me. What the eve 

 doth not see, the heart will 

 not grieve." With the 

 predictions of these croak- 

 ers in mind, I have visited 

 the disposal works at vari- 



