Injurious Manufactories . S3 
The object is to determine, whether the vicinity of cer- 
tain manufactories can be injurious to health. 
The solution of this problem must appear of the more 
consequence, as, from the confidence which the decisions 
of the Institute naturally merit, it may hereafter form 
the basis of decisions in a court of justice, when sen- 
tence is to be pronounced between the fate of a manu- 
factory and the health of our fellow-citizens. 
The solution is so much the more important, it is be- 
come so much the more necessary, as the fate of the 
most useful establishments, I will say more, the exist- 
ence of many arts, has depended hitherto on simple re- 
gulations of police ; and that some, driven to a distance 
from materials, from workmen, or from consumers, by 
prejudice* ignorance, or jealousy, continue to maintain a 
disadvantageous struggle against innumerable obstacles, 
by which their growth is opposed. 
Thus we have seen manufactories of acids, of sal am- 
moniac, of Prussian blue, of beer, and of leather, suc- 
cessively banished from cities ; and we daily see appeals 
to authority against these establishments made by trou- 
blesome neighbours or jealous rivals. 
As long as the fate of these manufactories is insecure, 
as long as an arbitrary legislation possesses a right to 
interrupt, suspend, or fetter the hands of a manufacture ; 
in a word, as long as a simple magistrate of police has 
at his nod the fortune or ruin of a manufacturer, how 
can we conceive, that he will be so imprudent as to en- 
gage in undertakings of such a nature ? How could it 
be expected, that manufacturing industry should estab- 
lish itself on such a frail basis ? This state of uncer- 
tainty, this continual contest between the manufacturer 
and his neighbours, this perpetual doubt respecting the 
fate of an establishment, paralize and confine the efforts 
