290 WISCONSIN STATE AORIGULTURAL SOCIETY. 
be bad, but on the contrary very good, when judged by its taste 
and smell.” ^ 
When we have once educated the people to an appreciation of 
the fact that a homestead built on undrained soil is the certain 
abode of death; that houses with their water supply and privy 
vaults in close proximity, are nothing less than highwaymen who 
watch for our lives; when we convince them that certain conditions, 
either of soil or dwelling, will certainly produce death, then will 
they begin to understand and appreciate the importance of a 
thorough system of drainage as well as the proper arrangement of 
the water supply of their buildings. 
VENTILATION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND DWEL¬ 
LING HOUSES. 
BY GEN. JAMES BINTTIFP, JANESVILLE, 
Member of the Stale Board of Health. 
Great plagues and epidemics have ceased to ravage civilized 
communities, as was their wont, and the mean duration of life is 
steadily increasing. At Geneva, in the sixteenth century, the mean 
probability of life was under nine years; by slow steps, progress 
was made to fourteen years, in the seventeenth; thirty years in the 
eighteenth; and in this century, the limit is rapidly approaching 
forty-five years. The improvement indicated within three cen¬ 
turies has resulted from advancing knowledge and more enlightened 
practices for the maintenance of life in health. This country has 
not kept pace with the better ratio observed in Geneva, mainly 
because there has been a lack of attention to the grand principles 
and essential details of sanitary reform. Dr. Rush was our only 
author discoursing on this pregnant subject prior to the year I 860 , 
and it was not until six years later that a State Board of Health 
was organized in Massachusetts, that being the first established in 
this country. Circumstances controlled the popular mind in other 
directions, while Europe was multiplying such institutions; and in 
consequence the vital statistics of that state compare unfavorably 
with the average of trans-Atlantic communities similarly enlight- 
