Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/12

2 If these sanitary engineers, plumbers, chemists, and hygienists, who were requested to take part in the discussion because of their acknowledged scientific attainments, experience, and practical skill, have nothing more to suggest, how is the evil to be successfully met?

With all respect to the distinguished gentlemen, I must say that they have suggested nothing of any importance which is new; nothing that was not known before; nothing, indeed, which has not been tried, and which has not, for one reason or another, proved itself to be either impracticable or insufficient, and in many cases totally inefficient.

My reply to this question is that, in reference to these matters, science has not kept pace with civilization, and that, without concessions on the part of civilization, there is at present no adequate remedy. . ..

I repeat, then, that in order to render pure and innocuous the atmosphere of our houses, whether the sources of its impurity are to be found in our present systems of lighting, heating, or drainage, it will be necessary, first of all, that civilization should make some concessions.

The term "civilization" is here used in its broad and legitimate sense, as including not only mental culture, with progress in science and art, but also the comforts, luxuries, and æsthetics of life, which are its natural and inevitable concomitants. If certain of the latter elements of civilization can not be dispensed with, it will be found impossible, I fear, to contend successfully with typhoid fever, diphtheria, and many other diseases which now contribute so largely to the increase of our mortality rates.

If we limit ourselves to the consideration of the unwholesome atmosphere of our houses—although this does not by any means constitute the only possible or probable source of sickness and physical decay incident to civilization—the concessions demanded, as a condition of the successful application of our present knowledge of the laws of hygiene, are:

1. That all plumbing having any direct or indirect communication with the sewers shall be excluded from those portions of our houses which we habitually occupy. In other words, that it shall be placed in a separate building, or annex.

2. That we return to the open fire-place, or the grate, as a means of warming our private houses.

3. A diminished consumption of oxygen by gas-burners. It is still an open question whether we shall be able to light our dwellings with electricity; but so long as we are obliged to depend upon gas we must content ourselves with light, and not insist upon illumination.

The concessions demanded have been named in the order of their importance. The necessity for each is urgent, but the first admits of no compromise.

The purpose of the present paper is to determine whether, after the citation and careful study of other facts and observations than those laid before the Academy, my conclusions, so far as relates to the matters of sewer-gas and plumbing, can be regarded as defensible.

What is "sewer-gas"?

This term has been employed a long time by chemists, sanitarians, plumbers, and others, to indicate the ordinary emanations from sewers; but recently certain gentlemen have taken exceptions to the term,