Frank Hastings Hamilton

“ The physician should never be an alarmist; he never can hoist the signal of danger, except when he sees the forewarning signs of an impending storm. Unfortunately, he never can see the danger from this position until its effects are already beginning to develop as shown by disease. At tins same meeting Professor Doremus gave us the painful story of the sudden prostration of his two sons, one of whom died, and the other recovered only after a prolonged illness; in both of which cases sewer-gas was ascertained to be the cause of the sickness. ”

“ In our own city, and in other maritime cities, and upon the sea-coast generally, the action of the tides in obstructing the outflow, and thus driving the contents of the sewers back toward the houses where the pipes terminate, is often enormous, and such as, by the most ample provision for escape through ventilators, can not always prevent a sudden pressure upon the water-traps sufficient to displace their contents, or to force the gas through the water in the form of bubbles, or, finally, to increase the capacity of the water to receive the sewer-gas by absorption. ”

“ It will be found that we are practically united in our demand that plumbers, architects, sanitary engineers, and physicians, shall acquire more knowledge and skill than they now possess; and that where their united knowledge and skill fail to accomplish the end to which our efforts are at present directed, namely, the exclusion of sewer-gases from our houses, the people shall be urged at once to "to lop off superfluous luxuries"; instructing them also that, in exact proportion as their luxurious distribution of plumbing is diminished, their safety will be increased. ”

“ Even the best plumbing will not last for ever, but needs attention. Leaks may occur to permit the admission of sewer-gas from drain-pipes due to defective castings, or to walls settling in houses built on made ground, or from the strain of the alternate expansion and contraction from hot water, or even from the forcing of lead joints by the pressure of steam discharged from manufactories into the public sewer.
A no less serious evil is the corrosion of lead traps or lead waste-pipes, particularly in old houses which have unventilated drains. ”

“ Into which, Professor Parker was understood to say, he would gather all the pipes and fixtures, water-closets, baths, and wash-basins. He further remarked: "I suppose most of you would object to having a vault filled with dead bodies a few yards from your house, and connected with it by a pipe. Yet this is practically what we do. Water is no protection from the poisonous germs which generate and live in this foul air. This matter demands our most careful attention, for we are in a very critical and unhealthy condition." ”

“ To be more explicit, sewer-gas fertilizes the human soil, and renders it more capable of receiving and developing the germs of specific diseases.
Infants and children are in general constitutionally better prepared for the reception and development of these germs, excepting, perhaps, the typhoid, than adults.
It has been asked why, if these gases are so poisonous, plumbers do not suffer. The answer is, that they do suffer frequently, and that they would much more often were they not, when exposed, in most cases in the full vigor of adult life and of health. ”

“ They should be informed, at the same time, that, if they are compelled to submit to the presence of plumbing fixtures near their living apartments, they should follow the advice of Professor Doremus, and employ constantly and freely proper disinfectants, of which it is unscientific to say that they merely "disguise the bad odors"; for, if it be true that they do not cause directly the death of all germs, it is nevertheless true that they prevent putrefaction of organic matters, and thus destroy the aliment upon which the germs subsist, and by which they are enabled to multiply. ”

“ As, when an army of disciplined soldiers has been signally routed, the people begin to lose confidence in their officers, and the officers fall to charging each other with incompetency, neglect, and treason—so, also, in this case, these murmurs of complaint and of wide-spread dissatisfaction, these mutual criminations and recriminations, imply only a great failure, and not necessarily a dereliction on the part of any one concerned. ”

“ The traps, to be effective, it is unnecessary to say, must be kept in perfect working order, for this is a dangerous door to be left ajar, even for one moment.
The complete protection of our houses against sewer-gas will not, however, be accomplished when a trap shall be invented which shall be liable to no accidents and shall never fail. The trap is a matter of small consideration compared with the whole amount of plumbing work, of which it constitutes only a fraction. ”

“ A gentleman is now constructing a handsome residence in Fifth Avenue, and he informs me that, recognizing fully the danger from sewer-gas, he has placed all those fixtures which he proposes to use at the rear end of his house. He has, however, extended his plumbing throughout his house, because in the case of his death the house may be sold, and some might object to it if it did not contain all of the "modern improvements" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the avowed objects of this Academy, as expressed in its constitution, is the promotion of the public health. Strictly speaking, all of our scientific work is in this direction, but this meeting is, in a larger sense, devoted specifically to this object. There is not a physician in this city, engaged in active practice, who is not frequently called upon to see disease of various degrees of severity, often resulting in death, which has been caused by a poison. ”

“ I have abundance of evidence that scarlatina is distributed by sewers, or rather that the germs which grow it are conveyed with sewer-air. If, however, the constitution of those receiving the germ is not fitted to grow it and to lead to its fructification, no fever will arise, and the germs will abort. It will not develop in ordinary flesh and blood, but requires that the recipient should be in a special state as regards his own blood to enable it to mature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The plumbers have been again and again charged with incompetency, and often with intentional dishonesty, by sanitary engineers, by physicians, and by the almost universal voice of the people, until to-day it is hard to find a man with sufficient courage to utter a word in their defense. ”

“ Our sewers allow the transference of gases and organic molecules from house to house and from place to place. Occasionally, by bursting, leakage, or absorption, the ground is contaminated, and the water-supply is in danger of being contaminated and poisoned; and all these dangers are greater from being concealed. In China, there is at least freedom from one of these dangers. It would certainly seem advisable that our water-closets should he in a projection from the building, with a tube passing to the outer air. ”

“ It is the custom of many in this city, whose means will permit them to do so, to take their families for health and pleasure to various summer resorts at the sea-side, the mountains, and other attractive country hotels; but every year, for some time past, some of these places have proved fatal to health, and often to life, by typhoid fever. ”

“ Lead and iron pipes are subject to the erosive action of the gases, and of various reagents. They are also, like the traps, liable to be broken by the settling of walls, floors, and fixtures, and they are occasionally broken by their own weight. The leaden pipes may be eaten by rats; at the jointings, they are believed occasionally to be perforated by galvanic action. In nearly all these cases the holes are at first small, but frequently a large number of these small holes will be found at the same time in different portions of the plumbing. ”

“ In addition to the evidence now presented, and which might be greatly multiplied, as to the probability, or, as perhaps most physicians think, the certainty, that typhoid fever, diphtheria, and scarlatina are thus caused or distributed from house to house, there is the negative testimony presented in the fact that these three terrible maladies are seldom seen in those Eastern Asiatic cities where "modern improvements" in plumbing are unknown, and that with us they have increased just in proportion to the extension of these "improvements." ”

“ It being indisputable that germs may be absorbed by water, and that they may multiply in water, it seems irrational that they should not by evaporation, or by the means of minute bubbles generated by decomposition of organic matter in the water, or by agitation of the water, escape into the surrounding atmosphere. ”

“ This sufficiently explains the immunity which adults usually enjoy, and especially those who are most of the time away from home and in the open air.
Typhoid fever has long been known to be caused by sewer emanations. It is quite true that this is not its only source, but it is probable that in all large cities, where sewer-pipes are connected with the houses, sewer-gas causes more typhoid fever than all other causes combined. In the country, also, and especially in the large hotels at fashionable watering-places, examples of sickness and death from this source are alarmingly frequent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ London, complains that, by eminent doctors, men of his calling have been "sat upon, blackguarded, lectured, blamed," etc., for their supposed ignorance of matters of this sort; and one gentleman, a sanitary engineer, has said, publicly, that there was "probably only one architect in this city competent to execute the specifications for the plumbing of large houses." The same gentleman did not hesitate to say to the Academy that physicians were regarded by plumbers as their "most wrong-headed customers," and as possessing only "a dangerous smattering" of knowledge upon the subject ”

“ Charles F. Wingate, sanitary engineer, in his paper read before the Kings County Medical Society, April, 1882, says: "Any one having opportunities for seeing the sanitary defects in the vast majority of city houses, whether occupied by millionaires or mechanics, and whether situated on Murray Hill or Avenue B, can feel little surprise at the statistics of increasing mortality in New York. ”

“ Colonel George B. Waring, Jr., sanitary engineer, addressing the public through the daily press, gives the following advice: "Let us take no step backward in the essential improvement of the adjuncts of our daily life. Let us only lop off luxurious superfluities, and see that what is really needed is good. ”

“ The constant demand for the doctor's services in so many houses in their normally bad state, and the fact that his services are no longer demanded when they have been put in sanitary condition, tells its own lesson. ”

“ But where the poison is introduced into the system so insidiously that the subject is unconscious of its absorption until its effects are produced, then it is not a question of antidotes, but the problem is, How shall we counteract its consequences, and how shall we keep our patients alive until the life-destroying agents have ceased to put in jeopardy the vital powers? ”

“ Careful observers limit the increase in the population of New York to ten per cent, and estimate the mortality of last year as therefore ten per cent greater than during 1880. The percentage is just equal to the increase in deaths from contagious diseases.— (Charles F. Wingate, consulting sanitary engineer, "Practical Points about Plumbing," 1882.) The writer proceeds to charge this increased mortality to the sanitary defects of our houses, especially in the matter of plumbing.
The death-rate of our city has continued to increase steadily since Mr. Wingate wrote. ”

“ There is no doubt that the luxury of a wide distribution of plumbing appliances throughout the whole house has led to a great increase of risk and to a wide distribution of dangerous defects. The use of stationary wash-basins in bedrooms not immediately adjoining soil-pipes is to be deprecated ”

“ Do not imagine that when structure, drainage, water-supply, and the various appliances appertaining thereto, are left in perfect condition, they will always remain so, and that, unlike every other production, they will last unimpaired for ever, or even that period of "for ever"—a few years. ”

“ Receiving, as they do in this city, and in many other large cities, the excreta, and more, or less of the offal, animal and vegetable, of almost the entire population, and these masses of filth being often detained in these receptacles to undergo putrefaction in a warm and humid atmosphere, it would seem impossible that their exhalations should not be dangerous to life. ”