Report on the sanitary police of cities : presented to the American Medical Association at its annual session, held at Detroit, May, 1856 / by James M. Newman.

  • Newman, James M.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the sanitary police of cities : presented to the American Medical Association at its annual session, held at Detroit, May, 1856 / by James M. Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of gas-pipes, must sooner or later render every city well a recep- tacle only for filthy water. A very little exercise of the imagina- tion will suggest how impossible it is to have, or to expect pure water with the close proximity there exists between our wells and the sources of contamination alluded to. The well, sesspool, and. privy frequently stand but a few feet apart, and the sewers beneath the streets are abundantly capable of discharging more or less of their contents in addition into the source from whence we derive one of the essentials of life. Where these sources of pollution do not exist to such a degree as to be a serious difficulty, it is not at all times practicable to obtain water fit for use. Almost every locality furnishes abundant examples of impure waters, dependent upon some peculiarity of soil or rock. Many wells, in consequence of some geological pecu- liarity, are very evidently nothing more than receptacles for surface water, which has percolated without filtering through fissures in the earth or rock. This difficulty exists especially in a clay forma- tion. Clay is almost as impervious to water as the rock, and where a sufficient superstratum of sand does not exist so as to furnish a filter for the water as it descends from the surface, a well excavated in the dense hard pan merely serves to collect the fluid as it descends through and along the crevices which everywhere per- vade its substance. Every city must from necessity look to some source from with- out the boundaries of infection for a supply of this essential of life, and the earlier it recognizes the fact, and enters upon some pro- vision for a compliance with this inexorable law, the better will it be for the welfare of its population. Health will be preserved and life saved. The introduction of water from without a city by artificial means of any kind, involves a large expenditure of capital, and consequently the time and manner of supply has been most gene- rally left to private enterprise, the governing question in the under- taking being—Will it pay, and how much? So lon°- as the matter of supplying our towns with water is left in the hands of companies, or individuals, just so long will the evils resulting from an insufficient supply of this element be only partially remedied ; the sources of disease and the class of persons most in need will never be reached. In the public park, the fountain may leap joyously upward and flash and sparkle in the sun as if its every drop were a jewel; and