"Third, By such other influences and agencies as may be deemed expedient."

Dr. Bell proceeded to state how the association might carry out the purpose set forth by collecting and publishing information on sanitary questions, and diffusing among the people, who are so often ignorant in the premises, knowledge of the influence on health and on the duration of life of the nuisances and impurities existing in large cities. He referred to the imperfect cleansing of the streets, the piles of mud and dirt being often allowed to remain in the streets for weeks; to the introduction of water, and the establishment of a system of sewerage, which would lead to the opening of the streets and the breaking up of old sinks and cesspools, the effect of which was often deleterious. All these and other matters would properly come under the consideration of the proposed association, whose duty it would be to call the attention of the public and the authorities thereto, and induce such action as should remedy the evil.

INEFFICIENCY AND CORRUPTION OF THE AUTHORITIES.

Dr. Cullen thought the difficulty was not that the existence of nuisances was unknown. The executive officers of the city understood precisely the state of the case, but would not enforce the laws. There were ordinances enough to meet the difficulty, but they were dead letters, and only served to bring the municipal administration into contempt. Political influence and corruption prevented the enforcement of the laws. He did not lay this to the charge of any one party more than another; but the rumsellers and contractors governed the city and overruled respectable and law-abiding citizens. Dr. Cullen, however, expressed himself favorably as to a sanitary association.

Judge Greenwood thought the evil more deeply seated than had been stated. Mismanagement, mal-administration and corruption were the results of popular government, which he considered a failure, especially in large cities.

Dr. Jones said the greatest impurities and most fruitful sources of disease were not found above ground; they existed beneath the surface, in cellars where the poor were crowded, and in some public places. He then described the condition of the Third Precinct Station House, forty-seven persons being confined where there was not accommodation for ten. The condition of the cells and the sleeping apartments, as explained by Dr. Jones, is most disgraceful to the city. The rooms were dark, damp, and noisome, and the walls covered with mold. Experience in his profession had convinced him that the great proportion of diseases treated at dispensaries proceeded from causes of

a similar nature. He also narrated some cases of families he had visited in cellars of the most offensive and destructive character.

Ex-Mayor Hall also stated facts which had come to his knowledge during his official term, and indicated the absence of a proper sanitary system.

The general opinion expressed during this conversation was that an association such as that proposed would be of great importance in creating a public sentiment that should act upon the people and the officers whose duty it is to enforce the laws for the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease. After some further informal proceedings, Captain Farley was called to the chair, and on motion the meeting resolved itself into a Sanitary Association. Dr. Rell then, at the request of the Association, read an interesting paper touching the subject under consideration. It contains a statement of facts of such interest at all times, and especially at this season of the year, that we print it in full.

DR. BELL'S PAPER-SANITARY HISTORY.

It is a common impression that a great mortality is an unavoidable necessity to city population. This is far from being correct. If proper attention was paid to the sanitary condition of cities, the averave duration of life would increase in like ratio with the population. Evidence of this is found in the health statistics of Geneva, where they have been observed with greater accuracy, and for a longer period, than in any other city in the world. Health registers were established in Geneva in 1589, and they are regarded as pre appointed evidences of civil rights, and are, consequently, kept with great care. The registration includes the name of the disease which has caused death, entered by a district physician, who is charged by the State with the inspection of every one who dies within his district. A table is made up from certificates, setting forth the nature of the disease, specifications of the symptoms, and observations required to be made by the private physician who may have had the care of the deceased. The increase of population has been followed by a proportionate increase in the duration of life. In the year 1589, the population was 13,000; and the probabilities of life were, to every individual born, 8 years, 7 months and 26 days. In the seventeenth century, the population increased to 17,000, and the probabilities of life, to 13 years, 3 months and 16 days, and so on continuously. From 1814 to 1833, the population being from 24,158 to 27,117, the probabilities of life for every individual born, were 45 years and 29 days; and at the present time, the probabilites of life are over 46 years. Sanitary science is more thought of and better attended to in Geneva than anywhere else. In

an establishment for the care of orphans taken from the poorest classes, out of 86 reared in 24 years, only I died.

At all periods of history and in all communities, popular writers refer to the simplicity, the health and the enduring hardihood of their fathers. And it would be easy to show in literature how each century has looked back on its predecessor, as a degenerate child lamenting the departed excellences of its ancestors; so that it would appear by this scale of descent, that we have less of everything that makes a people great and valuable, than our forefathers. And some writers among us refer to the agility of the savages of this continent as an evidence of excellence lost by excessive refinement. The belief is inculcated that barbarous nations possess the greatest energy and strength, and the luxuries of civilization are lamented as a degeneracy of bodily vigor and muscular activity. Opinions like these involve a scale of descent which would tend to show that each generation has less of everything calculated to make it great and good, than the last preceding.

Such statements are wholly inconsistent with facts.

The perpetual superiority of the natives of temperate climates is owing to the formative conditions there which develop the strongest constitutions.

Even in climates to which they are least accustomed they display powers of endurance amidst the causes of disease which slay thousands of those who are habitually subject to them, and who for this very reason are lacking in that vigor of constitution which is the best safeguard.

During the great plague in Alexandria in 1835, the French, English, Russian and German residents, who were exposed to the cause in its fullest intensity, suffered in the proportion of only five per cent., whereas the Arab population suffered in the proportion of fifty-five, the Malays in the proportion of sixty one, and the negroes and Nubians in the proportion of eighty-four per cent. That is to say, falling upon the several nations in close proximity to their general sanitary condition, the attacks being lowest among the Europeans.

In strict correspondence with this ratio of mortality, based upon the degree of civilization, are the vital statistics of the United States.

MORTALITY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Comparing together a mass of statistics from various parts of the United States, the annual death rates from all causes is about 1 in 66; among the whites alone, 1 in 80; among the negroes, I in 31; among the Indians, 1 in 27; among the inhabitants of New York City, I in 27.15, or nearly the same as that of the uncivilized Indians.

THE INDIANS.

In the statistical report of sickness and mortality, prepared under the direction of the Surgeon General of the U. S. Army, the report on the Winnebagos in Minnesota is one death in every 26.23 inhabitants, this rate being among the largest reported.

This high rate of mortality among the Winnebagos is attributed by Dr. Day, physician to the agency, to the Spartan treatment to which they are subjected in infancy. "As soon as an infant is born it is laid on a board, previously covered with a few folds of blanket; then with a strip of cloth two or three inches wide, is as amply and securely bandaged from head to foot as an Egyptian mummy, and then strapped to the board, care being always taken to include the arms, which are extended upon the sides of the infant, and leaving nothing out of the bandage but its head. In this straitened position they spend the greater part of the first year of infantile life, remaining at times for weeks without being taken from the board. The effect of this cradle (?) with the heavy woolen bandages is to interfere with, if not entirely preclude, the healthy functions of the skin. The excrements of the child's body collect, excoriating the skin and keeping up a constant irritation. The motions of the limbs, the only voluntary exercise an infant can have, and one so necessary to the development of its physical powers, being entirely precluded, it soon becomes weak and enfeebled. But the most pernicious effects of strapping their infants upon these boards is exerted upon the brain.

Being always laid upon their backs, with little or nothing between the hard board and the imperfectly ossified head, the continued pressure exerted by the weight of the head almost universally produces a displacement of the occipital bone inwards, causing lockjaw, paralysis, etc., and deranging the functions over which the cerebellum presides. They think it a mark of great comeliness to have the head perfectly flattened behind; and the Indian mothers show much anxiety in this respect.

It is wrong to suppose Indian children are better capable of surviving less careful treatment in infancy than are those of the whites. The former are generally born with less vigorous constitutions than the latter; and taking into consideration the numerous causes of disease and death to which these forest children are subjected, the wonder is, how any survive, not why so many die."

NEW YORK STATE AND CITY.

The recent report of the New York State Senatorial Committee on the sanitary condition of the city of New York, has made us lamentably state of things there, which, in relation to mortality,

singularly comports with the death-rate of the uncivilized Winnebagos, the probabilities of human life in New York being only about one per cent. greater than among the Winnebagos.

And this correspondence of mortality, though attributable to totally different causes, is nearly alike in ratio for the different ages, 70 per cent. of the whole being children. Where infant life is not only neglected, but wilfully sacrificed, as among the American Indians, the tenement proprietors of New York and other uncivilized communities, there is never any great care taken of adult life.

Indifference and cruelty are thus bound up in each other, and the practice of putting children and aged persons to death in various ways is known to be common among most barbarous nations.

Savage nations generally practise the belief that there is an advantage in removing that portion of every population which is unable to provide self-subsistence; hence, they openly put to death infants and the aged. The same error prevails among a large class in civilized communities; and those who entertain it argue for a compensating advantage in the removal of a worthless portion of surplus population. But this is an exceedingly superficial view, and only worthy of those who most openly act upon it. It is not the surplus, but the valuable portion of life thus thrown away. To whatever extent the duration of life is diminished by noxious agencies, so much productive power is lost; and every community is poor and powerless in the inverse ratio to the average duration of human life. Every death under the age of fifteen years carries with it a positive loss to the community; because, previous to this age, sustenance involves a cost-a direct outlay-whilst, if life is preserved, a productive member of, society is added, and remuneration rendered. And if the probabilities of life are so low as to make the average adult age young, the proportion of widowhood and orphanage is necessarily increased, and the productive members of society proportionately burdened. If a husband dies in the early years of his married life, he leaves, as burdens on the world, a widow or children, for whom, in all probability, if he had lived, he would have labored.

It is not the nature of mankind that great evils like these should exist within the scope of civilization; and the highest state of human progress furnishes the standard to which all should be elevated. Selfishness and barbarism are noxious agents everywhere; and as such they should not be tolerated. For it is neither the nature nor the habit of the human constitution to become so accustomed to conditions inconsistent with the highest state of human progress as to be unaffected by them. Cleanliness and refinement bear the same relation to each other in the progress of civilization as do filth and uncleanness in the degradation of uncivilized communities. The connection of cleanliness with