Or, if he is in a hurry to acquire the aid he seeks in your columns, I feel sure that I could give it to him in half an hour, if he would honour me with a visit, at my laboratory in Chelmsford.

Experience has taught me that the Nessler' or 'ammonia' process of water analysis should be looked upon by the medical officer of health, or sanitary official, in the same light as the microscope is regarded by the physician in diagnosis, namely, as an aid to the formation of an opinion. That it is a very valuable assistant in guiding the medical officer of health to a sound conclusion, I have long ago been convinced. It never leads me into error in my attemps to discover the amount of organic matter in a water. The title of your correspondent's letter would lead the reader to infer that water analysis consisted solely in estimating the amount of filth in a water. It is to be hoped that 'Gaudens in Prolio' does not think so. CORNELIUS B. Fox, M.D.,

Author of Water Analysis as it Should and
Should not be performed by the Medical
Officer of Health.'

January 1, 1877.

Great Baddow, Essex.

WATER ANALYSIS.

(To the Editor of the SANITARY RECORD.)

SIR,-The letter signed 'Gaudens in Prœlio' affords a strange example of the confusion which still prevails in certain quarters. 'Gaudens in Prolio' tells us that he does not know whether the ammonia obtained in the course of a water analysis is due to 'harmful organic matters, or merely to vegetable impurity.'

To this it may be replied that the vegetable impurity in drinking water is harmful, and that even the materies morbi of typhoid fever has been asserted to be (and some people say proved to be) a vegetable; and that the notion that when water is charged with animal matter it is poisonous, and that when it is charged with vegetable matter it is harmless, is an exploded fallacy.

CLARK, Dr. John, F.C.S., has been appointed a Public Analyst for the Borough of Johnstone.

FROW, Mr. H., has been reappointed Inspector of Nuisances for the Gainsborough Rural Sanitary District.

MACNALTY, Francis Charles, M.B., C. M. Trin. Coll. Dub., L.A.H. Dub., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for Patterdale, Westmoreland, vice Dale, resigned.

PARKER, Frederick, Esq., has been appointed Treasurer to the Bakewell Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Sorby, resigned.

TATLOCK, Mr. Robert R., F.R.S.E., F.C.S., has been appointed a
Public Analyst for the Borough of Johnstone.

UTLEY, Mr. John, has been appointed Collector to the Hebden
Bridge Local Board and Urban Sanitary Authority.
WALLACE, Dr. William, F. R. S. E., F.C.S., has been appointed a
Public Analyst for the Borough of Johnstone.

WELLS, Mr. Josias, has been appointed Surveyor and Inspector of
Nuisances to the Hinckley Local Board and Urban Sanitary
Authority, vice Billington, resigned.

WOODCOCK, Mr. Thomas, jun., has been appointed Clerk to the Haslingden Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Mr. Thomas Woodcock, resigned.

VACANCIES.

CARLISLE, BOROUGH OF, AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY. Surveyor and Inspector of Nuisances.

COVENTRY, CITY OF. Public Analyst: 1. 1s. per analysis, and 37. 38. per day and travelling expenses when required to give evidence. Application, 8th instant, to Thomas Browett, Town Clerk.

DARTFORD LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY, Collector.

HUCKNALL-TORKARD URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Nottinghamshire. Medical Officer of Health.

LLANELLY LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY. Clerk.

MOUNTAIN-ASH LOCAL BOARD AND URBAN SANITARY AUTHORITY. Surveyor: 100l. per annum and private practice. Application, 8th instant, to H. P. Linton, Clerk to the Authority. RAMSBOTTOM URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Lancashire.

Officer of Health.

Medical

not act.

It is unnecessary to point out to chemists that inasmuch as nitrates yield ammonia by a process of reduction whilst nitrogenous organic matters yield ammonia by a process of oxidation, there can be no difficulty in distinguishing between them. At different periods of its history much nonsense has been written in opposition to the ammonia process, and 'Gaudens in Prolio' (who gets more accurate results the smaller the scale on which he operates) must be congratulated on having discovered a difficulty which had eluded all former objectors.

My own experiments with the silicated carbon filter have convinced myself that it most effectually removes nitrogenous organic matter from drinking water, and other operators have arrived at a similar conclusion.

When 'Gaudens in Prolio' is able to distinguish between nitrates and nitrogenous organic matter, and when his faculty of getting a more accurate result the smaller the scale on which he works deserts him, then possibly' Gaudens in Prœlio' may be able to get those results with the silicated carbon filter, which other experimenters have proved to be attainable. J. ALFRED WANKLYN.

APPOINTMENTS OF HEALTH OFFICERS, INSPECTORS OF NUISANCES, ETC.

CLENCH, Augustus, Esq., has been appointed Treasurer to the Tendring Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Nunn, resigned.

ABSTRACTS OF SPECIFICATIONS.

1179. Closet Valves. P. J. Davies.

The invention specially relates to improvement in water-closet and other valves, and apparatus employed for cleansing, watering, controlling, regulating, measuring, and arresting the flow or discharge of waste to or from pipes, mains, reservoirs, cisterns, water-closets, urinals, baths, water-carts, or other sources of supply or storage, and has for its object the opening or closing of valve or valves by suction and by the transmission of fluid or liquid pressure or otherwise, and apparatus for emptying or filling of vessels, and for controlling, limiting, or measuring of the supply each time the apparatus is brought into action, so as to arrest, regulate, or give a rapid flushing current automatically at stated intervals, or otherwise, generally not to exceed a fixed maximum quantity each time in order to prevent undue water waste. This invention also relates to a novel kind of valve seating, which is also applicable to the inventor's Hornsey and other valves, instead of having the main inlet water way through the sides or horizontal with the bottom of the cistern. This invention also relates to what is now known as his two-gallon London closetvalve waste-preventing cistern, working with movable and fixed valve seatings and syphons with service box arrangements, described in the letters patent bearing date 1873, No. 157; and also in certain improvements in what are known as water frugals, or water-waste preventers, for which letters patent were granted to him bearing date 3rd day of July, 1871, No. 1716.

NOTICE.

THE SANITARY RECORD is published every Saturday morning, and may be ordered direct from the Publishers. Annual Subscription, 175. 4d. ; free by post, 19s. 6d.

Reading Covers to hold 12 numbers of THE Sanitary RECORD have been prepared, and may be had direct from the Publishers or through any Bookseller, price 35. each.

(Continued from page 5.)

SOME of you will, no doubt, have heard this disease, 'phthisis,' or 'a wasting,' as it is called, ascribed to several other causes-to an hereditary taint handed down from parent to offspring, to our changeable English climate, to the elevation of the site of dwellings above the level of the sea, to a damp impervious soil, to imperfect nourishment, especially the absence of a sufficient store of fat in the organism. Doubtless these are all important factors in the process that ends in consumption; but except hereditary predisposition they will seldom any of them act alone, unassisted by the influence of organic impurities--impurities either retained in the system by imperfect work of excretion, or introduced from without, mostly in the form of air rendered foul by breathing.

1. The first group of facts that strikes us with regard to the distribution of consumption, is the one already noted when speaking of the influence of putrefaction, namely, the rapid increase of prevalence of this disease with increased density of the population. In proportion as larger and larger numbers of persons are attracted to a certain limited area of ground, in that proportion, cæteris paribus, does the mortality from consumption increase.

It is true that we have along with this condition a combination of most, if not all, of the other circumstances unfavourable to health-poverty, insufficient food, low site and often damp ill-constructed dwellings; and we might with equal right select any one of these things as the true cause of the disease, but for the strong fact that all these things exist, in still greater intensity, in some country districts of England, or in the poorer villages of Scotland, along with a very low rate of mortality from consumption.

2. There is another way in which you may observe the influence of occupations in this regard. If you look at the map of the distribution of consumption in England prepared by Mr. Alfred Haviland, you will at once be struck by the deepening of colour that shows intensity of the disease in the great industrial centres of the country. We have already seen the evil effects of the dusty particles thrown off in the course of trades and manufactures, but this is by no means the only influence that is at work. It is not only dust that is found in the air breathed in the workshop, but also the products of the respiration of the workpeople themselves. And Dr. Greenhow, in his statistical inquiry into the special causes of consumption, found that it prevailed not only in consequence of dusty work, but in proportion as the people were attracted to indoor occupations, and to the degree of closeness and bad ventilation of the places in which they worked.

3. The influence, both of occupation and foul air, may be seen in the contrast between the male and female rates of mortality from consumption in

Delivered before the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association, Nov. 1876.

different districts. In some parts of England the men are the chief workers at indoor employmentsas in Sheffield and Birmingham; there you find the male-rate the highest; in others, as at Nottingham, Huddersfield, and Macclesfield, the women are most employed, and consequently they die most numerously of consumption; and in places like Liverpool and Manchester, and Stockport, where there is little difference in the employment of men and women, there is also little difference in the rates of mortality from consumption; both are high.

But the most striking testimony is from the relative death-rate in the two sexes of country places, such as Market Drayton, Bakewell, Nuneaton, Camelford, and Pickering. Here, where the men are constantly out of doors, their consumption rate is uniformly low, while the women, who keep the house, die at a constantly higher rate of this disease. 4. We may take an entirely different mode of proof, and show that where there is plenty of fresh air there is little consumption, even though all the other surroundings are, in a sanitary point of view, almost as bad as they can be.

It has been found, for instance, that the inhabitants of Iceland and the Western Hebrides enjoy a singular immunity from tubercular disease. Dr. Morgan has made a special study of the 'Nonprevalence of Phthisis in Hebrides and along the North-western Coast of Scotland,' (British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 1860, vol. xxvi. p. 483) and he could not ascribe it to any peculiarity in climate, diet, race or employment. It is extremely prevalent in other parts of Scotland, and the mode of living is, in many respects, unsanitary' to a degree; but, on the other hand, the dwellings in which the people live permit, nay, necessitate, the constant indraught of pure fresh air, and the not less incessant expulsion of the foul products of respiration.

The crofter's hut, Dr. Morgan says, 'is built entirely of rough unhewn stones, no mortar of any kind being used;' the walls are thus more or less pervious to the air, and the doors are rarely closed. In the centre of the living place, on a kind of raised hearth, a peat fire is kept constantly burning, and the smoke finds a vent through an aperture in the roof of about 18 inches diameter. There is thus, if not an altogether perfect, at least a very efficient system of ventilation, and from the fire being in the middle of the apartment the different currents of air seem to meet and neutralise each other, so as to prevent excessive draught.'

Dr. Morgan ascribes some influence, also, to the antiseptic properties of the peat smoke, which he finds to have very different effects upon the chest than ordinary coal smoke. In any case the result is an extraordinary freedom from this worst form of lung disease.

5. But probably the best evidence that is forthcoming to determine the question of the causation of consumption is to be found in the records of the mortality from this disease in the British army and navy; and a similar history could be told of most of the European forces.

These men are for the most part picked lives; healthy and sound when enlisted, they have very different duties, and a varied diet; they are well clothed, and are carefully looked after by welleducated official medical attendants, and yet at one time their rate of dying from consumption was uniformly high in the most varied stations and in the

most beautiful climates of the world. In Gibraltar, Malta, Ionia, Jamaica, Trinidad, Bermuda; but one condition was common to all these different places, namely, the faulty ventilation of barracks or of ships, and the consequently vitiated atmosphere which the men had to breathe.

The Sanitary Commissioners for the army reported in the year 1858 that the Royal Foot Guards died at the rate of 204 per 1,000, whilst a similar number of civilians showed less than 12 deaths per annum and the number of deaths from lung disease in the former was 12.5 to 5.8 of the latter.

They pointed out that in civil life insufficient clothing, insufficient and unwholesome food, sedentary and unwholesome occupations, and the vitiated atmosphere of unhealthy dwellings, all contribute to the propagation of this class of diseases. But in the army it cannot be alleged that the clothing, the food, or the nature of the occupation in itself are of a character which would justify the imputation that they are among the predisposing causes of the excessive mortality of the soldier by pulmonary disease.' (Report of Commissioners on the Sanitary State of Army, 1858.')

What was the cause? The Commissioners did not hesitate to reply. Though certain other causes might be in operation, the ravages committed in the ranks of the army, by pulmonary disease, are to be traced in a great degree to the vitiated atmosphere generated by overcrowding and deficient ventilation, and the absence of proper sewerage of

barracks.'

In the Navy the deaths from consumption at one time averaged 2.6 per 1,000 of strength and the invaliding nearly 4 per 1,000, but the extent of the disease varied with different ships, and seemed to be worst in those that had the smallest amount of space, and that were stationed in the warmer climates.

The evidence derived from jails, workhouses, and schools, is all to the same purport.

Thus, two Austrian prisons in which the diet and mode of life were, it is believed, essentially the same, offer the following contrast :

In the prison of Leopoldstadt, at Vienna, which was very badly ventilated, there died in the years 1834-1847, 378 prisoners out of 4,280, or 86 per 1,000, and of these no less than 220 or 514 per 1,000 died from 'consumption;' on the other hand, 'In the well ventilated House of Correction of the same city, there were in 5 years (1850-1854) 3,037 prisoners, of whom 43 died, or 14 per 1,000, and of these 24 or only about 8 per 1,000 died' of consumption. The comparative length of sentences is not given, but as Dr. Parkes says, no correction on this ground, if needed, could account for this discrepancy.

Carmichael tells us that, at one time, in the asylum of the House of Industry, in Dublin, scrofula prevailed in so great a degree that it was generally believed that the disease was contagious. This it was not, however, but the wards were so crowded with children that the air became impure to a degree. In one ward of moderate height, 60 feet long by 18 broad, were 38 beds, most of which contained 3 children, the entire number amounting to upwards of 100. The matron of this asylum remarked that 'there was no enduring the air of this apartment when the doors were first thrown open in the morning,' and that it was in vain to raise any of the windows, as those children who happened to be

inconvenienced by the cold closed them as soon as they had an opportunity.' As the air they breathed in the daytime was 'but little better' there is no occasion for wonder at the general spread of the disease amongst them.

6. The opinions of isolated medical men on this subject might possibly be open to cavil, on the ground that sometimes even men of science may take up extreme views on any matter. But when the witnesses to be called are amongst the foremost members of the profession, and when they are the pillars of the department of medicine to which they belong-that namely of public health-their evidence is surely entitled to great weight, and may be quoted to you with confidence.

Thus Dr. Farr said long ago, 'The prevalence of phthisis in the armies of Europe is probably due in part to the inhalation of expectorated tubercular matter, dried, broken up into dust, and floating in the air of close barracks.' (Dictionary of Hygiene.')

Dr. William Marcet pushes this view so far as to regard consumption as a form of poisoning by decomposing matter much in the same way as a dissection wound will poison.

Mr. Welch of the Army Medical School, Netley, also endorses Dr. Farr's view in his prize essay 'On the Nature and Varieties of destructive Lung Disease, as seen amongst Soldiers, and the hygienic conditions under which they occur.'

He shows that consumption is the great chronic devastator of our army in spite of all the selecting influence of recruiting regulations, and in spite of every variety of climate. It gradually increases with length of service, and is in his opinion due in the first place to vitiated barrack atmosphere,' constant irritation of foul-air inspiration.'

'The chief deleterious agent in the generation of consumption being the organic matter, which taken into the air passages, there lodges and chronically irritates.'

Dr. Parkes says, 'The great prevalence of phthisis in most of the European armies can scarcely be accounted for in any other way than by supposing the vitiated air of the barrack-room to be chiefly at fault.'

Dr. Guy, in his inquiries into the causes of excessive mortality amongst working people, instituted comparisons between men occupying wider and narrower spaces, or working on different floors more or less freely communicating with one another.

All the comparisons led to the same result, the establishment of the same vital truth, that consumption and colds were uniformly most rife wherever the cubic space was the smallest, or the air most close, hot and foul.'

Professor Alison (Outlines of Pathology and Practice of Medicine,' p. 194) points out that 'deficiency of fresh air and exercise are among the most powerful and most important, because often the most remediable, of the causes from which the scrofulous diathesis arises.'

Sir James Clark, who wrote one of the best monographs on consumption in our language, regarded 'the respiration of a deteriorated atmosphere as one of the most powerful causes' of this disease.

The researches of Dr. Austin Flint one of the most recent American writers on the subject, corroborates strongly the same view, and show that occupation is an agency in causing consumption, mainly in so far as it is sedentary and involves confinement within doors.' (' On Phthisis,' p. 55.)

I might multiply these quotations, but I will call only one more witness in the person of Baudelocque, a great French physician; speaking of air changed by respiration, he remarks, 'This is the true cause, the sole cause, perhaps, of the disease of scrofula.'

Human beings are not singular in being thus affected by impure air. Many animals have been found to suffer from the same disease when kept in close confinement. It is very prevalent amongst the cows which supply milk to the inhabitants of some large towns, where they are immured during part of every year in close dairies. This was at one time remarkably the case with the cows belonging to the milkmen of Paris which were annually carried off by consumption in considerable numbers. ('Annales d'Hygiène, vol. xi. p. 447.)

A confirmation also of the influence of this cause is afforded by the usual exemption of the horse from consumption, since they have regular exercise and exposure to fresh air. Where a number of horses, however, are collected together in ill-ventilated stables they may become consumptive.' Mr. Chadwick states that a discovery of this kind was at one time made as to the effect of defective ventilation on the cavalry horses in some of the government barracks in England;' and 'a saving of several thousand pounds per annum was effected by an easy improvement of the ventilation of the barracks near the metropolis.' ('Health of Towns Commission,' first report, vol. i. p. 138.)

Monkeys also, when in confinement, are peculiarly subject to consumption, and a remarkable instance of the direct influence of foul air as a cause of the disease in these animals was given by Dr. Neil Arnott in evidence before the first Health of Towns Commission. (First report, vol. i. p. 52.)

It is hardly necessary to point the moral of all these tales of suffering and of death. Put into short compass it is' Beware of breathing foul air.'

Whenever a number of persons are crowded together in a badly ventilated apartment, bear in mind the penalty that may be exacted for breaking one of nature's laws.

Whatever may be the cause that has attracted these people together, whether it is a cheerful company sitting around a table, with bright lights and pleasant talk, or the poor ill-furnished chamber into which poverty has driven some miserable beings to protect themselves from the elements,-in any assemblage of human beings, when the air begins to appear close to anyone coming from the outside, remember that its poisonous properties are also beginning to appear; and when vapour is condensing on the walls or on the windows, be sure that it con tains already decaying animal matter derived from the skin or from the lungs, and that the air you are breathing is fully charged with the same vapour and its noxious ingredients.

It is possible that all may not be equally affected by it; that some persons, especially those who are already advanced in years, may even partially escape its influence, unless its potency is very great; their vital processes may be very sluggishly performed, and they may need smaller quantities of oxygen to carry on their feeble lives; they may not so readily take into their system the organic poison of which we have been speaking, or they may naturally have such strength of constitution that they may not feel for many years the harm of inhaling this uncleanly atmosphere; but the young ones who are growing up around them, the children with their

quick and lively actions, and consequent need of rapid combustion of refuse matter, the youths and young adults-these will all feel it and it will show its influence either in the form of scrofulous glands and sores, or perhaps in the guise of consumption.

But the crowded or close bedroom is still more dangerous in this regard.

During the day the air of an apartment is often unintentionally changed by the opening and wafting action of a door. There is also at this season usually a fire that demands and contrives somehow to obtain a plentiful supply of air; but in the night most people are wrapt in

Downy sleep, death's counterfeit,

and show its influence in stillness and quietude; there is only the slow involuntary action of breathing to cause any movement of the air. At this time when, as I have often seen, even in the houses of the rich, the windows are closely shut from a morbid dread of night air, and the doors are closed and made to fit tightly, and the chimney is stopped up either with a wisp of hay or a registered grate to prevent down draught, the danger is very great that portions of the air in such a chamber have been many times rebreathed.

There are very few bedrooms that will stand the test of leaving them for the outdoor atmosphere, and then on returning discovering no closeness or foulness of air. And yet this, especially for the young, is the limit of safety from disease, and especially from lung disease and scrofula.

Dr. Parkes and Dr. de Chaumont have shown that when this point of foulness is reached, to the perception, that is, of people of fair average nosepower, the air already contains about 6 parts per 10,000 of carbonic acid, and some organic matter, and all sanitarians are now agreed that this is the highest point of impurity that should be permitted.

But how can this degree of purity be preserved, and what amount of fresh air is needed for the purpose?

These are important questions, and I fear it will startle most of you when I tell you what is needed in the way of ventilation in order to make sure that the air in a chamber shall be breathable with safety. The quantity of fresh air at first needed depends of course upon the size of the room and the number of persons it contains; but, after a certain length of time, its atmosphere becomes contaminated, and then we need to supply to every person in the room fresh air to the extent of from 2,000 to 3,000 cubic feet per hour, or about 10,000 gallons of air per head per hour. That is equivalent to saying that if a man is sitting working in a room 10 feet square by 7 feet high, the size of many cottage rooms, the whole air of the chamber should be completely changed three or four times every hour.

Fortunately in most English houses, and especially in the cottage dwellings of the poor, there are a good many cracks and crevices left, through which the air can insinuate itself, sometimes even too perceptibly in the form of a draught.

The fire in the living room draws a considerable amount, and even the brick walls, covered with plaster and paper, allow a large amount of air to pass through them. If it were not so I am pretty certain that half Manchester would die of suffocation in the course of a winter's night. But Professor von Pettenkofer has shown (The Relations of the Air,' p. 64), that even with doors and windows and