engaged in the silk trade. Of the 1,642, about 5 per cent. were children; but of the entire number, 382 were sufferers from chest diseases-phthisis, bronchitis, asthma, and emphysema; 242 had dyspepsia, 121 were anæmic or generally debilitated; uterine derangements, skin diseases, and cardiac affections each numbered 50; 35 were strumous, 21 had cancer, and the like number epilepsy. The remaining cases were of a surgical character; 55 being syphilitic. In round numbers, therefore, respiratory diseases constituted nearly one-fourth of the whole amount of sickness treated.

The death-rate in Macclesfield from phthisis was, in 1874, about 3 per 1,000.

"The next manufacture, continued the lecturer, generating dust of animal constitution is the woolen, including under that term the so-called worsted manufacture, and its many products in wearing apparel. When pure wool is dealt with, the occupation is little less healthy than that of silk working, but its processes are more complex. Those of a preparatory character are the only operations which to any important extent affect health In the first place, the wool as received is picked over, and its different qualities separated. This is the business of 'sorting,' and is chargeable with the most serious consequences when certain wools are employed. After sundry washings wool has to be purified from all dirt and refuse matter by machines, known as willying, scribbling and carding, until by their action it is eventually thrown off in a kind of loose, flattened rope, called a 'sliver.' This now goes to the spinning machines, to be converted into yarn ready for weaving or other purposes. It is anterior to spinning that dangers arise from dust. The mechanical cleansing operations to remove particles of dirt, and loose fibers that cannot be drawn into a 'sliver,' cause much dust. In olden time the carding and other similar machines were open, and the dust necessarily diffused itself through the work-room. At the present day the machines are enclosed and otherwise improved, so that little escapes; and, compared with the dust from like operations with cotton, that of woolen is less injurious, for one reason that it contains no metallic particles such as, it is stated, are found in cotton dust. Besides, the fiber of wool is in itself of an animal and an oily nature, and when running through the spinning machines it is lubricated with oil, whereby the generation of dust is still further obviated. The constant contact of the hands of the workers with the oil is considered by themselves as contributory to health, and woolen spinners contrast favorably with the like class of workers in cotton and linen. Another advantage of wool spinning over cotton is that a high temperature is not required, and that there is no wet spinning.

"Turning to the weaving of wool, this has great sanitary advantages over cotton weaving, for, though the sheds are considerably hotter than the spinning-rooms, yet there is no such excessive temperature as is found in cotton sheds; moreover, the air is not loaded with steam or with dust from sizing, as happens with cotton weaving.

Further, wool dust is less irritating than that from cotton and linen ; the animal nature renders it so, whilst its fibers are also tougher as well as longer, and therefore can be drawn out with less breakage and with smaller labor in 'piecing.'

"Dr. Arlidge next referred to the minor industries, such as the manufacture of jute, lace-making, paper-making, cocoanut fiber, wood-turning, flour mills, tobacco manufacture, charcoal dust, bronzecasting and chaff-cutting, all more or less dust-producing businesses. In regard to paper-making, it had, Dr. Arlidge said, been proved that certain imported rags caused disease among sorters and cutters. A peculiar outbreak at Riga was investigated by Schulz, Krannhals, Herrganen, and Radecki. The prominent symptoms were fever, tremors, dyspnoea, and weak pulse, fatal cases dying in collapse. After death, decomposition occurred early, and pleural and pericardial effusions, with enlargement of the bronchial glands and spleen, were found. M. Krannhals, among other micro-organisms, found a small bacillus which he believed to be identical with the bacillus of malignant oedema (Koch), in the pleural effusion. Millers, again, suffered from cough and shortness of breath-miller's asthma. Major Beadon, in his factory report, 1884, writes that it is quite exceptional to see a person who has worked any time in a flour mill who is not more or less affected as to the respiratory organs, and he quotes from the trade paper called The Miller that the average life of millers is only fortythree years."

THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE-TENEMENT

HOUSES.

BY EZRA M. HUNT, M.D., SECRETARY.

The proper housing of the people is the greatest social and sanitary problem of the age. Decency and cleanliness in the home mean industry, character and health to a far greater extent than is appreciated. Emerson says, "The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, but the kind of men the country turns out."

Now, the kind of men the country turns out depends pretty much upon physical condition. Crowding and filth in the home mean degradation, thriftlessness, sickness and crime to a degree only realized by those who, by actual and frequent visitation, are familiar with the dwelling-places of the less favored members of society. The Health Officer of Glasgow, speaking of the 75,000 of its inhabitants who live in one or two rooms, says: "These comprise some who are bravely struggling with poverty, and far more who have become bankrupt in character and fortune. They are the nomads of our population. If we could see them in their constant movements from place to place, the sight would resemble nothing so much as that which meets the eye when we lift a stone from an ant's nest. The City Assessor will tell you that they change their locations in hundreds every month." But the change is often from bad to worse. They leave the crowded, filthy abode, only to move into one of the unkempt houses which another has deserted.

Mesnil in his recent work on Hygiene (1890), speaking of some of these in Paris, says: "These unhealthy warrens are such that it is not virtue but heroism alone which can prevent the crowds in them from hating the world which tolerates them." Coming to a higher grade of houses we still find thousands of them defective in light or air space, with no adequate conveniences for cleanliness or the removal

of the various forms of dirt or filth, which tend to accumulate in every such house. The housekeeping, is bad, not so much from the incompetency of the inmates, but because of the very poor facilities afforded for cleanly decency. It is to be remembered that in all large cities, comparatively few are the owners of the houses they occupy. As a rule, the rented house is not likely to be kept so well as one that is owned. Nor is it true that the houses occupied by owners are always in a healthy condition. By reason of the choice of undrained land for buildings and of imperfect construction, it is often the case that such houses need some oversight, and need to be amenable to such laws as will secure safety, not only against accident, but against the greater perils of preventable diseases.

It is, comparatively, in vain that we expect to secure the sanitary condition of any city, unless we are providing and overseeing plans to secure the sanitary condition of each home. For, besides the necessity to the individual and to the family, there is no other way in which we can educate the people up to a proper standard of care, and so make a public sentiment as important for the government as it is for the citizen. The State and the municipalities need to concentrate attention upon the necessity of securing healthy homes for the people. There is no direction in which the tenant-classes are more helpless in protecting themselves, or in which the enactment and enforcement of sanitary laws need to be more earnestly invoked. For there is no greater deduction from the earnings of wage-workers, and no greater embarrassments to those higher in the pecuniary scale, than such as arise from the levy that discomfort, disease, sickness and death make upon those who suffer from ill-constructed and ill-kept houses. In addition to the accumulated evidence of a score of years, in the last three or four years some very technical and reliable investigations have given us some accurate statistics, and much valuable information on this subject. In a former report we gave some of the facts contained in a valuable paper by Professor Carnelley, and Drs. Haldane and Anderson, of Dundee. See paper on "The Carbonic Acid, Organic Matter and Micro-Organisms in Air, more especially of Dwellings and Schools" (Trans. Royal Society of London, 1887); also see article on "Air, Water and Food," page 47, eleventh report of this Board. Dr. James B. Russell, the distinguished Health Officer of Glasgow, in November, 1888, delivered an address, as President of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, in

which he made a study of the facts which guide towards the amelioration of the condition of the tenement population, as found chiefly in one or two-roomed compartments.

As these facts are illustrative of conditions and tendencies already apparent in Hudson county, in Essex county, in Camden county, and to a smaller degree in some cities outside of these counties, we give some extracts:

"The population of Glasgow in 1885 was 543,295, the number of deaths was 13,439. The distribution of population and the deaths in the inhabited houses, according to their size, is as follows:

"Let us first consider the proportion of the total population who lived, as contrasted with the proportion of the total deaths which Book place, in each size of house. The result is shown in the following table:

"The result is that those houses contained 70.8 per cent. of the population, and contributed 79.4 per cent. of the deaths, or 8.6 per cent. more than their due proportion; while the remaining 29.2 per cent. of the population, living in houses of three rooms and upwards,