STATE SANITATION A REVIEW OF THE WORK OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE BOARD BY GEORGE CHANDLER WHIPPLE PROFESSOR OF SANITARY ENGINEERING IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL VOLUME II VERI TAS CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1917 FOREWORD A MOST interesting way of studying history is that of reading original documents, addresses and writings by contemporaries of the events described; and this is just as true in the field of public health as in that of general history. There are no more important series of scientific writings on subjects pertaining to preventive medicine, hygiene and sanitation than those which have appeared in the annual reports and special reports of the Massachusetts State Board of Health during the period, covering nearly half a century, from 1869 to 1914. Several hundred in number and scattered through sixty or seventy volumes, some of which can be found only with the greatest difficulty, these writings are in danger of being lost to the world, or, at least, of escaping the attention of present day students of public health. The best way to rescue these reports from-oblivion seemed to be to index them and in addition to prepare a series of abstracts of leading articles, while the best way to give new life to the most important writings, which might appropriately be called the Massachusetts Classics in Sanitation, seemed to be to reprint them, with such abridgment as might be necessary to bring them within the compass of a single book. Such reprints and abstracts are given in the present volume. It is hoped that these writings which inspired the fathers will also inspire the sons. In making the selections especial prominence has been given to the subjects of water supply and sewage disposal, for it was in the investigation of these subjects that the State Board of Health of Massachusetts acquired early fame. In these writings.the names of Nichols, Mills, Stearns, Drown, Sedgwick, Hazen, Goodnough and Clark stand out prominently. But the reprinted writings include also inspiring addresses by Dr. Henry I. Bowditch on the subjects of public health, preventive medicine, the physician of the future, and intemperance; the statesmanlike reports of Dr. Henry P. Walcott on such great metropolitan improvements as the water supply and sewerage of Boston and its suburbs, and the Charles River Basin; the wonderfully exact scientific investigations of Dr. Theobald Smith in the field of bacteriology; the careful statistical researches of Dr. Samuel W. Abbott; the dairy studies of the impetuous Secretary, Dr. Charles Harrington, as well as some of the more modern writings on infantile paralysis by Dr. Mark Richardson and food inspection by Mr. Hermann H. Lythgoe. The abstracts are arranged chronologically in order that the reader may obtain a better perspective of the studies with which the sanitarians of the State Board of Health were concerned at different periods of its history. The joint indices to the annual reports and special reports will be published as a third volume. The proof of this volume was corrected at long range during the author's journey to Russia as a Member of the Red Cross Mission to that country. The chances for errors to escape notice are therefore greater than usual and the reader is asked to be charitable if such are found. The index to this volume was very kindly prepared by Mr. Melville C. Whipple, Instructor in Sanitary Chemistry, Harvard University, to whom I wish to express my sincere thanks. GEORGE CHANDLER WHIPPLE. TOKIO, JAPAN July, 1917 VII. A STUDY OF THE RELATIVE POISONOUS EFFECTS OF COAL WM. T. SEDGWICK and WM. RIPLEY NICHOLS, 1884 VIII. REPORT OF A COMMISSION TO CONSIDER A GENERAL SYSTEM |