THE WOBURN TANNERIES.

In the absence of any thing in the statutes to indicate that appeals from orders of the State Board of Health are to be taken in any other way than that which has become familiar in analogous cases before other tribunals, it must be held that they are to be taken in substantially the same way with such appeals; and that the right to appeal can be preserved only by informing the Board in some definite and distinct manner that an appeal is taken. It certainly cannot be supposed that the Legislature intended that an appeal may be taken, simply by making a petition to the Superior Court or one of its judges for a jury, while the tribunal appealed from is left, in ignorance of the appeal, to proceed, if it sees fit, through the proper application to this court for the enforcement of its order thus appealed from. If that were the proper interpretation of the statutes, they would be singularly clumsy in their operation and effect; and such an interpretation is not to be adopted in preference to another which leads to more reasonable results, and is equally consistent with the ordinary meaning of the language used. The city of Boston objected to the proceedings under the petition for a jury, because the Board of Health had not been notified of the appeal at the earliest possible moment, and was entitled to have the trial by jury refused, and, failing that, to have the verdict set aside.

The petitioner, not having entered an appeal with the Board of Health, was not entitled to a jury.

Verdict set aside, and petition for jury dismissed.

The methods employed at several of the tanneries in Woburn, and at the glue factory in Stoneham, all upon streams entering directly or indirectly into the Mystic Lake watersupply, have been continued causes of complaint on the part of the Water Board of the City of Boston. A day was

spent by the full Board in a careful examination of the territory. Several visits have been made by the Health Committee; and hearings have taken place at the State House before the Board, at which Boston and the parties complained of have been heard.

The arrangements at the tannery of the Messrs. Dow not appearing to this Board sufficient for the complete protection of the water-supply of Boston, they were directed on the 19th November to employ additional safeguards, which will, for the present at least, prevent the direct entrance of refuse from this tannery into Horn Pond, and from this into the Mystic. But, when all that can be devised of this sort is done, there will still remain a certain amount of wash from foul surfaces necessarily flowing into Horn Pond; and there

THE BOSTON WATER-SUPPLY.

is, in our opinion, no permanent relief from this constant pollution, but in some system of sewerage extensive enough to carry these matters to deep-sea currents. Such a system is evidently far beyond the resources of any single town or city.

In the supplement to the First Annual Report of this Board a paper was printed describing some impurities of drinking-water caused by vegetable growths. In this paper Professor Farlow presented in popular form a statement of what is known with regard to the effect of the growth of different plants upon the water in the ponds, streams, and basins which supply the cities and towns of the Commonwealth. A striking illustration of the great value of such studies has been given during the past year by the unfortunate experience of the city of Boston.

For months a very large portion of the water-supply of the city was wholly unfit for any household use. Professor Remsen, employed by the city to investigate the subject, explains the intolerable smell and taste of the water by the presence in the pond of a fresh-water sponge, not hitherto suspected to be capable of producing such disastrous results. As this growth took place in a pond not now seriously contaminated by sewage, the consideration of its influence has no immediate connection with general pollution of streams, nor does the use of this water appear to have had a noticeable effect upon the death-rate of the city or upon the health of the inhabitants; though it is difficult to believe that some deleterious effect was not produced upon the human system by a water so repulsive to the senses of taste and smell.

Inasmuch as every other pond in the Commonwealth is exposed to contamination by the same growth, either vegetable or animal, this subject will continue to receive the attention of the Board.

3. Food.

Trichinosis. The results of the examination of a large number of swine, published in the supplement to the First Report of the Board, have attracted great attention, not only on the part of scientific investigators into the diseases of this domestic animal, but also among those interested in the vast commercial importance of the hog as an article of food export.

FOOD ADULTERATION.

Of the 2,701 hogs examined, 154 were found to contain trichinæ. 6,068 have been examined during the past year, of which 191 were trichinous.

That is to say, one hog in every fourteen examined in 1880 contained trichinæ, and only one in every twenty-five in 1881. This same variation has been noted in Germany, where examinations are required by law of all hogs slaughtered, and is not at present accounted for.

The attention of observers throughout the State was called to the dangers of eating pork thus infected, and a request made for a prompt report of all cases of the disease in a human subject. There have been brought to the notice of the Board three cases only, occurring in one family, none fatal. The persons affected had all eaten raw ham. Other members of the same family, who had eaten as freely from the same ham cooked, escaped entirely. In other parts of the country, where the custom prevails of using pork in a nearly raw state, the disease is much more common. As it has been conclusively shown that a temperature throughout the pork of 140° F. will destroy trichinæ, the ordinary methods of cooking offer a nearly complete protection against this parasite. The manner in which the hog becomes infected has not been proved; but the subject is believed to be of enough importance to demand continued investigation on the part of the Board.

Another topic of the greatest importance to the public health has been brought prominently forward by the action of the National Board of Trade in offering a prize for the best paper offered in competition upon the subject of food adulteration. One of the main objects of this competition was to secure the draft of a law sufficient to protect the people from the injury resulting from the adulteration of food and drugs, and yet at the same time not to restrict, in a meddlesome manner, legitimate commerce. Though the examinations made from time to time by this Board have not discovered so great an amount of adulteration of commercial articles of food as many have supposed to exist, yet enough has been proved to show that some well-recognized authority should have charge of the necessary examinations of food and

THE PROPOSED FOOD ADULTERATION LAW.

drugs, and should have power under suitable restrictions to prohibit the sale of those articles which are injurious to health.

The bill which is here submitted has been enacted in New York and New Jersey. It will be noticed that it has not been thought advisable that this law should in detail define what an adulteration is. As many of the prominent articles of commerce, though they may be said to be adulterated, are quite harmless, in some cases useful, it should be left to the discretion of some competent authority to relieve such articles from the fines imposed by this bill, The honest and persistent exposing of fraudulent practices will generally have an effect upon public opinion fully equal to any penalty imposed by the courts, and will in the end prove as effectual in making such practices unprofitable.

The Proposed Food Adulteration Law.

SECTION 1. No person shall within this state manufacture, have, offer for sale, or sell any article of food or drugs which is adulterated within the meaning of this act; and any person violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding fifty dollars for the first offence, and not exceeding one hundred dollars for each subsequent offence.

SECT. 2. The term "food" as used in this act shall include every article used for food or drink by man. The term "drug" as used in this act shall include all medicines for internal or external use.

SECT. 3. An article shall be deemed to be adulterated within the meaning of this act,

1. If, when sold under or by a name recognized in the United States pharmacopoeia, it differs from the standard of strength, quaility, or purity laid down therein.

2. If, when sold under or by a name not recognized in the United States pharmacopoeia, but which is found in some other pharmacopoeia, or other standard work on materia medica, it differs materially from the standard of strength, quality, or purity laid down in such work.

3. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard under which it is sold.

1. If any substance or substances has or have been mixed with it so as to reduce, or lower, or injuriously affect its quality or strength.

2. If any inferior or cheaper substance or substances have been substituted wholly or in part for the article.

THE PROPOSED FOOD ADULTERATION LAW.

3. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted.

4. If it be an imitation of, or be sold under the name of, another article.

5. If it consists wholly or in part of a deceased, or decomposed, or putrid, or rotten, animal or vegetable substance, whether manufactured or not, or, in the case of milk, if it is the produce of a diseased animal.

6. If it be colored, or coated, or polished, or powdered whereby damage is concealed, or it is made to appear better than it really is, or of greater value.

7. If it contain any added poisonous ingredient, or any ingredient which may render such article injurious to the health of a person consuming it.

Provided that the state board of health, lunacy, and charity may from time to time declare certain articles or preparations to be exempt from the provisions of this act; and provided further that the provisions of this act shall not apply to mixtures or compounds recognized as ordinary articles of food, provided that the same are not injurious to health, and that the articles are distinctly labelled as a mixture, stating the components of the mixture.

SECT. 4. It shall be the duty of the state board of health, lunacy, and charity to prepare and publish from time to time lists of the articles, mixtures, or compounds declared to be exempt from the provisions of this act, in accordance with the preceding section, The state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall also from time to time fix the limits of variability permissible in any article of food, or any drug, or compound, the standard of which is not established by any national pharmacopoeia.

SECT. 5. The state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall take cognizance of the interests of the public health as it relates to the sale of food and drugs, and the adulteration of the same, and make all necessary investigations and inquiries thereto.

It shall also have the supervision of the appointment of public analysts and chemists, and upon its recommendation, whenever it shall deem any such officers incompetent, the appointment of any and every such officer shall be revoked, and be held to be void and of no effect.

Within thirty days after the passage of this act, the state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall meet, and adopt such measures as may seem necessary to facilitate the enforcement of this act, and prepare rules and regulations with regard to the proper methods of collecting and examining articles of food or drugs, and for the appointment of the necessary inspectors and analysts. And the state board of health, lunacy, and charity shall be authorized to expend, in addition to all sums already appropriated for said board, an amount not exceeding three thousand dollars, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act; and the sum of five thousand dollars is hereby appropriated out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated for the purposes in this section provided.