MISCELLANEOUS.

A Paper On Recent Public Health Legislation Reviewed, with Thoughts as to Future Legislation,' I was read by Mr. G. F. CHAMBERS, Barrister-at-Law, author of A Digest of Public Health Law.' Mr. Chambers having first described the state of the old law, complained that the new Act was put together in a very unmethodical and haphazard form; that it is very defective by reason of the trifling nature of the amendments which it makes; and that in the next new edition of consolidated public health law, some attention should be paid to the orderly arrangement, in convenient sequence, of the various subjects handled. One of the Acts proposed to be consolidated in 1871 was the Towns Improvement Clauses Act, 1847. The reasons in favour of this, in his judgment, still stand good. This Act touches at many points the Public Health Act; much of its matter is incorporated into that Act; much is altogether superseded by that Act; yet it remains on the Statute Book as a distinct body of law. The same remarks apply, with little alteration, to the Towns Police Clauses Act, 1847. It would be very desirable to embody this in a future revised edition of the Public Health Act, 1875. If this Act were touched, advantage should be taken to enlarge the list of prohibitions in section 28. For instance, the practice (a very common one) of washing down, with brushes and buckets of water, the fronts of houses abutting on streets in large towns might, with great benefit to foot passengers, be put under restriction as to hours. Operations of this sort may frequently be noticed in progress at hours when streets are crowded, and a genuine nuisance is the result. Some alterations in certain of the pecuniary qualifications attaching to individuals under the present law are needed. These qualifications are not only very arbitrary (it is inevitable that they should be arbitrary) but objectionable per se. For instance, the rating qualification of members of local boards is 157. in districts under 20,000 population, and 307. over 20,000 population a distinction which is as irrational as the figures (especially the 157.) are insufficient. He could not refrain from expressing great doubt whether it will be possible to maintain the election arrangements of the new Act; for the authors of the Act have made local board elections synchronous with poor law elections, forgetful, apparently, that both often require

This paper is printed in full in Public Health of October 16, 1875.

the same books and parish officers, who would, therefore, have to be in two different places at one and the same time.

'

A Paper on The Principles on which Legislation respecting the Pollution of Rivers should be based' was read by Dr. CORNELIUS Fox, Health Officer of East, Central, and South Essex. Dr. Fox said:-The public have apparently ranged themselves into two classes on this question, as they do on almost every public one, those, consisting principally of manufacturers, who oppose legislation having for its object the prevention of the pollution of rivers on the ground of its interference with trade, and another class who advocate their restoration to the condition of trout streams. To permit the filthy inky watercourses of the manufacturing districts to remain in their present state is to allow a few score of men to afflict thousands with gigantic public nuisances. To quietly sanction the pollution of 3,000,000 gallons of river water daily by five firms, as at Bradford, and to complacently allow 75,000 tons of cinders to be annually deposited in the river Irwell, is of course suicidal policy. To argue that, because manufactories which pollute streams and air give sustenance to hundreds and thousands of work people on their banks, whose vital energies are lowered (thus rendering them a more ready prey to disease), and whose offspring are stunted and depraved by the unwholesome influences to which they are subjected-to argue, he said, that, because these great industries fill the stomachs of these people, they ought not to be required to be conducted in a manner which is not detrimental to their health, shows a want of all proper feelings of humanity. Whilst, however, condemning an extreme degree of pollution, he did not, like many, think that it would be wise to be too exacting as to purity. Filth in the air we breathe, and filth in the water we drink, is the one great enemy in two different media against which health officers are always fighting. As the question of the pollution. of rivers is primarily and essentially a sanitary one, and secondarily a commercial or pecuniary one, why, he asked, should not the same principles be applied in dealing with it as with all other sanitary evils which involve exactly similar considerations? It will, he presumed, be acknowledged that for legislation on this question to be possible all extremes must be avoided. To advocate the restoration of our streams to a state of purity resembling that of a mountain rivulet is to obstruct and, in fact, to oppose all legislation on the matter. The crippling or destruction of many industries of national value would necessarily follow such an enactment; for the expendi

ture incurred in purifying their waste waters would consume or most seriously affect their legitimate profits. He maintained, moreover, that, if it were possible, it would be force wasted, for no adequate compensatory advantage would be gained. All who have paid attention to the very interesting topics as to the effects on health of various kinds of water agree that spring water is to be preferred to all other kinds, and that river water unpolluted to any extent by sewage needs more or less of purification by filtration, &c., which is costly, before it is fit to drink. The Duke of Somerset placed the matter in its true light when he recently said in Parliament:

The foul matters encumbering streams may be got rid of, but the notion of their supplying water fit to drink must be altogether put aside. Towns must be supplied with pure water for drinking purposes in some other way. As the prevention of the pollution of the foulest of our streams would seem to necessitate the stoppage of important industries, and the purification of such streams so as to render them adapted for drinking purposes is of course not to be thought of, let us ask ourselves the questions (1) What harm do these streams corrupted by sewage and trade-products do, and (2) How are they to be prevented from inflicting injuries? (1) Many of them pollute the air lying over them and on their banks. Noxious odours sometimes or always arise and annoy those who live near them, or those living at a distance who approach them. If human beings are exposed frequently to unpleasant smells a deleterious influence is exerted on their health. It is a well-established rule, to which there are some apparent exceptions, that there is a greater mortality amongst those who are exposed continually to offensive odours than with others who are not so circumstanced, and that the diseases from which the former suffer are of an asthenic type and tend to death rather than to recovery. A certain amount of vis medicatrix naturæ is lost by them, and its want is felt at critical periods of sickness when most needed. Evaporation is constantly in a greater or less degree proceeding from the surface of water, and organic impurities contained in the water, if excessive, are mechanically conveyed into the air during this process of vaporisation. The odours of many of these rivers, like those of foul ponds, are generally noticed more at sunrise and sunset than at other periods of the twenty-four hours, in consequence of the descending dew preventing their diffusion and rendering the impurities soluble and thus more perceptible to the sense of smell. His experience as a physician has taught him that it is prejudicial to health to frequently breathe air polluted by

emanations from very foul water. Unpleasant smells are danger signals, and although it is absurd to fear an attack of illness whenever we have our olfactory nerves offended, yet there can be no hesitation in saying that the continual exposure of the human frame to polluted air tends to engender ill health even if it does not create disease. The contamination of the air by many of these streams is as great a nuisance (taking this word in both its literal and legal or popular sense) as the pollution of the air by volumes of smoke which is, subject to some saving provisions, an actionable offence. Certain kinds of fish such as the trout require, in order to live, water of great purity. Others, such as chub, dace, roach, jack, barbel, perch, pike, eels, &c., flourish in water which would be considered comparatively dirty, whilst no fish whatever would, he believed, live in some of the most impure streams and in those poisoned by the metallic waste of mines. In rendering streams so foul or poisonous that no fish can exist in them certain manufacturers and miners damage one of our food resources, by rendering an important article of diet scarce and dear, and therefore not to be procured by the poor man, and by lessening the self-reliant powers of the country. The quantities of solid impurities thrown into some streams are so great as to fill up their beds, thus creating inundations of their banks higher up. These solid matters produce a silting up of rivers, and an obstruction to navigation by the accumulation of offensive banks of mud. On public grounds these evils should be rendered impossible. (2) The injuries being the pollution of the air-for no one ever thinks of drinking such water-the destruction of all kinds of fish, or an obstruction to navigation, and to the escape of surplus waters during flood, his answer was simply and solely the following:-Let our scientific chemists ascertain the point at which a stream begins to be so impure as to contaminate the air lying over it, and here let a line be drawn. Let them ascertain the point at which a water becomes so impure as to prevent life and multiplication of the less particular of the finny tribe, and here let another line be drawn. Let them ascertain the amount of suspended impurities a stream may contain, without depositing in its course sufficient to offer at some future time an obstruction to the ready escape of flood waters and to navigation, and here draw a third line. Whether these lines would coincide or not he did not know. Probably

́not.

The nature, as well as the quantity of the impurity, would have to be considered, the rapidity of the stream, and many other matters. Standards of some kind we must have as well for the protection of the innocent as for the ready convic

tion of the guilty. To attempt legislation without any definite rules for guidance would be to court a failure. He maintained, then, that instead of establishing such impracticable standards as were recommended by the Rivers Pollution Commission, we should adopt three simple standards of the kind just indicated. No stream should corrupt the air lying over it or on its banks, under any conditions of air pressure, temperature or humidity, or level of its waters; for, if it does, it is detrimental to the health of those living near it. No amount of impurity in a river should be tolerated which would injure one of the food supplies of the people, to wit, the less dainty feeders amongst our river fish. No stream should contain so much suspended impurities as would tend to its obstruction in time of flood and to the silting up of the mouths of navigable rivers. As for the practice in some parts of shunting large quantities of cinders, ashes, and solid refuse into streams in order to avoid the expense of carting them away, and of placing solid matters on the banks of rivers, so that they may be washed into them in times of flood, such proceedings should be rigorously prohibited by law as being injurious to public interests. To establish these standards is to extend the sound principles of sanitary law, the burden of which is that you shall do nothing which is injurious to the health of your neighbour or to the public welfare.

A Paper was read by Dr. G. W. CHILD, entitled 'Suggestions as to the Legislative Changes required for the purpose of Improving the Dwellings of Labourers in the Country Districts.' The object of the paper was to show that there are certain sanitary evils affecting labourers' cottages which cannot be dealt with under the existing law, namely: 1. Sites which are improper and unhealthy; or (2), which are too confined in space. The latter was exemplified chiefly in the case of squatters' cottages,' or those which were originally such. Under the existing law these can be closed as unfit for habitation, but the remedy is worse than the disease, inasmuch as to close cottages tends to overcrowd others. The writer proposes an Act which shall compel an adjacent owner to sell a given portion of the land adjoining such cottages-say one roodprovided that the owner of the cottage can buy it within a limited time-say six months. Failing this, the cottage-owner is to be compelled to sell his cottage, and the adjoining landowner to have a right to buy it; provided, also, that he do so within six months. In each case the cottage is to be either rendered fit for habitation or else pulled down within a further