illness of our chairman, and the ill-health of Dr. Hadden have prevented us from carrying our labors and intentions to full fruition. Respectfully submitted, E. H. JANES, M.D., Chairman. November 11th, 1886. The minutes of the annual meeting, as a whole, having been adopted, Dr. John C. Peters, from the Committee on Hygiene, read the following supplementary report: To the Medical Society of the County of New York: Your Committee on Hygiene respectfully suggest that a petition be presented from this Society to the proper authorities, calling for the better and more healthful care, handling, carting, and shipping of stable manure than now prevails in public and private stables and manure yards in this city. To the accomplishment of these desirable ends, your committee recommend that baling of stable manure be favored and enforced in all practicable and reasonable ways. The advantages of baling manure are: 1. That it can be done on the inside of stables, thus doing away with the filling or emptying of sidewalk manure vaults. 2. There is great saving in labor and time in handling it, and considerable reduction of expense in carting and shipping it. 3. It can be carted, shipped, and moved with much less annoyance to our citizens here and to residents along the line. of the railways which carry it away. 4. A constant demand will be created for it by dealers in fertilizers all over the country, who will cause it to be taken away promptly, thus doing away with the necessity for manure yards. 5. But the greatest advantage of all will be that the offensive and unhealthy sidewalk manure pits will be rendered entirely useless and superfluous; so much so that your committee advise that petitions be sent from this Society to the Health Board and other authorities recommending the passage of an ordinance abolishing them entirely within a reasonable time-say, within one or two years. Sidewalk manure pits are always very offensive and often injurious to the health of sick and delicate persons who live in their neighborhood. The malodors from them oppress the lungs, disgust the stomach, and depress the general strength or vitality of those convalescing from acute diseases, and exert a most injurious effect upon those struggling with debilitating chronic diseases. This is especially the case when the excretions of sick horses are thrown into and out of them, which happens every day. They also greatly depreciate the value of property near by them; and as they are allowed to exist in all parts of the city, the injury in the aggregate is very great. These pits are filled and emptied in the most slovenly and disagreeable way, and are a standing reproach to modern civilization and health requirements. Even the dirtiest and most stench-hardened farmers always place their stables or barnyard several hundred feet away from their houses, while we are forced to endure them close to our residences, and that while there is a cheap and easy remedy within our reach. The presses which are required to bale manure are like the ordinary hay presses, and cost only about twenty-five or thirty dollars, more or less. They occupy very little space, and do not require skilled labor to handle them. Your committee would also call the attention of the Committees on Hygiene of the State or County Medical Societies, tending to the discovery of a cheap and reliable disinfectant for all stable smells. We are informed that common land plaster, or so-called crude plaster of Paris, or gypsum, sulphate of lime, will do this, and also improve the quality of the fertilizer. This is said to absorb and destroy all the foul smells from the decomposition of all the solid or liquid droppings of stables, and is well known to be one of the best fertilizers as well as disinfectants. If this be so, then its use, combined with far better washing and sweeping than now obtains in most stables, will render them nearly inoffensive, and almost wholesome, or at least not very disagreeable or injurious. E. H. JANES, M.D., Chairman. HOSPITALS FOR CONTAGIOUS DISEASES IN BROOKLYN. Proposed Act to authorize the Department of Health of the City of Brooklyn, County of Kings, to establish hospitals for contagious and infectious diseases and in relation to the erection, government, and maintenance thereof. SECTION 1. The Mayor, with the Commissioner of the Department of Health and the Commissioner of the Department of City Works of the City of Brooklyn, are hereby constituted a Commission with power and authority by this Act to select a site in or near the City of Brooklyn, County of Kings, for the erection of public hospitals for the reception and treatment of persons suffering from infectious or contagious diseases. SEC. 2. After such a site has been selected as aforesaid, it shall be purchased at a fair market value or leased by said Commissioners. SEC. 3. The Board of Estimate of the City of Brooklyn is hereby authorized to include from year to year in its annual report the sum or sums necessary for the purchase or lease of said site, and for the erection and maintenance of said hospitals, and the sum or sums so reported shall be included in the annual tax levies of said city. SEC. 4. After such site has been selected as aforesaid, either by purchase or lease, and whenever funds have been provided in the manner aforesaid, the said Commissioners are empowered by this Act to take such property by purchase or lease in the name of the City of Brooklyn, after the Corporation Counsel shall have approved the validity of the title to the same. SEC. 5. The management of said hospitals shall be under the direction and control of the Commissioner of the Department of Health of the City of Brooklyn. SEC. 6. The said Commissioner of the Department of Health of the City of Brooklyn shall make rules and regulations for the conduct and government of said hospitals. He shall appoint all physicians, who shall be Doctors of Medicine, holding degrees from medical colleges in good standing. He shall appoint such employés, nurses, and servants as may be necessary, and determine their salaries, and shall regulate the scale of prices for those who are able to pay for admission and treatment. But no person having an infectious or contagious disease shall be refused admission to these hospitals because of his or her inability to pay. SEC. 7. The Commissioner of the Department of Health is hereby authorized to cause to be removed to these hospitals any person or persons afflicted with contagious or infectious diseases whose house and sanitary surroundings are not satisfactory to the said Commissioner. SEC. 8. All moneys received from patients treated in these hospitals shall be paid into the City Treasury. SEC. 9. This Act shall take effect immediately, and all Acts or parts of Acts conflicting with the same are hereby repealed. [This bill has been introduced in the Legislature with a good prospect of becoming a law.-A. N. B.] THE DEEPEST ARTESIAN WELL.-A correspondent encloses a newspaper" cutting" which states that the deepest artesian well in the world is that now being bored at Pesth, for the purpose of supplying the public baths and other establishments with hot water. A depth of 951 metres (3120 feet) has already been reached, and the flow secured aggregates 850 cubic metres (176,000 gallons) each twenty-four hours, the temperature of the water being 70° Centigrade (158° Fah.). The municipality which is conducting the work as a public measure is not satisfied with the above showing, and has lately voted a large appropriation in order that the boring may be continued to a greater depth, not only to obtain a larger volume of water, but also to secure a gain in temperature of same. It is thought the flow from the lower levels will show a temperature of 80° Centigrade (176° Fah.). HEALTH OF U. S. ARMY FOR SEPTEMBER, 1886. DURING the month of September, in eight military departments, embracing 142 military posts and arsenals and 27 commands operating in the field from which reports were received, there was returned a total mean strength of 22,742 officers and enlisted men. There were admitted to sick report 2358 cases of disease and injury, or 112 per 1000 of mean strength.* This is a decrease of 10 per 1000 below that for September, 1885, and 30 per 1000 below the average monthly rate for the ten years (ending December 31st, 1884), which was 142 per 1000 of mean strength. Twenty-seven deaths occurred, as against 22 for the previous month and 17 for the previous September. This represents an annual mortality from all causes of 14.2 per 1000, or 1.5 per 1000 greater than the average for the preceding decade, which was 12.7 per 1000 of strength. The number of discharges for disability was 59, † representing an annual loss to the army from this cause of 14 per 1000 of strength. The number of troops constantly non-effective from sickness was 915, or 40 per 1000 of strength; being 1 per 1000 less than for last month. The rate for the previous September was 42 per 1000, and for the previous decade 44 per 1000 of strength. The rate of recoveries to the whole number under treatment was 696 per 1000; the rate of deaths, 8.2 per 1000. The average duration of treatment among patients who recovered was II days, and among those who died, 31 days. The causes of deaths were returned as follows: Entericfever, 3; dysentery, 3; enteritis, 2; pneumonia, I; bronchitis, I remittent-fever, I; nervous exhaustion, consequent upon an attack of quotidian intermittent-fever, I; diarrhoea, I; valvular disease of heart, I; cardiac syncope (not on sick report and no autopsy), I; tumor of cerebellum, 1; shock, consequent upon amputation for aneurism of popliteal artery, I; shot wounds, 3 (2 of which were suicidal and one homicidal); concussion of brain, 2; concussion of brain with other wounds (homicidal), I; drowning, 2; morphine-poisoning (suicidal), I; and crushing (by fall of flag-staff), 1. The causes of admission and those which have chiefly served to impair the health of the army during the month of September are shown in Table I. The names and diseases of all officers and enlisted men who are excused from any part of their military duty by reason of disability are required to be entered upon the reports from which these data are drawn. Recruits at depots, discharged for disability which existed prior to enlistment, not included. |