Motet, A., Intoxication and Crime, xxix, 234. Motto, A Successful, Indicator, xxxvi, 95. Mount, Governor J. A., Address of Welcome, xlv, 481. Mountain Sanitarium for Pulmonary Diseases, iii, 336. Mountjoy Soldiers' Orphan Home, xvi, 371. Moury, W. A., Schoolhouse Hygiene, xxxvii, 142. Mucksley, Prof. A. S., Genesis of Filth, Especially in Stables, xi, 793; Suggestions for Keeping Stables Clean, xii, 155. Mud, City Street, x, 438. Muddy Water, Action of, on Sewage, Prof. W. H. Brewer, ix, 118. Mulberry Bend, xxxvii, 562. Municipal Engineering in London, xxxvi, 390. Munn, W. P., National Legislation for Public Health, xxxv, 497. Municipal Authorities and Public Slaughterhouses, Parkes, xlii, 97. Municipal Sanitation, Janeway, vii, 550. Munro, J. C., Empyema, from a Surgical Point of View, xliii, 30. Murder? What is, xvi, 255; Indirect, Penalty for, xxxviii, 339. Murderers, Worse Than, xxxv, 453. Murdock Liquid Food Co.'s Hospital, xi, 300. Murphy, S. H., Sugar as Food, xlv, 224. Murray, A. J., Contagious Diseases Among Cattle, viii, 161. Murray's Charcoal Tablets, v, 524. Muscogee's Federal Prison, xl, 281. Museum of Hygiene, Naval, x, 192; xii, 38; xiv, 56; xvii, 481. Mushrooms, Toxicology of, Keenan, xlv, 229. Music and Religion, T. T. Munger, xxxvi, 93. Music Box, An Irrepressible, xxiii, 414. . Musser, J. H., Notes on Tuberculous Pleurisy, xxxi, 43. Mustard, French, xi, 597. Mustard, Tincture of, xxii, 382. Mute's Evidence, xi, 821. Myopia, xxviii, 548; as the Result of Defective Light, xxxviii, 145; Surgical Treatment of, Panos, xxxviii, 147. Mysterious Disappearances, Insurance Cases, etc., Davis, iv, 165. Mystification of Quacks, The, ii, 514. THE SANITARIAN. MARCH, 1903. NUMBER 400. DUST AND DISEASE. By A. N. BELL, A. M., M. D. "As we approach the great centers of population," says La Nature, "the quantity of dust held in suspension by the air increases enormously. According to Sir James CrichtonBrowne . . the air of London contains 150,000 proportional parts of dust to Paris's 210,000, while in Argyleshire, Scotland, there are only 200. The air of cities is impregnated with dust and filth. To combat their deleterious effects, the streets should be freely ventilated and watered. Wind and rain are the great destroyers of dust, and they should be given a large field of action by isolating houses, enlarging streets, placing a limit on the height of buildings, etc." The substances designated as "variable" in the composition of the atmosphere* are but feebly suggestive. For even the sources of the variable substances are so manifold as to be difficult of enumeration; while the various substances designated as "dust" are so diverse and manifold as to be insusceptible of classification. From the fields, the wind lifts the debris of vegetation, pollen, seeds, spores of fungi and bacteria; the dust of the soil, silica, silicate of aluminum, carbonate and phosphate of lime and peroxide of iron. In and proceeding from volcanic regions fine particles of carbon and dried mud are taken up and wafted hundreds or even thousands of miles. In and roundabout cities and towns, the finely ground dust of the pavements, fragments of straw, hair, stable manure, debris of insects, soot; epithelia from floor sweepings or shaken from rugs, carpets and bedding; together with gases and other volatile emanations from factories, rendering establishments, abattoirs, tanyards and compost heaps of all sorts, though not of the air are in it, insomuch as to be in some degree almost everywhere present. "Air and Its Properties as Related to Health.-January number. Dr. John McGaw Woodbury, Commissioner of the Department of Street Cleaning, gave an admirable lesson to the public a few months ago by directing attention to the comparative prevalence of bacteria in the air of various streets and at different heights. above the pavement, for the connection between disease and germridden dust is a close one and one constantly in action in large cities. But dust per se, quite apart from any contamination with pathogenic micro-organisms, is something with which we must reckon in seeking to extend our knowledge of the causes of disease and to combat its prevalence. This was quite graphically brought out by Sir James Crichton-Browne, in the address above referred to, entitled "The Dust Problem," delivered before the Section in Sanitary Science and Preventive Medicine of the Sanitary Institute Congress held in Manchester, England, last September. After reciting many analyses of the air of various altitudes and localities, and its relation to occupations, he says in conclusion: "We must realize that in towns the quantity of mineral and organic dust in the air must greatly depend on the way in which scavengering and street-watering are conducted, and we must insist that cleansing shall be thorough, and that dust is not only 'moved on' but removed altogether. "Domestic dust is in the inverse ratio of domestic cleanliness. In my young days in the country a speck of dust on any article of furniture was an opprobrium on the moral character of the housewife. Nowadays, in towns at any rate, it may be an inch thick without reflecting any discredit on her, and domestic dust in our large towns is really an atrocious compound. I collected some of it from the top of a wardrobe in the sick-room of a lady in the West End of London a short time ago. The room was dusted daily, and had been thoroughly cleaned out and whitewashed three months previously, and yet the dust lay on the top of the wardrobe 1-12th of an inch thick. In a test tube it is not unlike basic slag dust. It is of the same color, but it is, of course, much lighter, and more flocculent. To analysis it yields the following results: Moisture .. Organic matter 4.4 52.6 Carbonic acid with traces of sulphuric and phosphuric acid.. 6.1 100.0 "Under the microscope the dust is seen to consist of inorganic and organic material. The inorganic matter is mostly amorphous, while the organic is for the most part organized. "Among the commonest constituents are vegetables and animal fibres derived from fabrics, such as linen, cotton, and wool; something resembling jute fibre is also seen. In addition there are a few feather barbs and fragments of wood. "Among the most interesting constituents are squamous epithelial cells from the skin and small round cells, both of which are fairly numerous. Food materials are represented by starch granules, and there are certain organized vegetable materials among which a few pollen spores can be identified. "This dust would make an excellent manure, but as an article of toilet it is scarcely to be recommended. "To some extent domestic dust is inevitable, but still we must struggle against it, and bear in on our people a sense of the dangers that attend it, for it is dangerous. It smothers, not as suddenly, but in the long run often as effectively as Desdemona's pillow. The open window, even when it lets in dust, supplies at the same time its best antidote in fresh air; the archaic practice of scattering damp tea leaves or some equivalent when sweeping the floor is worthy of revival, and the prompt and frequent removal from the house and its precincts of all collections of dust is a universal hygienic obligation. Puck sang: 'I am sent with broom before, 'To sweep the dust behind the door." But that will not do; the dust must not be left behind the door, or even in the dust-bin, but must be conveyed to the destructor without delay." Affections of the respiratory organs, particularly summer catarrhs and bronchitis, have been long recognized as justly attributable to the dust of the fields and pollens of the grasses; the spores of certain fungi in the air cause skin diseases; influenza is doubtless communicated in the same way; and most fatal of all, tubercular consumption, by the dust of dried sputum. But dust in the air is alike dangerous to the digestive organs as to the respiratory; particularly in cities where the market supplies of all kinds are exposed to the dust of the streets and of the brush and broom of the shops. Intestinal disorders attributed to fresh and otherwise wholesome fruits and vegetables, are frequently due to this exposure. Evidently dust in the air of the streets is in a great degree preventable by palpable means, and that so far, it should be prevented. That food should not be exposed; that it should be cov ered or otherwise protected; that it should be thoroughly brushed or wiped-which is better than washing for such sorts as will admit of it or washed, before eating, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables that are to be cooked, which have been exposed, should be thoroughly washed in pure water before cooking, for even cooked impurities are unwholesome. The ill effects of mineral dust, and dust from fabrics, flockdressers, paper-makers, feather-dressers, shoddy-grinders, weavers, wire-grinders, masons, file-cutters, button-makers and various other works were very clearly shown by Sir John Simon's report on the air of coal-mines, forty years ago: Such air, "besides being chemically insufficient for respiration, also carries with it into the miner's lungs more or less irritant material, matter which though the air were ever so well oxygenated, would itself tend to produce bronchitis, namely soot, grit and the acid fumes of combustion." He further goes on to show that at that time, with one exception, the miners in England as a class broke down prematurely from bronchitis and pneumonia, caused by the atmosphere in which they lived and worked. The one exception which he cited was in mines exceptionally well ventilated. Owing to sanitary legislation brought about by that and other efforts, ventilation has been very generally effected in the mines of England, and statistics show that consumption is no longer an excessively common disease among the miners. Consumption and other respiratory diseases are common among workers in wool, cotton, flax and shoddy; in cotton factories, the dust contains china-clay from the "sizing," as well as cotton fibre. Tailors, drapers and hairdressers are also super-subject to lung diseases, probably on account of the inhalation of dust. Sharp, angular, mineral particles are more injurious than other kinds of dust, insomuch that metal miners and workers in England die by lung diseases in a proportion nine times greater than the agricultural population. Some other metallic impurities in the air are directly poisonous. Of such are zinc fumes (oxide of zinc), given off in brass foundries, and cause a disease which is known as "brass founder's ague," the attacks of which present a cold stage with rigors, a stage of febrile reaction, and a stage of profuse sweating. It differs from true ague in not being periodic. Copper works are |