GARBAGE AS FOOD FOR SWINE.*

CHARLES V. CHAPIN.

Superintendent of Health, Providence, R. I.

Americans are wasteful. Our full garbage pail has been a disgrace. Only necessity, born of high prices of food has made the housewife careful. The garbage collector now finds from 15 to 30 per cent less garbage than three years ago. For this blessing, resulting from the terrible war, let us be thankful. The housewife has merely wasted. but city officials have done worse. They have made this waste a burden on the taxpayers. They have spent money to get rid of garbage when they might have derived a profit.

There have been three principal modes of garbage disposal incineration, reduction or rendering, and hog feeding. Occasionally garbage is carried to the sea, or plowed into the land, or deposited on dumps, but these methods are limited in application and are unsatisfactory. Probably waste from the table and kitchen has always been, to some extent, utilized as animal food. In country and village the family pig has usually consumed the family garbage. As towns grew, the pigs became a nuisance and were driven out; hence the garbage collector and the problem of disposal. Many towns, and large ones, too, have continued the old method of disposal. The contractor sometimes has a large farm in the country to which he draws the garbage to feed the swine, or he sells it to other farmers, large and small. Sometimes the city does the collecting and sells to farmers, and in a few instances the city conducts a hog farm.

Partly because these farms, through gross carelesssness, became nuisances, but more often, owing to the preachings of those whose ideas of public health dated from the middle of the last century, a more "sanitary" method was sought. Cremation was suggested, and this idea was vigorously pushed by engineers and contractors who would profit thereby. Many crematories and incinerators were built - and some of them proved to be as odorous as a hog farm. Garbage contains from 75 to 80 per cent of waste. It is as impossible to burn it without other fuel as it is to lift oneself by one's boot straps. It costs money to burn garbage, though those interested have claimed otherwise. In practice it has, in this country, usually cost from 50 cents to $1.50 per ton.

The cost of burning and the popular objection to feeding to swine caused inventors to seek some other methods of utilization. A great number of "reduction" processes have been devised by which the grease is recovered and the residue made into a fertilizer valuable chiefly for its nitrogen and phosphates. The actual value of these products recovered was, according to the experience of the city of Columbus, for the four years just before the present war, a little over $3 per ton of raw garbage. The cost of reduction is so great that the profit obtained in 1914 was only $1.23 per ton, and when interest and

*From The American City, August. 1917.

depreciation are reckoned only about 24 cents per ton. It is only in carefully operated municipal plants that such results have been obtained.

Most cities employing this method of disposal contract for it and it has cost from 25 cents to $1 per ton. Some of the large contracts have been for 60 cents to 70 cents per ton. The starchy materials in garbage, as bread and potatoes, have no value as a fertilizer and are totally lost in the reduction process. Recently, at Columbus, the attempt has been made to convert them into alcohol, and it was shown that this can be done, but at only a small margin of profit.

By feeding garbage to swine not only the grease and the nitrogeneous materials are utilized more profitably, but the carbohydrate ingredients are an important element of the food. The gross value obtained from garbage by reduction is only about $3 per ton; the value obtained by feeding in very much more. Accurate figures are not available, but in one city the value of the hogs sold amounted to between $4 and $5 per ton of garbage fed. It must be remembered that this was gross value and that the cost of operating a farm is far less than operating reduction works, that depreciation on farm buildings is small, and that in the above no account is taken of the value of the manure. It is stated that theoretically a hog produces $12 worth of manure a year, but even if only a small percentage of this can in practice be utilized, the value of hog raising to the soil is easily apparent.

One argument advanced against garbage feeding is that it makes the hogs more subject to contagious diseases, such as hog cholera, pneumonia and foot-and-mouth disease. There is no evidence whatever of this, and garbage-fed hogs are no more susceptible to disease than other animals. What has given color to this view is the spectacular loss which has occurred in some large garbage-fed herds when invaded by one of these diseases, but disease is just as serious in any large herd.

The objection which is commonly advanced against the feeding of garbage to swine is that it is "unsanitary". This is what the pseudoscientific writers of the daily press tell their readers, and is the preaching of amateur sanitarians to uncritical hearers. Sometimes even men of standing have inadvertently condemned this method of disposal in some such sweeping statement. If asked for a definite statement as to what is meant by "unsanitary", such objectors are usually at loss for a reply. In the popular mind this word generally expresses two ideas. The first and most important of these is that of nuisance, or offense to the sense of smell. It is scarcely necessary to tell educated people of the present day that the filth theory of disease is dead and that bad odors do not carry infection. It is too often true that hog farms emit bad odors, but these odors do not cause disease. The prevention of bad odors is an esthetic, not a health, problem. That the public often prefers convenience and economy to esthetic perfection is shown by a ready submission to the odor of oiled roads and of motor exhaust, which are far more likely to affect health than is the smell from a hundred hog farms.

All such farm nuisance should be reduced to a minimum. It is, unfortunately, true that the raiser of hogs rarely makes the slightest

attempt to prevent causing a nuisance. If half the attempt had been made to reduce the odors from hog raising that has been given to reducing those from incinerators and reduction works, a great part of the objection to the former business would long ago have disappeared. The writer knows of a farm with 2,000 hogs, in which a little care has eliminated a very large part of the former nuisance. If a good location is secured and care is taken in the construction of the buildings and in the management of the farm, the small amount of odors arising is not a valid objection to this method of disposal.

The second and only proper meaning of "unsanitary" is unhealthful. It is alleged that fermenting garbage must make bad pork, unwholesome and unfit to eat. There is no á priori reason for such a statement and not the slightest evidence that it is true. Lobsters and crabs feed on decaying fish and their flesh is prized as a delicacy. The writer is fond of pork, has repeatedly eaten that from garbagefed animals, and sees no difference between it and other pork. Thousands of garbage-fed hogs are eaten in New England every year, and there is no evidence that anyone was ever made sick thereby. These animals bring as much in the market as other hogs.

A more definite statement is that trichinae are more frequently found in garbage-fed animals. Trichinae are microscopic worms found in pork which may cause a serious disease in man. About 2 per cent. or 1,250,000 of the 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 hogs in the United States, are probably infected. If people eat cooked pork only, they will not have the disease. The Federal Government does not inspect carcasses for trichinae, but trusts in teaching people to eat only cooked pork. It is alleged that trichinae are more common in garbage-fed hogs, but we do not know that this is so. It was shown years ago that the feeding of slaughter house refuse to hogs. caused an increase in this disease, but it has never been shown that ordinary city garbage does so, and there is no reason why it should make any appreciable difference.

Another definite statement is that garbage-fed hogs are more subject to tuberculosis. This is not warranted by the facts. Of the last 2,047 garbage-fed hogs marketed from Providence, two carcasses were condemned by the federal inspectors, less than one per thousand. The experience of Worcester is not very different from that of Providence. Of the 40,000,000 hogs inspected by the Government in 1916, 74,109 carcasses, or 1.8 per thousand, were condemned for tuberculosis, which indicates that hogs in general have quite as much tuberculosis as garbage-fed hogs. It is well known that the chief sources of tuberculosis in swine are association with tuberculous cattle and the consumption of tuberculous milk. In some dairy sections from 9 to 25 per cent of the hogs become tuberculous from the latter source. If there was any danger from tuberculous pork, garbage-fed pork would be safer than Western pork. However, the danger from tuberculous meat has been grossly exaggerated. Cooking kills tubercle bacilli just as it does trichinae.

The feeding of garbage to hogs makes wholesome pork and pork of a good quality which brings a good price and does not cause dis

ease.

It can be done with little offense. It is the most economical way of disposing of garbage. It brings up and maintains soil fertility. There is an impending shortage of food. Shall we take the advice of those who cry "Unsanitary!" but give no reason, and destroy or only partially utilize a valuable food supply, or shall we displace inherited prejudices by sound logic and make food for a million men. out of what is now so often worse than wasted?

The wolf is at the door!

PRUDENCE EVER THE BETTER PART.

Smallpox has made its appearance in the city. There is no occasion for serious alarm over this situation, nor do we believe there is going to be any. For the reason that for once the authorities and everybody seems agreed to treat the matter in a common sense way, and so most effectually, and further because the disease is of a mild form and there is scant probability of it becoming epidemic at this

season.

When we say it has been determined to treat the situation in a common sense way we mean all information concerning it will be given to the public frankly, fully and truthfully and there will be no attempt to conceal anything for fear publication would hurt the town. And it will be found, beyond question, that here honesty is by far the best policy. Rumor feeds greedily and thrives most mightily, under such conditions where effort is made to hide the truth. Portsmouth learned this much and it would seem profited by it, some years back, when smallpox became somewhat prevalent herein. The disease then too was of a mild form and at no one time were there as many as forty cases on hand, yet, so did rumor run and exaggerate, under effort to conceal the real facts, that it was common report there were five hundred cases and other places were busy putting up quarantimes against us.

The board of health has done the proper thing in publicly calling upon all to be vaccinated and prudent people will heed it. Nothing. particular is to be feared just now, because in the summer smallpox is not likely to become epidemic and as said, in its present appearance it is not of the virulent form and so unlikely to prove commonly fatal. but there is, of course, especially with the large number of Southern negroes about and among whom, experience shows it is most likely to break out, danger of it re-appearing in winter and becoming epidemic and of a more virulent type. Vaccination is a sure safeguard against it. We have present proof of that fact from the fact that in wars of the past it caused more deaths than bullets, bayonets and cannon combined, but in the struggle now on in Europe it is' almost unknown because all soldiers are administered treatment before being sent either to front, or camp.

Then be vaccinated. It is always better to be safe than play a chance.-Portsmouth Daily Times.

SCHOOL TEACHERS ASKED TO CO-OPERATE IN CAMPAIGN FOR BIRTH REGISTRATION.

Cooperation of local registrars of vital statistics with school teachers in order to secure more complete birth registration in Ohio is urged by Dr. J. E. Monger, state registrar of vital statistics in a letter to all local registrars.

During the first seven months of this year approximately 3700 more births were registered than during the first seven months of 1916 and 2100 more births were recorded for July, 1917, than for the corresponding month of 1916, thus indicating that the campaign for birth registration is getting results.

Births reported for the first seven months and for the month of July, 1917, for the past five years:

During the first seven months of this year 4461 have been recorded covering a period of eight years. layed reports 3998 were for 1916.

delayed births Of these de

It will soon be determined whether Ohio is now securing sufficiently complete registration of births to permit the state to be admitted to the Federal Registration area for births as a test is now being conducted by the U. S. Census Bureau in Ohio on this question.

Birth statistics for 1916 issued by the Ohio Bureau of Vital Statistics for cities which give Akron, Ohio, the highest birth rate may be explained by the same answer by which mortality statistics which gave the "rubber city" the highest death rate, were explained a faulty population estimate.

The following table shows the number of births with rate per 1000 population for the years 1915 and 1916 in Ohio cities: