“A mass of facts and observations prove that the discharge into the sewers of the liquid from the privies will not infect the sewers, nor cause danger to those who work in them; that this infection will be so much the less to be apprehended with the apparatus of Gourlier, with that which has been adopted in barracks, and with the movable receptacles, that, by these different methods, the separation taking place slowly and successively, the liquid carries along with it but very little of solid matter.
“Everything seems to show that by mixing the liquid from the privies with a sufficient quantity of water it might, without inconvenience, be thrown upon the public way, and got rid of in this manner; but prudence requires that before any innovations of this kind the project should be submitted to minute and multiplied experiments. These experiments are the more important, that the result would be to increase the revenues of the city by the sale of a considerable quantity of water which it has for disposal.
“If the drying of the solid contents of the privies has hitherto been considered as one of the most infectious and inconvenient trades, it may be affirmed that it can now be made one of the less disagreeable, a circumstance which we owe to the means of disinfection recently discovered, or which, formerly known, have not been put in practice till lately on a large scale.[[56]]
“To favour the employment of these means, and to arrive thereby at results of high importance, it is not sufficient for the administration to be animated by praiseworthy intentions. It must obtain, by its interposition with the supreme authority, a modification in the classification of the establishments in which the fecal substances are prepared, and, above all, must use the means at its disposal to disabuse the public of the prejudices it entertains against these sort of places. The administration will meet at first with very great obstacles, but, with time and perseverance, may rest confident of success.
“The changes proposed are of such importance, they will be attended by consequences so useful, and extensive, that they will be sufficient to render illustrious to future generations, and to recommend to their gratitude, the name of the ministers who shall effect them.”
Since their institution, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have been charged to visit all the parts of France in which epidemic sicknesses have appeared. Thus we find them in 1807 investigating the autumnal disorders which broke out at Créteil, at Maisons, at Charenton, &c., and proposing the creation of a travelling hospital to render aid to the country districts during the prevalence of epidemics. Some years later, in 1810, they went to Montreuil, to Montmartre, and other communes in which the small-pox had assumed an epidemic character; to Pantin where there reigned an epidemic fever; to Fontenay-sur-Bois, Rosny, &c., where some ravages had been made by the dysentery. In 1812 they set forth the causes of the epidemic maladies which had declared themselves in the communes of Charonne, and Clicky, and by this means prevented their recurrence. In 1818 they stopped the progress of an endemic fever in the commune of Chevilly, and of the croup in the commune of Montreuil. In 1825 the small-pox committed great ravages among the inhabitants of Paris, and of the rural communes of the department of the Seine. Brought by a mass of workmen who flocked from the country to partake of the high wages produced by a glut of employment, it was rapidly propagated among a population who, through carelessness, or prejudice, had rejected the blessing of vaccination. The small-pox, favoured in its development by the high temperature of the atmosphere, gave rise for a moment to a doubt of the preservative property of the vaccine. An eruptive malady, the varioloïde, confounded with the small-pox by people in general, and by inattentive and inexperienced medical men, originated this idea, which some cases—rare certainly, but distinctly marked—of small-pox in persons who had had the true cow-pox, appeared to confirm. It was then feared that the vaccine had lost with time the advantages which rendered it so precious; that, weakened in its nature, by passing from one individual to another through a long course of years, it was no more susceptible of modifying the organization in a manner to render it inaccessible to the small-pox. It became therefore important to examine with care this interesting point of practice. The difficult task was performed by the council, and the administration, enlightened by their reports, was able both to re-assure the people justly alarmed, and to take the proper measures to arrest an evil of which no one could foresee the consequences.
It is by such labours that the council prepared themselves for the noble and grand mission which was reserved for them by the appearance in the capital of the cholera morbus,—a mission which they fulfilled with so much courage and devotion. In the midst of this public calamity, the “Conseil de Salubrité,” we do not hesitate to say, surpassed all expectation. This same zeal was manifested in 1837, when the epidemic catarrh made some ravages in the capital. Since then, with the exception of local maladies of little importance, the “Conseil de Salubrité” have not been called upon to occupy themselves with epidemics.
The épizooties are in many respects less serious than the epidemics. Nevertheless, as they often affect the animals which serve for the nutriment of man, and that, apart from this consideration, they may have grave consequences for the public health, they have constantly engaged the care of the council. In 1834 an épizootie was reported to the administration, which prevailed among the cows of the communes round Paris, and which caused a great mortality. The researches of the council established that this épizootie was only a chronic disease, a true pulmonary phthisis to which has been given the name of pommeliere, and by which the greater part of the cows had been attacked which fill the stables of the milkmen of Paris and its environs. According to the council, the principal cause of the evil was to be attributed to the vicious regimen to which this species of animal is subjected. “It is known that they pass a part of the year in stables perfectly closed, in which the space is not proportioned to the number of inmates, in which the vitiated air renews itself with extreme difficulty, and in which the heat is sometimes suffocating. It is known also that they pass suddenly from the food of the stable to pasture, and that in this change they go from the hot and humid atmosphere of the stable, to a sudden exposure to the continual variations of the external air. This alternation of food, and of heat and cold, operates as a powerful cause of disease. But as the evil does not announce itself in a violent manner, as its progress is not very rapid, as there is even a period in the disease in which the animal is disposed to get flesh, the cow-feeder, who knows to what point to keep her, sells her when she is ready to calve. It is in a radius of thirty leagues from the capital that cows of this kind are purchased by the jobbers who supply the milkmen of Paris. With these last they still hold out a certain number of years, if they are properly cared for; but in general they are kept in stables which are neither sufficiently large, nor sufficiently airy, where they are exposed to the same causes which gave birth to the malady. The phthisis arrives insensibly at its last stage, and carries off every year from Paris, and its neighbourhood, a great number of these cows.
“As to the question, whether the sale of the flesh of oxen that have died from the diseases just described should be allowed, the council have already shown that, from time immemorial, the meat of cows attacked by pulmonary phthisis in a slight degree, has been consumed at Paris as good cow-beef. Often even cows which have reached the last stage of this disease are consigned to the butcher, who offers their flesh for sale as meat of the second quality, after taking the precaution to cut away the lungs, the pericardium, the mediastin, and those parts of the sides and diaphragm, which present a state of disorganization more or less advanced. This commerce has always taken place in the environs of Paris, and in Paris itself before the establishment of the abattoirs; and if we are not able to affirm that food of this nature is not bad, there is at least no example of its use having given rise to accidents. It is to be presumed that in this case, as in many others, the cooking destroys the vicious properties of the flesh, and deprives it of all the qualities injurious to the health of the consumer.
“The council have, however, been far from drawing from all these facts the conclusion that it is unnecessary to watch over the sale of butchers’ meat. They think, on the contrary, that this superintendence cannot be too active, in order that the low price of such meat may not lead poor families to make it habitually their principal sustenance. It is known that a bad diet which is not injurious when used casually, may become, by its continual employment, a source of disease. Numerous observations have equally taught us, that the flesh of animals in which putrefaction had commenced, has produced in persons who touched it the most serious consequences. The council, building upon such data, believe that it is indispensable to watch with the greatest care the sale of meat, to have destroyed all the bad meat which is exposed in the shops, and to forbid the butchers to sell the flesh of any animal that has died from disease, or been killed in consequence of disease, unless a veterinary surgeon and physician, appointed by authority, have decided that the meat could be eaten without inconvenience.”