Some considerations of a kind still more general are developed in the important report made by the commission, charged in 1839 with the investigation of the disease called cocotte, which attacked the milking-cows, and deeply occupied the public attention.
We stated at the commencement of this article, that the number of reports made by the “Conseil de Salubrité,” during the years comprised in this account, amounts to 4431. This number greatly surpasses in its proportions that of the preceding years, that is to say, of the twenty years which form the first period of their labours, dating from their institution, and which only presents a total of 5008 reports. This arises from the fact that Paris for a long time has been only a city of produce, and that the labours of the council have necessarily increased with the progress of trade, and the character, altogether manufacturing, assumed by the department of the Seine since 1815. It is necessary, moreover, to remark that the provisions of the decree of 1810 on insalubrious establishments, by submitting certain classes of manufactories to special authorizations, rendered more frequent the intervention of the council, who were the first to demonstrate the necessity of these new measures. “It is a great satisfaction to the council,” say the reporters of their labours for the year 1810, “that every year the observations and reports lead to general measures which simplify your administration, by giving certain rules of which the application becomes every day more easy. The public health was long since compromised by the existence of certain manufactures, and in the general accounts we have rendered we have never ceased to demand the removal of insalubrious establishments. The National Institute, consulted on this important point, shared our opinion, and a regulatory law has just designated the manufactures which may be established in the interior of towns, and those which are not to be tolerated there.”
In the year 1811 we find 118 reports on classed establishments. This number increased in 1812, and so from year to year, till in 1813, 313 reports were made on establishments of this kind. The use of steam-engines increased the labours of the council. In 1813, for instance, there was but one report on these engines; in 1822, the number had risen already to fifteen. The examination of these machines led the council to examine their different systems, the dangers and inconveniences they presented to the public health or safety, and we foresee, in reading their important observations on this subject, all the improvements which experience introduced in the sequel into this new branch of industry. If we pass from the year 1822 to the year 1839, we find there has been read ninety-six reports on engines of this description: but they are no longer simple considerations on machines of which the use is not well understood; they are views of an elevated order, both on the application of these engines, and on their dangers and inconveniences. We see that the council have profoundly studied these important questions.
“We have united under one head,” says M. Busy, the reporter, “all the establishments on which reports have been made relative to steam-engines. Each of these establishments doubtless offers by itself some inconveniences inherent in the kind of trade carried on; but in general these inconveniences are trifling. The greater part of the manufactories about which there is a question are for the construction of engines, and other analogous things, which can only affect the neighbourhood by the noise and activity which reign there. Out of sixty-three reports made to the council on steam-engines, eleven were on sawing-machines, nine on shops for the construction of engines, six on fulminating powder-mills, four on factories for printing and preparing stuffs, three on mechanical printing presses. The other reports are divided in the following manner:
“On machines for flattening metal, for bruising colours, for pulverizing, for mixing mortar, for extracting stone, seven; for sugar refining, for the making of sugar of starch, three; for spinning, two; for turning, two; for optical glasses, two; for polishing steel, one; for cleaning grain, for the preservation of provisions, three; for perfumery, two: for soap-making, two; for bleaching, for making candles, hats, and delf-ware, for ironfounding, for scouring ashes, six; total 63.
“There has been made besides on simple steam-boilers 33 reports, divided among different trades in the following manner, viz:—
| For printing and preparing of stuffs and woollens | 12 |
| Hat manufactories | 7 |
| Wax and tallow candle manufactories | 3 |
| The shops of mechanicians | 2 |
| Refining | 2 |
| Soap-making | 2 |
| Extraction of the colouring matter from dye-woods | 2 |
| Baths | 2 |
| Dyeing | 1 |
“If we add these 33 reports to the 63 preceding, we have a total of 96 reports on steam-engines, or simple boilers. We join them together in consequence of the identity of the inconveniences to which these machines give rise. These inconveniences can only proceed from the chance of explosion of compressed steam, or from the chance of fire, and from the presence of smoke, which accompany the establishment of every furnace, whatever may be its use. It is true, however, that among the complaints or objections which have reached the council, several have turned upon the noise and shaking occasioned by the steam-engines, a shaking which is particularly felt in houses a little shut in, and connected with the neighbouring houses. This occurred with the printing presses, and some other mechanical applications of steam.
“But these results are altogether independent of the steam itself, are inherent in the imperfection of the mechanism employed, and would be produced with much greater intensity by substituting for steam a horse, a fall of water, the action of the wind, or any other mechanical motor.
“If we consider the steam-engines and boilers with respect to the explosions to which they may give birth, we see that no accident has happened during the current year from a total or partial explosion of an engine, and yet there is no complaint or opposition which is not swelled by the fear of these dangers. If the accidents of this nature may with justice, by their seriousness and sphere of action, provoke the fears of the neighbours, the wise measures prescribed by the rules are of a nature to render them impossible, when they are faithfully executed. Thus, Monsieur le Prefect, the council have always vigorously insisted on the maintenance of the precautions with which the law surrounds the steam-engines, not only to shield the responsibility of your administration, but also because they are persuaded that it is impossible in the actual state of things to neglect these prescriptions without exposing those who make use of steam-engines to eminent dangers.