The degree of public health of a town is therefore measured by its cleanliness, and its capacity for health depends upon its capacity for cleanliness.
There is scarcely a city which has such absolute need of an efficient and intelligent sanitary government as New York. On its small territory three, four, or five millions of Importance of Sanitary
Government people are yet to be accommodated with houses. Already there are crowded upon less than eight of its thirty-two square miles all of our commercial, business, and manufacturing interests, and the houses of nearly 1,000,000 of people. And in the natural relations of the poor and rich, the former consisting of more than half of the entire population, are crowded into less than a fourth of this area. Of what vast importance is it that a wise and intelligent authority be vigilantly exercised, so that in its future growth and expansion every condition pertaining to health shall be secured to its inhabitants!
It is universally conceded that New York has in the highest degree all the natural advantages of salubrity. Its climate is the mean between the extremes of heat and cold; its topographical peculiarities are admirably adapted for drainage and sewerage; its exposure is southern; its shores are swept by two rivers, which bear seaward everything that enters them beyond the power of the flowing tide to return it; its rural surroundings are of the most healthful. In every respect it is regarded by competent observers as most favorably located for cleanliness, and the highest degree of public health. And there can be no doubt, that should New York be placed under a wise sanitary government, which would improve all its natural advantages for health, it would become the cleanest and healthiest city in the world, and one of the most delightful places of residence.
FLOOR-PLAN OF A NEW FEVER-BREEDING STRUCTURE NEAR BROADWAY AND CENTRAL PARK, 1865
But this is not a matter which concerns the citizens of New York alone. The people of the State have a vital interest in the public health of our city. Connected as it is by means of rapid inter-communication with all parts of the country, there is every The Entire Country
Concerned facility offered for the wide diffusion of the seeds of contagion. It is estimated by accurate statisticians that no less than 250,000 persons pass in and out of New York daily over the ferries and railroads. It could not fail to happen that if any contagious disease prevailed in this city, it would be carried into the country and widely disseminated. And such is now a matter of daily occurrence. There is no doubt that nearly all the epidemics of smallpox in country towns, and much of the typhus and similar diseases, have their origin in New York. I have in my hand letters from all parts of the State confirming this statement. They strikingly illustrate the want of a good sanitary police in New York, and the power of a great commercial centre to scatter disease broadcast over the country.
A few of these cases will abundantly illustrate the point:
Dr. J. S. Sprague, of Cooperstown, Otsego County, reports the occurrence of twenty-six cases of smallpox in that town, communicated by one person in October, 1860, who took the disease at a hotel in our city, in which a person with the disease had recently died. He was a merchant, and came to the city on business.
Dr. C. C. F. Gay, of Buffalo, reports the case of a female, who arrived from New York in November, 1860, and was removed from the cars of the Erie Railroad to the State Line Road, and proceeded westward. As was afterward ascertained, she had smallpox, and communicated the disease at Columbus, Ohio, where there were three deaths produced by it. Four deaths were directly traceable to this exposure, viz.: three milkmen and one baggage man, all of whom came in contact with the sick woman.
W. T. Babbitt mentions the case of a young man who took the disease in this city at a hotel where it was prevailing, at which he stopped while on a visit here, in whom the disease appeared after his return to Olean, in Cattaraugus County.