Part 63
Besides these questions which relate to the quality of the bread, the council examined what mischief could arise from the use of copper scales to weigh the dough of which the bread is made. It is known that the dishes of these scales are copper, and that instead of being cleaned with cloths they are cleaned with the chains by which they are suspended, and which, for this purpose, are heaped together and act like a brush. This state of things seriously engaged the attention of the council with respect to the danger it presents. The dough, composed of water and flour, and containing in addition a certain quantity of marine salt, sticks to the dishes of the scales, and exercises on the metal a chemical action, of which the result is the oxide of copper. The oxide, or salts of copper, which is formed, next penetrates into the portion of the dough which is afterwards detached by the friction of the chains.
We may suppose that in this case some of the oxide of copper would be introduced into the bread, and that it is important for the public health to take measures to prevent, from negligence or imprudence, bread which contained even very small quantities of salts of copper, from being offered for consumption. The council thought that all danger would be prevented.
1. By compelling the bakers to use no scales but those of which the dishes were of tinned iron.
2. In prescribing to them to clean the dishes of the scales by means of chains of tinned iron, which should only be used for this purpose.
3. By obliging them to wash the chains, and the pan in which they are kept, with warm water.
4. By prohibiting the bakers to employ in their bakehouses utensils of zinc, or red and yellow copper.
5. By ordering the bakers, if it is not found expedient to impose the execution of the measures indicated in the first and third articles, to tin substantially the chains and dishes of their scales, and any utensils of zinc, or red and yellow copper.
The council have been occupied at different periods with the adulterations of salt, and they have not ceased to lend active assistance to the measures of surveillance prescribed by the Government. Unhappily its efforts were long unsuccessful. Even now the analysis which has been made of more than 6000 samples of salt, proves that fraud always exists, although of a kind less detrimental to the public health. In 1829 the council proposed to forbid the sale of salt which contained from five to six per cent. of salts with a potash base, and to oppose, in addition, the sale of salt mixed with sea-weed, even in small quantities. The council has since renewed their investigations. More than 3000 samples of salt, taken from the shops, were analysed by M. Chevalier, who discovered that 309 samples were adulterated by ground plaster, or salts of potash, or sulphate of soda, or by the iodines. These adulterations were found chiefly in the grey salts. The later experiments of the council have confirmed these results. They have, moreover, shown that the salt derived from the mines of the south is more pure than the salt of the west. It contains less water, and less of the insoluble matter foreign to sea-salt.
We wish we could follow the council in their numerous observations on the filtering of water—on the use of vessels and utensils of copper—on the dangers they present according to the circumstances in which they are employed—and on the regulations of which they ought to be the object; but there still remains much to be extracted, to show their solicitude for everything which concerns the well-being of the people, and the preservation of the public health.
The council, in an article entitled, “Necessity to submit the Construction of Houses to Sanitary Rules,” inserted in its General Report for 1827 (p. 39), expressed the wish to see established in the centre of every quarter of the town a spacious square, railed in, and planted with trees, in which the children of all classes might, without, apprehension, and without the special superintendence of their parents, give themselves up to the exercise suitable to their years, and in which the inhabitants of all ages might enjoy the solar influence, and breathe a purer air than in their dwellings. It is, they said, so much the more needful to come to this determination, that nearly all the gardens have given place to houses, to streets, or to passages, and that the greater part of those which have been preserved are surrounded by houses so lofty that vegetation languishes for want of air and light, which renders their existence more hurtful than beneficial to health. To these reasons, which have lost nothing of their force, we will add that which results from the advantages the quarter would receive from the presence of such squares in respect to the healthiness produced by favouring the ventilation of the streets; because a square is to all the streets which open into it a true _fourneau d’appel_ with a double current, acting by night as well as by day, at the same time that it is a powerful means by which to facilitate the action of the winds in the interior of the town.
By placing the charity schools in the vicinity of these squares an advantage would be offered to the children of the poor which can rarely be procured for them, that of experiencing the salutary action of the sun, breathing a pure air, and taking their exercise safe from all danger during vacations and play-hours.
These powerful considerations naturally lead the council to speak of the construction of houses under the double relation of public and private health.
“There are,” they say, “in the march of civilization, as in that of sciences, epochs of progress which should be marked by the creation of new laws. With all nations the monuments which attest their pride have preceded the monuments which testify to their true glory; the first, sterile, so to speak, in their existence, fix the attention by the beauty of their form, by the elegance and grandeur of their proportions; the second, created for the wealth or happiness of nations, attract our notice to the utility or wisdom of their establishment. This epoch of true glory has arrived for France. Enough of sterile monuments cover her soil, still unfruitful in so many respects. Works of public utility, laws which conduce to the common happiness, these are the monuments that it is proposed to raise at the present day.
“It is a monument of this last kind of which the council ventures to suggest the erection, in demanding a law to regulate the construction of towns, villages, and houses, under the double relation of public and private health; a monumental law, if ever there was one, since it will embrace France in its conceptions; all the citizens will enjoy its benefits with a perfect equality; and the poor man, even more than the rich, will find himself protected by it in his health, in his life, in his happiness; because health is life—it is more, it is happiness.
“A similar law has never existed among any ancient people, although we find among several of them no equivocal proofs of the solicitude of their legislators to introduce into the laws some precepts of health, applicable to the people they governed.
“We certainly find among the greater part of modern nations some ordinances, and regulations, relative to the salubrity of towns and houses; but their operation does not extend beyond the localities for which they were made, and little, or not at all, known out of these localities, they are still very imperfect, and altogether insufficient for the localities themselves.
“Nevertheless, can any one doubt the immense influence which the salubrity of towns, of villages, and of the dwelling, even when it is isolated in the midst of fields, exercises on the health and life of the people. All statistics, general and individual, attest this extreme influence; and there is no physician, a little observing, who has not had frequent occasions to verify it at the bed-side of his patients.
“We must be like the men, so well painted by the Psalmist, to reject such evidence—_eyes have they and see not_. How shall we explain, or rather, to what shall we attribute the difference that is remarked between the mortality of one quarter and that of another quarter of the same town; of one street and that of another street of the same quarter or of the same village; or, lastly, the difference that is observed in this respect between the houses of the same street, and those houses which are completely isolated. Misery, it is replied to us, is the cause. Yes, without doubt, misery is a powerful cause; but it is so especially when it is driven back into the most insalubrious quarters, streets, and houses; when it lives habitually in the midst of filth and dirt, that is to say, in the midst of an infected atmosphere; and when there is no misery, or when it exists in the same degree in the quarters, in the villages, in the streets, and in the houses with which the comparison is made, and, stronger still, when poverty is met with precisely there where there is the least mortality, in what is to be found the cause of this difference, if it is not in the insalubrity of the dwelling-places?
“If you had not seen yourself, Monsieur le Prefet, in one of the most beautiful streets of Paris, and in the vicinity of the most frequented promenade of the capital, the influence which the construction of the houses we inhabit has on the health, we would seek by some facts to convince you of this truth; but we are happy to need only to refer you to your own experience. This great fact, which naturally results from the comparison you have drawn, in a report addressed to the Minister of Commerce, the 31st of June, 1832, between the mortality of the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and that of the quarter of the Chaussée-d’Antin, has not escaped you. Yet, in the striking difference which is found between the mortality of these two quarters, you have not taken into account the poor who died in the hospitals, and who were, undeniably, more numerous from the quarter of the Hôtel-de-Ville than from that of the Chaussée-d’Antin. What calculation has demonstrated to you for one quarter of Paris exists in all in different degrees; and the same calculation applied to other localities, very distant from the capital, in which the condition, the habits, the mode of living, and the nature of the labour which the inhabitants perform are nearly the same, has given analogous results, presenting the same extremes, without the possibility of assigning any other cause than the insalubrity of the dwellings understood in its widest acceptation.
“The council might accumulate facts, calculations, and quotations, to support the opinion they have formed of the necessity of a law to regulate the construction of towns, villages, and houses, under the double relation of public and private health; but they have no need to be at this pains to induce you to share their conviction, and they are fully persuaded that, in proposing to you to promote a law so important, they are only anticipating your desire to co-operate for the well-being: of your fellow-citizens, and to aid the enlightened zeal of the Minister of the Interior for all that is great and useful.”
Under certain points of view, salubrity confounds itself with health; on another side, it governs health; because, without it no good rules of health can be established. Thus it has engaged the special attention of the council. We see them to shrink from no difficulty, from no mission, however painful, however dangerous even, it may be. Nothing escapes their vigilant attention, and the administration is always sure to have their aid in all the amendments that it wishes to introduce into this important branch of public service. It is thus that they pass in review all which appertains to the wholesomeness of sewers, to the improvement of the paving, to the establishment of street-fountains, to the flow of water for domestic or manufacturing purposes, to the cleansing of wells, and of waste-water wells. The construction of the receptacles of privies, those incessant causes of insalubrity and inconvenience, occupies them above all. Here is what they say upon this point:—
“The emptying of the privies in the city of Paris has become a very heavy expense to the proprietors, and the expense is always on the increase, in consequence of the modifications in the construction of the receptacles, and the more abundant use of water; a use rendered necessary by the actual form of the seats, and still more by the introduction of private baths.
“It is evident that the first condition for obtaining a result at once economical and salubrious, is to separate, on the spot, the solid matter from the liquid, to preserve what has an intrinsic value, and to reject what is only cumbersome.
“For more than half a century some men, animated by love for the public good, and several speculators, have directed their researches to discover a method of making this separation. At the head of these are Girard and Gourlier, Casaneuve, Sanson, Derosne, Chaumet, the authors of the article in the _Mémorial de l’Officier du Génie_, and, lastly, the architects Payen and Dalmont.
“The system of Gourlier is seducing: if it has not yet been submitted to all the trials it requires, we are able to predict before hand that it will succeed, and that it will be productive of advantage.
“The benefits of the project of Gourlier are found in a higher degree in that which has been adopted in barracks.[55]
“The system of movable receptacles has the sanction of time, is applicable everywhere, facilitates the removal of the contents, and enables it to be done without smell or dirt: it preserves the workmen from the dangers of asphyxy, prevents the decay of our houses, and contributes to augment the disposable mass of manure.
“To prevent the gravest consequences, it is essential not to conduct the liquid from the privies into waste-water wells, and put them in communication with the upper layer of the soil in which our wells are sunk. Prudence requires that the liquid should not be directed into the second layer, which in many parts of Paris furnishes very good water. If it is possible, without great inconvenience, to conduct it into channels altogether lower, it is still the opinion of many experienced persons that it ought not to be done under Paris for any very considerable quantities of water, and that it is necessary to reserve this resource for localities badly situated, and which are rarely met with.
“All the proofs show that the liquid of the privies may be discharged into the Seine without inconvenience. An investigation conducted formerly by Hallé and Fourcroy, on the sweepings of Paris, adds great weight to this opinion. The ancient and recent gaugings, as well as the daily observation of facts, demonstrate that the quantity of dirty water sent into the Seine would be so small compared to the water of the river, that it would always remain unperceived, and could in no way be injurious to health.
“To convey these waters to the Seine, the first idea which presents itself is to cast them into one of the three great sewers which surround Paris on the north.
“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.