plication, may be taken at £3 per imperial acre, and the average rent of the irrigated land at £30, making a difference of £27; but £2 may be deducted as the cost of management, leaving £25 per acre of clear annual income due to the sewer water.'" 1 XLI. WE RECOMMEND that measures be taken to prevent, as far as practicable, the smoke nuisance. The smoke of furnaces, manufactories, and other establishments, is often a great nuisance to a neighborhood, and is supposed to be deleterious to health. It corrupts the air, and often renders it unfit for respiration; and all proper and practicable measures should be adopted to prevent the evils which result from it. Experiments have been made in the manufacturing towns in England, to construct furnaces and fireplaces so as to burn up the smoke, as fast as produced, and thus prevent its escaping, to become an inconvenience, nuisance, or injury to the inhabitants. These experiments have shown that the arrangement is an economical and practical as well as a sanitary improvement. Less fuel is required when the smoke is burned than when it is permitted to escape unburned. We desire to call the attention of all interested to the subject, as worthy of careful investigation. Several important facts and illustrations relating to this subject may be found in recent English sanitary publications.2 XLII. WE RECOMMEND that the sanitary effects of patent medicines and other nostrums, and secret remedies, be observed; that physicians in their prescriptions and names of medicines, and apothecaries in their compounds, use great caution and care; and that medical compounds advertised for sale be avoided, unless the material of which they are composed be known, or unless manufactured and sold by a person of known honesty and integrity. I Liverpool Health of Towns Advocate, pp. 60-62. "The smoke nuisance is, perhaps, one of the most gratuitous injuries inflicted on the public, for, in the first place, it is altogether unnecessary, and, secondly, it costs the perpeirators of it a good round sum every year to keep it going. The loss to the public, from excess of washing, &c., which a smoky atmosphere renders necessary, is more than at first sight might appear. Dr. Lyon Playfair has shown, that in this one item Manchester has been expending £60,000 a year, and that, if the expense of additional painting and whitewashing be added, the actual money loss would be double the amount of the poor rates every year. The Rev. Mr. Clay states, that in Preston only two furnaces consume their smoke, and even that imperfectly; but were all the factories in town to do as much, the public would save £10,450 a year in extra washing."-Liverpool Health of Towns Adv. The sanitary effects of patent medicines and other nostrums, advertised for sale, is one of the greatest evils of the present day. If the people were aware of the immense amount of such sales, and of the impaired health, the ruined constitutions, and the premature deaths, which they occasion, they would be astounded. An insatiable desire to make money, frequently without regard to the justice or morality of the means, on the part of the manufacturers and venders, and an inclination to do something for the relief of real or imaginary suffering, and an unenlightened belief, on the part of purchasers, that what is advertised as true must be true, are the prominent causes of this monstrous evil. This matter has attracted much public attention, but not so much as its importance demands; and no plan for a sanitary survey of the State would be perfect in which it was omitted. There is much good sense in the Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of New York. On the 7th of February, 1849, a report was adopted, from which we make the following extracts:"So far as the pecuniary interests of our profession is concerned, the vending of secret nostrums is advantageous, since it unquestionably greatly increases the amount of disease whenever such nostrums are used. We, therefore, invite no legislation in this matter for the protection of ourselves, yet, as members of a humane profession, we do not feel at liberty to withhold our advice, as all experience has shown that the most effectual mode of correcting imposition is to divest it of mystery, and thus enable an intelligent community to judge of its truth or falsity; and because we think, in a humane science, designed for the relief of physical suffering, it is a great wrong to deprive the world of any knowledge which one may possess of the means of saving life or alleviating suffering. Therefore we recommend, that all articles designed for medical use, and put up for sale as merchandise, shall be by law required to be accompanied with the names of the constituents, written or printed in plain and legible English." On the same day another resolution was passed: Resolved, that a prize of twenty dollars be offered by this society for a tract, of not less than four nor more than sixteen pages, which shall most clearly expose the pernicious influence of nostrums and secret remedies, upon the health and morals of the community." 1 "The time will come when that system of legislation which allows unprincipled men, for their private benefit, to send forth patent medicines under the great seal of the nation, will be seen to be no other than a licensed imposition on the public. Health and life are too valuable to be thus sacrificed. Any man who really believes that he has discovered the means of mitigating human suffering, is bound, by every principle of morality and benevolence, to publish it to the world. The power to do good implies and involves an obligation to do it, and the fact of an attempt to conceal from men that which is represented to be of paramount importance for them to know, is presumptive evidence of want of integity. The triumph of ignorance over science is the precursor of the downfall of our republic." 2 XLIII. WE RECOMMEND that local Boards of Health, and others interested, endeavor to prevent the sale and use of unwholesome, spurious, and adulterated articles, dangerous to the public health, designed for food, drink, or medicine. The evil suggested in this recommendation is nearly allied to that preceding. It is one of immense magnitude and importance, and exists to an extent greater than has been generally supposed. Prodigious quantities of spurious articles, of food, drink, and medicine, which are highly injurious, are daily palmed upon the public by mercenary and fraudulent manufacturers and dealers. And it is generally conceded that a great amount of disease and numerous premature deaths are thereby produced. Food is adulterated in various ways. A recent writer enumerates the following purposes of these adulterations : "1. To make the substance more saleable by improving its appearance, by the addition of some body innocuous or other wise. "2. To depreciate its quality, by adding to it some substance which will diminish its real, without altering its appar 1 Appendix to Transactions New York Medical Society, Vol. VII, pp. 96, 98. ent strength or general appearance. This is generally a very deadly fraud. 3. "To depreciate its quality by the addition of some simple substance, as water, or, if it be a solid body, as plaster of paris, sand, &c." Bread is often adulterated with alum, carbonate of ammonia, carbonate of magnesia, sulphate of copper and zinc, &c., to improve its appearance, when made of flour of inferior quality. Butter and cheese are often poisoned with coloring matter. Milk is watered, sugar sanded, and various other intentional frauds are practiced. Unintentional adulterations may also sometimes take place by means of keeping or cooking different kinds of food. Drink is also very extensively adulterated. It is said that very little of what is sold as champagne wine is made from the juice of the grape, but is a deleterious compound of other substances. Few of other kinds of spirituous liquors go to the consumer in a pure state. It is the opinion of eminent temperance reformers that one of the principal causes of the sad sanitary effects of intemperance arises from the poisonous substances compounded with the pure spirit and taken in the intoxicating cup. Other kinds of more ordinary drink, not intoxicating, and even water itself, may be adulterated and rendered unfit for use. Drugs and medicines have been adulterated by the foreign producer, manufacturer and dealer, expressly for the American market, and vast quantities of such articles have been imported and sold in this country. Some of our own producers, manufacturers, and dealers, also, have been guilty of a similar fraud. By careful study the properties and mode of operation of the various articles used as medicine have been ascertained, and the intelligent, conscientious, curative physician, can estimate their effect with some degree of accuracy. It is necessary, however, to enable him to do this successfully, that they should be of known purity and strength. If spurious, of inferior quality, or adulterated with other substances, not contained in the genuine article, disappointment follows, and the patient suffers and perhaps dies. This result may happen under the advice of the best curative medical skill, and life may be, and has actually been lost, from some defect existing alone in the medical remedies used. A mere statement of this fact will render obvious the importance of this recommendation. In some of the governments of Europe no one is allowed to deal in drugs and medicines unless properly educated and licensed for the purpose; and a constant governmental supervision is exercised over all apothecaries, to keep them within the line of their specific duties, and to prevent them from selling articles which may be injurious to health. The system of free trade, and the entire absence of all such supervision in this country, has led many incompetent and fraudulent manufacturers and dealers to enter largely into this kind of business, and a system of imposition and positive evil has been carried on, which, if fully known, would fill the people with astonish ment. Dr. The subject was brought to the attention of Congress, and, on the 26th of June, 1848, "an act to prevent the importation of adulterated and spurious drugs and medicines," was passed. Under this act special examiners are appointed to reside in the various ports of entry, to carry the law into execution. W. J. Bailey, the examiner at New York, has reported that, during ten months ending April, 1849, about 90,000 pounds of various kinds of drugs have been rejected and refused admittance at the custom-house in that city alone! Among these were 16,989 pounds of rhubarb; 3,253 pounds of opium; 34,570 pounds of spurious yellow bark; 12,483 pounds of jalap; 5,058 ounces of iodine, and large quantities of various other articles. It has been said that "more than half of many of the most important chemical and medicinal preparations, together with large quantities of crude drugs, come to us so much adulterated, or otherwise deteriorated, as to render them not only worthless as a medicine, but often dangerous." We extract from a report on this subject, by Hon. T. O. Edwards, M. D., the following passage:-"That adulterations of medicines, to a very considerable extent, will be carried on in this country, none can deny. Had Congress the power to prevent it, by a general law, it might be avoided. The general |