Soil and Water Pollution : Presented to the American Public Health Association At New Orleans, Dec. 1880

Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes:

Underscores “” before and after a word or phrase indicate italics_ in the original text. Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals. Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

SOIL AND WATER POLLUTION

PRESENTED TO THE American Public Health Association,

AT NEW ORLEANS, DEC. 1880.

BY MOSES T. RUNNELS, M. D.,

INDIANAPOLIS.

CHICAGO: DUNCAN BROTHERS. 1880.

SOIL AND WATER POLLUTION.

There is no subject of greater interest to the people than that of health and the best means of obtaining it. Plenty of wholesome food, good air and pure water constitute the first essentials of right living. Any thing which contaminates these prime requisites admits a factor into the problem of life which seriously vitiates its result. To what extent agents of adulteration have injured the human family by disease and death we do not know, but the usual estimate made by sanitarians is, that nearly one-half of the existing diseases might be abolished, provided that individuals and communities should enter upon correct modes of living. In the United States over one hundred thousand persons die annually, and probably one hundred and fifty thousand persons are constantly sick from causes well known to be preventable. Dr. Draper says the total number of deaths in Massachusetts during five years, 1869-73, from all causes was 156,289; of that number the deaths from zymotic or fermentable diseases comprised 26 per cent.; those from acute pulmonary diseases were 7 per cent.; and those from phthisis, 17 per cent. So that, if we include all these among the “preventable” diseases, the deaths from these causes represent one-half the actual mortality. It is estimated that the productive efficiency of the average life in this country might be increased 30 per cent.; or up to the normal amount by the proper observance of health laws. The annual mortality rate should not exceed 15 per 1,000 in cities under good sanitary management, but the tables of the National Board of Health show a greater mortality in almost every city of the country. Zymotic or preventable diseases are increasing in Indianapolis. From these diseases 443 deaths occurred in the city during the year 1879—over 32 per cent. more than in 1878—and if such a large number died, it is fair to calculate that twenty times as many persons were more or less sick from the same causes. Nearly 33 per cent. of the total deaths of the city last year were due to zymotic diseases. These facts should awaken the public to thorough search for the causes at work producing such a high mortality.

I believe, and it shall be my endeavor to prove, that the increase of zymotic diseases in the city is due in a great measure to causes easily preventable. Man, it is true, is born to sorrow; but many of these sorrows are of his own creation, or are due to his neglect of established principles. Having determined upon a thorough investigation, we need only to visit the premises, where typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and diseases of this class prevail, to obtain facts enough to solve the problem. Wherever filth abounds, whether in the air, the ground, or the water, there will be a fruitful soil for the propagation of fermentative diseases. To be convinced of the present and past filthy condition of the city, one should take a walk through any of the alleys at noonday, and inhale the foul odors arising constantly from sewers, cess-pools, privies and decaying animal, vegetable, and excrementitious matters thrown out from kitchens and stables. An examination of the kitchen and back yard of a house is sufficient to prove one of two things, either that Biddy is “monarch of all she surveys,” or that the family need a few practical lessons on sanitary science. The latter are sure to follow in time.

The increase of zymotic diseases in Indianapolis, is due largely to soil and water pollution. The conditions of the soil affect our health through the water we drink and the air we breathe. To effluvia from the soil, may be attributed, as stated by Parkes, paroxysmal fevers, typhoid fever, yellow fever, bilious remittent fever, cholera and dysentery. Waring accepts the theory of the dissemination of typhoid fever by fecal discharges of the sick, but gives as his opinion that the disease may be developed by exhalations of decomposing matters in dung-heaps, pig sties, privy vaults, cellars, cess-pools, drains and sewers, or it may be due to the presence of the poison deep in the ground, and its escape in an active condition in ground exhalations. A cold soil, and a misty, chilly condition of the atmosphere are caused by large amounts of water in the ground; and persons living on such soil are disposed to catarrhal complaints, rheumatism and neuralgia. Dampness of the soil produces malaria and consumption, and their activity varies with the degree of moisture. The lowering of the ground water in the malarious districts of Indiana, has greatly mitigated the paroxysmal fevers which were formerly so prevalent, and the general healthfulness of the state has been increased by drainage. The sandy soil underlying Indianapolis retains from 33 to 36 per cent. of water. A strong clay soil will not retain over 27 per cent. of water.

According to Pettenkofer, Ford and others, an excessive amount of water in the soil is injurious to health by the effects of dampness. It favors the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and the evolution of unhealthy effluvia. The water is liable to become polluted, especially when it is the source of supply of water in wells used for drinking purposes. The soil is so damp in Indianapolis, that houses built close to the ground are known to be very unhealthy. At least four-fifths of all the houses in the city are too near the ground, to insure perfect immunity from dampness, and its blasting influences to health.

In the construction of dwellings, care should be taken to provide the most efficient means for excluding dampness from the foundation walls and basement floors; and the soil should be rendered drier by underground drainage. Fox says, it is very unwise to allow the soil close to houses to be defiled by filth; for the fires of a house creating a force of suction, draw into the house the air contained in the surrounding soil, as well as of that on which it is built. The popular impression, that the atmosphere ends where the ground begins, is a very widely spread delusion. Most soils are more or less porous. A house built on gravelly soil stands on a foundation composed of a mixture of two parts of small stones and one part of air. The air may give place to any gas or to water. Zymotic diseases have been known to arise from the emanations of soil polluted by excreta, and impurities from sewers and drains and all other filth. Poisoning by breathing the gases generated in sewers and cess-pools is not uncommon. In reference to this point, Dr. Jno. Simon says: “The ferments so far as we know them, show no power of active diffusion in dry air; but as moisture is their normal medium, currents of humid air (as from sewers and drains) can lift them in their full effectiveness, and if into houses or confined exterior spaces, then with their chief chances of remaining effective; and ill-ventilated, low-lying localities, if unclean as regards the removal of their refuse, may especially be expected to have these ferments present in their common atmosphere as well as of course teeming in their soil and ground water.”

Indianapolis is in the bottom of a basin, the rim of which rises sixty or seventy feet all round it, east of White river; in some places as at Crown Hill to three times that height.

Let us now inquire into the condition of the soil of the city. We find that the general direction of the water trend is from northeast to southwest; that the water level in the wells near the Atlas works is thirty-five feet above the river level at the city water works; and that the waterfall is from fifteen to eighteen feet per mile. The formation of the ground beneath the city is attributed by geologists to the glacial drift of pre-historic times. From seventy to ninety feet below the surface the earth is built up of alternate beds of sand gravel, and clay, and go to show that at some remote period running water with its leveling and transforming power, aided by the corroding force of the air, contributed largely to the geological formation which we find to-day.

After obtaining the distances through these various strata in the different parts of the city, an average is calculated in the following order:

Loam, three to four feet; sand and gravel, thirty to forty feet; blue compact clay (hard-pan), twelve to eighteen feet; sand and gravel, five to ten feet; soft clay, one to five feet; and blue gravel and boulders to Devonian limestone, thirty-five to fifty feet. The first stratum of clay is very hard and tough, and for that reason is called “hard-pan.” It has an inclination from the northeast to the southwest of about thirty feet to the mile. The further north and east of White river, the less distance it is to bed rock. Occasionally below the “hard-pan” is found a small drift of soft clay, but this is not usual and does not extend very far in area; often in moving ten feet it is missed. The first seam of water is usually reached at a depth of seventeen to twenty-five feet; the second seam at fifty to sixty-five feet; and the third seam at seventy to ninety feet.

Continue reading Soil and Water Pollution : Presented to the American Public Health Association At New Orleans, Dec. 1880 free in the Wunder reader →