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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HD 3624.F8L67 
 
 Report on the laws and ordonnances In fo 
 
 3 1924 006 009 942 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006009942 
 
REPORT 
 
 LAWS AND ORDONNANCES IN FORCE IN FRANCE 
 
 REGULATION OF NOXIOUS TRADES 
 AND OCCUPATIONS; 
 
 De. waller lewis, 
 
 MEDICAL OFFICER TO THE GENERAL POST OFFICE. 
 
 ^rtSmte^s to 6ofl) gjaujJaa at parliament 6j> Command of f&er ffltfeits. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUJNTED BY GEORGE E. EYRE AND WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
 
 FOR HER-MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 
 1855. 
 
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 A- 3^^^ 
 
 
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 > ukivlrsth ' 
 
 V UBRARY / 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Preface - ........ 5 
 
 On the classification of unwholesome occupations, and the causes 
 
 of their being so classed - .... 7 
 
 On the effects on health of various professions and occupations - 17 
 
 Extracts from the Ordonnances concerning Public Abattoirs in 
 
 Paris - - - - 21 
 
 Remarks and observations on the Public Abattoir system of Paris, 
 
 with explanatory remarks - 23 
 
 On the practical working of the Abattoirs of Paris - - - 26 
 
 Ordonnances concerning Knackers ... - 27 
 
 Ordonnance concerning the opening and police regulations of the 
 Knackers' Abattoir established by the city of Paris at Auber- 
 villiers .... - 28 
 
 Description of the operations carried on, and the methods of pre- 
 paration of the flesh and bones of horses and other animals 
 slaughtered at or taken dead to the knackers' establishment at 
 Aubervilliers, near Paris - - - - - 32 
 
 On the practical working of the public slaughtering establishment 
 for killing diseased or worn-out horses, cows, dogs, &c, at 
 Aubervilliers, near Paris ..... - 34 
 
 Instructions for preserving the public health, and protecting the 
 health of the artizans and others employed in cleaning and 
 preparing intestines of animals - - - 35 
 
 On bone-boiling and depots of bones, the manufacture of animal 
 
 charcoal, &c. ... - - 38 
 
 Ordonnance respecting depots of manure and of collections of 
 
 animal matter - - ----41 
 
 On the large establishment for the manufacture of poudrette, or 
 
 artificial manure, in the Forest of Bondy, near Paris - 42 
 
 Manufactories of glue and size, placed in the 1st and 3d classes of 
 insalubrious establishments according to the materials used in 
 their manufacture - - - - 45 
 
 On tanning, dressing, and currying leather - - - - - 46 
 
 On various establishments of tanners and curriers in Paris - 48 
 
 On the precautions necessary to he adopted in the exhumation of 
 
 dead bodies --------50 
 
 Candle making. — Regulations in force in France - .51 
 
 On the manufactories of Prussian blue, classed in first division 
 
 of insalubrious establishments ------ 52 
 
 On the hygiene of soap-boiling - - - - 53 
 
 On tallow melting, with suggestions for improving the usual pro- 
 cesses - ........54 
 
 A 2 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 On the health of the workmen employed on mother-of-pearl shells, 
 
 buttons, and fans - - - - 57 
 
 On the laws regulating cowkeeping, &c. in Paris - - 60 
 
 On the physical changes produced on the limbs of bleachers of 
 
 wool - - - - - 62 
 
 On the police laws regulating the trade of bakers in France - 62 
 
 On the diseases of workmen employed in the manufacture of 
 
 tobacco ------ -66 
 
 On the health of the workmen employed in the manufacture of 
 
 sulphate of quinine - - - - 70 
 
 On the health of the workmen employed in cotton factories in 
 
 France .... - - 71 
 
 On the plantation of trees in the interior of towns - - 75 
 
 Oa the best means of ensuring the salubrity of towns - - - 76 
 On the manufacture of white lead and shot ... 78 
 
 On the manufactory of white lead in Paris, conducted by M. Be- 
 
 sancon -- - ----84 
 
 On the use of lead for water pipes, and for other purposes of 
 
 domestic economy - - - 85 
 
 On the regulations in force in France regarding brick-making - 91 
 On the insalubrity caused by the process of gilding metals by 
 
 means of mercury - - - - 92 
 
 On the regulations contained in the royal ordonnance of 27th 
 
 January 1846, regulating the manufacture of gas - 93 
 
 On a new method of purifying ga«, to which was awarded the 
 
 Montyon Prize by the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1850 97 
 On a new method of purifying gas, to which was awarded the 
 
 Montyon Prize by the Academy of Sciences of Paris in the 
 
 year 1850 - - - - 98 
 
 On the measures ordered by the Council of Salubrity of Paris to 
 
 be taken by metal gilders by the moist process, to preserve 
 
 the public health - - - - 99 
 
 On the alterations produced on the hands of burnishers of 
 
 brass - - ... !00 
 
 On the precautions and police regulations to be observed by per- 
 cussion cap and firework makers - - 100 
 On the substitution of a new material for the charcoal powder now 
 
 in use in casting bronze and other figures, &c. - - 103 
 
 On the hygienic conditions of nail makers and iron founders - 104 
 
 On the diseases of the workmen employed in the manufacture of 
 
 chemical matches, and in the laws regarding them - 109 
 
 On the diseases of shoemakers - - - - - 115 
 
 On certain deformities to which tailors are peculiarly liable - - 116 
 
 On the diseases of carders of flax, hemp, wool, silk, &c. - - 117 
 
 On disinfecting and the action of disinfectants - 2 19 
 On the dwellings of the labouring classes in manufacturing towns 
 
 as regards the sanitary conditions - 101 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand, 
 July 1855. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 In compliance with the instructions of Viscount 
 Palmerston that I would make a concise digest of the 
 laws and ordonnances in force in France for the better 
 regulation of noxious trades and occupations, I have 
 the honour of transmitting herewith the following series 
 of reports : — 
 
 The works that I have more especially consulted are, 
 the " Collection Officielle des Ordonnances de Police," 
 drawn up by M. Gabriel Delessert, formerly Prefect of 
 Police ; the " Annales d'Hygiene," the " Traite d'Hy- 
 giene Publique et Privee," by Dr. Michel Levy ; the Dic- 
 tionnaire d'Hygiene Publique," by Dr. Ambroise Tardieu ; 
 the " Dictionnaire des Alterations et Falsifications des Sub- 
 stances Alimentaires," by A. Chevallier ; together with 
 numerous Reports of various Provincial Councils of Health, 
 and other works, of which copies were transmitted by 
 the French Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Earl of 
 Clarendon, for the use of the late General Board of 
 Health. 
 
 The same instructions having authorized me to visit 
 Paris to observe the practical operation of the laws in 
 question, I have done so, and have given the results of 
 my observations in various reports. 
 
 I would beg to observe that through the kind offices of 
 M. Billault, the Minister of the Interior, and of M. Collet- 
 Meygret, the Directeur General de Sante Publique, I was 
 enabled to inspect all the public and private industrial 
 establishments that the time at my disposal admitted of. 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Many of these are models of what such manufactories 
 should be, more particularly the White Lead Manufactory 
 of M. Besancon and the Tannery of M. Leven, which 
 leave nothing to be desired as regards the health and com- 
 fort of the workmen. 
 
 New and improved processes have been introduced in 
 these and other factories, which supersede many of the 
 old, objectionable, and unhealthy methods still all but 
 universally employed in this country. The absolute dis- 
 use of the fermented dung of certain animals to de-lime 
 the hides in tanning, is one among various instances that I 
 might adduce in proof of this. 
 
 As far as I have been able to form an opinion, the sys- 
 tem of keeping an active supervision by means of a depart- 
 ment of the Police (Hygiene Publique et Salubrite) over 
 the noxious trades and occupations likely to interfere with 
 the public health, appears to be very successful. While 
 the interest of the workman is strictly cared for, the 
 masters themselves do not complain of any undue or harsh 
 interference by the authorities. 
 
 To M. Trebuchet, the very intelligent chief of this ser- 
 vice, who is the author of many of the most enlightened 
 ordonnances that the French Government has promulgated, 
 I am much indebted for his assistance. 
 
 I have the honour to remain, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 Waller Lewis, 
 
 Medical Officer to the Post Office. 
 
 Sir George Grey, Bart., 
 Secretary of State, Home Department. 
 
REPORTS. 
 
 On the classification of unwholesome occupations, and 
 the causes of their being so classed. 
 
 Industrial establishments are frequently inconvenient or 
 unhealthy to the neighbourhood ; the odours they give off, the 
 vapours or the smoke they emit, may render the surrounding 
 space, within a certain radius, very disagreeable, or even unfit 
 for habitation. 
 
 The administration, therefore, has thought it necessary to take 
 measures for satisfying the legitimate complaints generally given 
 rise to by such establishments as fix themselves in the midst or on 
 the borders of centres of population. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is but a few years since any precise and protec- 
 tive legislation has existed on this subject. It is true that from 
 the fifteenth century, namely in 1486, a royal proclamation ordered 
 the suppression of potteries in Paris, on the complaint of the 
 neighbourhood; and in 1567, certain industrial employments, 
 as those of chiffoniers, knackers, and tanners, were driven from the 
 interiors of large towns. Still, up to the commencement of the 
 present century, such establishments were the objects of no special 
 regulations. 
 
 However, by an ordonnance of the 12th February 1806, the 
 prefect of police prohibited the establishment in Paris of any 
 workshop, manufactory, or laboratory which could compromise 
 health or occasion a fire, without there being previously made, at 
 the prefecture of police, a statement of the nature of the materials 
 intended to be prepared, and the works proposed to be carried on. 
 These declarations were to be followed by visits and inquests de 
 commodo et incommodo. 
 
 But these regulations were badly carried into execution. The 
 Minister of the Interior therefore consulted the Academy of 
 Sciences on the general measures necessary for the regulation 
 of manufactures in the interest of public health. The report of 
 Guyton, Morveau, Chaptal, and Cr. Cuvier, served as the basis of 
 the decree of 15th October 1810, and of the ordonnance of the 
 14th January 1815, which two regulate all these subjects at the 
 present day. 
 
 All dangerous, insalubrious, or inconvenient establishments are 
 divided into three classes, and before they are permitted to be 
 carried on, certain authorizations and formalities are indispensable. 
 Councils of Health are at the present time called upon to give their 
 advice on the formation of such establishments as are classed. 
 
Factories in the First Class. 
 
 The establishments of the Jirst class are those that must be kept 
 at a distance from private habitations ; but it is not necessary that 
 they be prohibited from the outskirts of a town. To the autho- 
 rities belong the duty of examining if the isolation is sufficient, 
 having regard to the importance of the works, to the nature and 
 configuration of the soil, and to the importance of the surrounding 
 dwellings. The demand for authority (i. c. for permission to 
 establish) must be addressed to the prefect of the department, 
 and to the prefect of police for the jurisdiction of the prefecture 
 of the Seine. The demand must be accompanied by two plans, 
 one indicating the connexions of the proposed works with the 
 neighbouring lands and habitations, the other showing its internal 
 arrangements. The demand for authority is placarded in all the 
 communes within a radius of five kilometres (three miles), and must 
 remain exposed during one entire month. Besides this, the mayor 
 of the commune where the works are to be erected must hold an 
 inquiry nine enquete) dc commotio et incommodo among the nearest 
 neighbours. This inquiry, drawn up by the mayors, consists of 
 evidence gathered by themselves personally, or communicated by 
 those interested in the matter: it constitutes one of the most 
 important formalities preceding the authorization. 
 
 All the documents are transmitted to the prefect, who submits 
 them to the Council of Health, and afterwards to the Council of 
 Prefecture, if there is any opposition. When these various for- 
 malities have been gone through, the prefect sends the whole of 
 the documents to the Minister of Commerce, with his recom- 
 mendations, whatever they maybe; when, after submitting the 
 proposal to the advice of the Council of State, the minister pro- 
 poses to the chief of the Government an order of refusal or autho- 
 rization, which the prefect is charged with executing. 
 
 Fortunes in the Second Class. 
 
 The establishments of the si.cond class are those which do not 
 rigorously require their being kept at a distance from habitations, 
 but which it is important not to allow until assurance has been 
 obtained that the operations proposed to be carried on in them 
 are executed so as not to be a nuisance to the neighbourhood, 
 and not to cause damage. I( is the prelects, who, after consul- 
 tation with the Councils of Health, authorize the establishments 
 of the second class. 
 
 Factories in the Third Class. 
 
 The third class works are such as may remain without incon- 
 venience near dwellings, but which should be subject to the 
 surveillance of the police. These establishments are authorized 
 by the sub-prefects in the arrondissements of the sub-prefectures, 
 by the prefects in the arrondissements of the departments, and by 
 the prefect of police in his department. 
 
These regulations have no retro-active effect. All the esta- 
 blishments in existence at the time of the promulgation thereof 
 have continued being freely carried on, and may even be disposed 
 of without the purchaser being called upon to obtain a new autho- 
 rization, unless they are removed to another locality, or unless 
 their proprietors wish to make some change in the conditions 
 under which they were originally licensed. 
 
 The prefects have authority to suspend the formation of new 
 establishments, i. e. such as proposing to deal with employments 
 as yet unknown, have not yet been comprised in any class. 
 
 The following lists comprehend the most important establish- 
 ments classed from 1810 up to the present time. 
 
 First Class. 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 Abattoirs, public and communal, for all 
 
 towns. 
 Acid, nitric. 
 
 Acid, pyroligneous (when the gases are 
 given off' in the atmosphere without 
 being consumed). 
 
 Acid, sulphuric. 
 
 Refining of gold or silver by sulphuric 
 acid, when the disengaged gases are 
 liberated. 
 
 Refinement of metals by means of the 
 cupel or reverberating furnace. 
 
 Matches, manufacture of, prepared with 
 detonating or fulminating materials. 
 This comprises chemical matches. 
 
 Starch, manufactures of, except such as 
 is made without fermentation, and 
 are provided with free means of 
 escape for the waters. 
 
 Resin. 
 
 Artificial fire, manufactures of. - 
 
 Prussian blue, manufacture of, when 
 the smoke and gases are not con- 
 sumed. 
 
 Prussian blue (depots of blood of 
 animals intended for the fabrication 
 of). 
 
 Summary 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Bad odour. 
 
 Much smoke, and acid 
 
 fume?. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Fumes disagreeable, un- 
 healthy, and hurtful 
 to vegetation. 
 
 Insalubrious cases. 
 
 Smoke and noxious va- 
 pours, also injurious to 
 vegetation. 
 
 The same dangers as 
 fulminating powders. 
 
 Very disagreeable odours. 
 
 Danger of fire, and dis- 
 agreeable odours. 
 
 Danger of fire, and ex- 
 plosions. 
 
 Odour unhealthy and 
 disagreeable. 
 
 Disagreeable smell, par- 
 ticularly when the 
 blood preserved is not 
 in a dried state. 
 
10 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 
 Summary 
 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Mud and filth, accumulations of. 
 
 Odour very disagreeable 
 
 
 and unwholesome. 
 
 Gut-spinning. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Calcination of bones, when the smoke 
 
 Very disagreeable smell 
 
 is not consumed. 
 
 of burnt animal matter, 
 
 
 carried a great dis- 
 
 
 tance. 
 
 Pearl ashes, manufacture of, when the 
 
 Disagreeable odour. 
 
 smoke is unconsumed. 
 
 
 Animal de'bris (depots of, and where 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 animal matter is prepared by macera- 
 
 
 tion, or dried for other manufactures). 
 
 
 Hemp., manufacture of. 
 
 Very unwholesome ex- 
 
 
 halations. 
 
 Animal charcoal, when the smoke is 
 
 Disagreeable odours of 
 
 unconsumed. 
 
 burnt animal matter, 
 
 
 conveyed to a great 
 
 
 distance. 
 
 Coke and charcoal, manufacture of. 
 
 Smoke and disagreeable 
 
 
 odours. 
 
 Chloride of lime, wholesale manufac- 
 
 Disagreeable odours. 
 
 ture of. 
 
 
 Alkaline chlorides. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Glue, manufacture of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Combustion of sea plants. 
 
 Ditto, carried to a long 
 
 
 distance, and injurious 
 
 
 to vegetable life. 
 
 Strings for instruments, manufacture 
 
 Not disagreeable, if freely 
 
 of. 
 
 provided for the easy 
 
 
 conveyance away of 
 
 
 the waste waters. 
 
 Cotton cloth, manufacture of. 
 
 Bad smells, and danger 
 
 
 of fire. 
 
 Crystal, manufacture of. 
 
 Smoke, and danger of fire. 
 
 Varnished leather, manufacture of. 
 
 Bad smells, and danger 
 
 
 of fire. 
 
 Enamel, manufacture of. 
 
 Smoke. 
 
 Printers' ink, manufacture of. 
 
 Very disagreeable smells, 
 
 
 and clanger of fire. 
 
 Manure, depots and manufacture of. - 
 
 Disagreeable and un- 
 
 
 wholesome odours. 
 
 Knackers' establishments. 
 
 Very disagreeable smells. 
 
 Ether, manufacture of, and depots of 
 
 Explosion, and danger of 
 
 ether, when they contain more than 
 
 fire. 
 
 five gallons. 
 
 
 Fusees, manufacture of. 
 
 Explosion and fire. 
 
 Hat varnish, manufacture of. 
 
 Fire, and disagreeable 
 
 1 
 
 odours. 
 
11 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 
 Summary 
 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Furnaces, large. 
 
 Thick smoke, and danger 
 
 
 of fire. 
 
 Fulminating mercury and similar pow- 
 
 Explosion, and danger of 
 
 ders. 
 
 fire. 
 
 Pitch, manufacture of. 
 
 Very bad smells, and 
 
 
 clanger of fire. 
 
 Fat melting over open fires. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Linseed oil., boiling of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Oil of ox feet, manufacture of. 
 
 Bad odour. 
 
 Fish oil, manufacture of. - 
 
 Ditto, and danger of fire. 
 
 Oil of turpentine, distillation of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Litharge, manufacture of. - 
 
 Dangerous exhalations. 
 
 Menageries. - 
 
 Danger from the animals 
 
 
 escaping from the 
 
 
 cages. 
 
 Animal black, manufacture and depots 
 
 of. 
 Ivory black, manufacture of, when the 
 
 smoke is unconsumed. 
 Archil, manufacture of. 
 Piggeries. - 
 
 Poudrette (artificial manure). 
 Prussian red, manufacture of, in open 
 vessels. 
 
 Sal ammoniac, manufacture of. 
 Sulphur, flowers of, manufacture of. 
 
 Sulphur, distillation of. 
 
 Tallow melting. ... 
 
 Sulphate of ammonia, manufacture of, 
 
 from animal matter. 
 Sulphate of copper, manufacture of, by 
 
 means of sulphur and wirework. 
 
 Sulphate of soda, manufacture of, in 
 
 open vessels. 
 Metallic sulphates, roasting of, in the 
 
 open air. 
 Tobacco, combustion of the veins of, in 
 
 open air. 
 Oil silk, manufacture of. - 
 
 Turpentine, extraction of, in the large 
 
 way. 
 Oiled cloths, manufacture of. 
 
 Very disagreeable and 
 unwholesome effluvia. 
 
 Disagreeable odours car- 
 ried to a great distance. 
 
 Disagreeable smells. 
 
 Disagreeable effluvia and 
 noises. 
 
 Bad smells. 
 
 Emanations disagreeable 
 and injurious to vege- 
 tation, when made 
 with sulphate of iron. 
 
 Disagreeable smells. 
 
 Great danger of fire, and 
 disagreeable odours. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Badodours; dangeroffire. 
 
 Disagreeable smells car- 
 ried to a distance. 
 
 Exhalations disagreeable 
 and injurious to vege- 
 tation. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Ditto. 
 Disagreeable odour. 
 
 Danger of fire, and bad 
 
 smells. 
 Unwholesome smells, and 
 
 danger of fire. 
 Ditto. 
 
12 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 Summary 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Tripe dressing. 
 
 Slaughter-houses in towns with a popu- 
 lation exceeding 10,000. 
 Urates, manufacture of. - 
 Glass works. - - - 
 
 Bad smells, and good 
 drainage required. 
 
 Danger of animals escap- 
 ing, and bad smells. 
 
 Disagreeable odours. 
 
 Great smoke, and danger 
 of fire. 
 
 Establishments of Second Class 
 
 Absinthe or Wormwood, distillery of. 
 Acid muriatic, manufacture of, in 
 closed vessels. 
 
 Acid muriatic oxygenated. 
 
 Acid nitric, manufacture of, by the 
 decomposition of saltpetre by means 
 of sulphuric acid in Wolf's appara- 
 tus. 
 
 Acid, pyroligneous, manufacture of, 
 when the gases are consumed. 
 
 Acid, pyroligneous, all the combina- 
 tions of, with iron, lead, or soda. 
 
 Steel, manufacture of. 
 
 Refining of gold or silver by sulphu- 
 ric acid, when the gases are con- 
 densed. 
 
 Starch, manufacture of, when made 
 without the substances undergoing 
 fermentation. 
 
 Bitumen, manufacture of. - - - 
 
 Asphalte, manufacture of. 
 
 White of whale (spermaceti), refining 
 
 Bleaching of tissues of wool or silk by 
 means of gas or sulphurous acid. 
 
 Bleaching of hemp, cotton, or linen 
 by chlorine. 
 
 White lead, manufacture of. 
 
 Prussian blue, manufacture of, when 
 the smoke and hydrogen gases are 
 consumed. 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 Disap-reeable smell, and 
 inconvenient when the 
 
 vessels leak. 
 Ditto. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Slight smoke, and empy- 
 
 rcumatic odour. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Smoke, and danger of 
 fire. 
 
 Very few inconveniences 
 when the apparatus is 
 in good condition. 
 
 Bad smells. 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Slight inconveniences. 
 
 Disagreeable effluvia. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Inconvenience only "to 
 the health of the work- 
 men. 
 
 But few inconveniences 
 when the apparatus is 
 perfect, which, how- 
 ever, is rarely the case. 
 
13 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 Summary 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Bricks and tiles, manufacture of. 
 
 Laundries. - - 
 
 Calcination of bones when the smoke 
 is consumed. 
 
 Caoutchouc. Where this is dissolved 
 in turpentine to apply to tissues. 
 (Provisionally.) 
 
 Charcoal burning in the open air. 
 
 Candle making. 
 Hats, manufacture of. 
 
 Animal charcoal, when the smoke is 
 
 consumed. 
 Lime pits. - 
 Chlorine gas. - - 
 
 Chloride of lime, when the manufac- 
 ture is ixndcr 600 lbs. per clay, at 
 the most. 
 
 Alkaline chlorides, when these pro- 
 ducts are used in the establishments 
 in which they are made. 
 
 Chromate of potass, manufacture of. 
 
 Sealing wax, manufacture of. 
 
 Glue from rabbit skins, manufacture 
 
 of. 
 Fresh hides, depots of. 
 
 Copper, melting of. - 
 
 Brandy, distilleries of. 
 
 Potteries. 
 
 Tarred felt, manufacture of. 
 
 Metal founders, wholesale. 
 
 A large cpiantity of 
 smoke, given off on 
 the kilns being first 
 lighted. 
 
 Effluvia disagreeable and 
 unwholesome. 
 
 Always bad smells, even 
 when the apparatus in 
 the best order. 
 
 Smells and smoke very 
 disagreeable, and ex- 
 tending to a distance. 
 
 Some danger of fire, 
 slight smell. 
 
 Disagreeable odour, and 
 black dust carried to 
 a distance. 
 
 Bad smell always pre- 
 sent. 
 
 Much smoke. 
 
 Smell disagreeable and 
 annoying. 
 
 Ditto. " 
 
 Ditto, but the inconve- 
 niences rather less. 
 
 Disengagement of nitrous 
 
 Some danger of fire. 
 Bad odour. 
 
 Odour disagreeable and 
 noxious. 
 
 Smoke, and noxious ema- 
 nations. 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Smoke. 
 
 Bad smells, and danger 
 of fire. 
 
 Noxious vapours, es- 
 pecially when lead, 
 zinc, copper, &c, are 
 melted. 
 
14 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 or 
 
 Summary 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Forges, large. 
 
 
 Much smoke, and danger 
 of fire. 
 
 Gold and silver lace, burning in 
 
 a 
 
 Bad smells. 
 
 large way. 
 Gas works and gasometers. 
 
 
 Odours noxious, smoke, 
 and danger of fire and 
 
 Gin distilleries. 
 
 
 explosion. 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Herring's, 
 
 salting. 
 
 Oil of turpentine and other essential 
 oils, depots of. 
 
 Purification of oils by sulphuric acid. - 
 
 Bacon, places for smoking. 
 Washing and drying sponges, esta- 
 blishments for. 
 Liqueurs, fabrication of. 
 Morocco leather, manufacture of. 
 Machines and boilers at high pressure, 
 
 of more than two atmospheres. 
 Machines and boilers working at low 
 
 pressure, consuming or not their 
 
 own smoke. 
 Plaster mills. 
 
 Flour mills in towns. 
 
 Black from soot, manufacture of. 
 
 Ivory black, manufacture of, where 
 the smoke is consumed. 
 
 Mineral black. 
 
 Refining gold and silver by furnace. 
 
 Archil, manufacture of, in closed ves- 
 sels, only employing ammonia, no 
 salts of urea. 
 
 Bone, bleachings for fans and buttons. 
 
 Oxyde of zinc. 
 
 Paper, manufacture of. 
 
 Parchment, manufacture of. - 
 
 Phosphorus, manufacture of. 
 
 Smoking pipes, manufacture of. 
 
 Porcelain, manufacture of. 
 
 Prussian red, manufacture of, in closed 
 vessels. 
 
 Bad odours. 
 
 Very great danger of fire, 
 
 must be isolated from 
 
 all dwelling-houses. 
 Danger of fire, and bad 
 
 smells. 
 Bad odours, and smoke. 
 Bad odour.-, produced by 
 
 the escaping waters. 
 Danger of fire. 
 Bad odours. 
 Smoke, and danger of 
 
 fire and explosion. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Much noise when done 
 by the dry system ; 
 there is injury to the 
 health of theworkmen, 
 and slighter mischief 
 even to the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 Noise and dust. 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Smells bad. 
 
 Bad odours. 
 Unwholesome vapours. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Few inconveniences. 
 Much smoke and dust. 
 Danger of fire. 
 Disagreeable odour. 
 Danger of fire. 
 Smoke. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Slight noxious vapours, 
 and smoke. 
 
15 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 
 Summary 
 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Salting fish, workshops for. 
 
 Very disagreeable odours. 
 
 Salt fish, depots of. - 
 
 Disagreeable odour. 
 
 Dried cod, depots of. - 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Sulphur, fusion of. 
 
 Great danger of fire, and 
 
 
 bad smell. 
 
 Sugar, refineries of. 
 
 Smoke, and bad odour*. 
 
 Sugar, manufacture of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Tallow, melting of, in water bath. 
 
 Some danger of fire. 
 
 Sulphate of soda, manufacture of, in 
 
 Slight odour, and smoke. 
 
 closed vessels. 
 
 
 Sulphate of iron and zinc, fabrication of. 
 
 Odour slightly disagree- 
 
 with sulphuric acid and the metals. 
 
 able. 
 
 Metallic sulphurets, roasting of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Tobacco, manufacture of. 
 
 Odour very disagreeable. 
 
 Tanning. 
 
 Bad odours. 
 
 Bleaching by oxygenated muriatic 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 acid. 
 
 
 Establishments of Third Class. 
 
 Acetate of lead, manufacture of. 
 
 - 
 
 Inconveniences chiefly to 
 the health of the ar- 
 tisans. 
 
 Acetic acid, manufacture of. - 
 
 - 
 
 Few inconveniences. 
 
 Tartaric acid, manufacture of. 
 
 - 
 
 Slight odours. 
 
 Ammonia, manufacture of, wholesale. 
 
 Disagreeable odours. 
 
 and the salts of ammonia. 
 
 
 
 Artificial slates and mastics of various 
 
 Ditto, and danger of fire. 
 
 kinds, manufacture of. 
 
 
 
 Whalebone, working of 
 
 
 Noise, and foetid odour, 
 noxious and disagree- 
 able. 
 
 Beating wool or hair constantly 
 
 in 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 large quantities. 
 
 
 
 Gold and silver beaters. 
 
 - 
 
 Noise. 
 
 Bleaching hemp, linen, or cotton, 
 
 by 
 
 Slight inconveniences. 
 
 alkaline chlorides. 
 
 
 
 Spanish white, manufacture of. 
 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Artificial borax, manufacture of. 
 
 _ 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Borax, refining. 
 
 . 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Candles from spermaceti. 
 
 - 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Metallic buttons, manufacture of. 
 
 . 
 
 Noise. 
 
 Breweries. 
 
 - 
 
 Much smoke, and a little 
 smell. 
 
 Brick kilns, with only one furnacs 
 
 in 
 
 Much smoke at the com- 
 
 the open air. 
 
 
 mencement. 
 
It) 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 
 Summary 
 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Phosphoric matches. - 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Laundries. 
 
 Soap and water decom- 
 
 Camphor, preparation and refinement 
 
 pose. 
 Strong odours, and danger 
 
 of. 
 
 of fire. 
 
 Type founding. 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Burnt sugar, manufacture of, wholesale 
 
 Danger of fire, and bad 
 
 (caramel). 
 
 smell. 
 
 Cinder washing. 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Chicory, manufacture of. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Firewood, wharfs or yards of, in towns. 
 
 Danger of fire, requiring 
 
 
 the surveillance of po- 
 
 
 lice. 
 
 Charcoal, depots of, in towns. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Limekilns, only working one month in 
 
 Great smoke. 
 
 the year. 
 
 
 Chromate of lead, manufacture of. 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Wax melting. 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 Horn, shaving of. - 
 
 Slight bad smells. 
 
 Dyers. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Gilding on metals. 
 
 Danger to the health of 
 
 
 of workmen. 
 
 Writing ink, manufacture of. - 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Fattening cattle, large establishments 
 
 Bad odours and incon- 
 
 for. 
 
 veniences. 
 
 Tinfoil, manufacture of. 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Potatoe starch, manufacture of. 
 
 Bad odours from the wa- 
 
 
 ters when they are 
 
 
 kept. 
 
 Tin plate, manufacture of. 
 
 Slight inconvenience. 
 
 Meltcrs by means of crucible. 
 
 Slight smoke. 
 
 Cheese, depots of. - 
 
 Very bad odours. 
 
 Hydrogen gas, small apparatus for 
 
 Smells, danger of explo- 
 
 making. 
 
 sion and fire. 
 
 Gasometers, not attached to gas works, 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 and holding above 10 cubic metres. 
 
 
 Gelatine from bones, manufacture of, 
 
 Smells bad, when the 
 
 by acids and boiling. 
 
 materials are not fresh. 
 
 Looking-glass makers. 
 
 Dangers for the work- 
 
 
 men only. 
 
 Lake colours, manufacture of. 
 
 Slight. 
 
 Wool washing, establishments for. 
 
 Should be placed on 
 
 
 banks of river or run- 
 
 
 ning stream. 
 
 Glazing skins. - 
 
 Slight, 
 
 Oil mills. - - - 
 
 Odour, and danger of fire. 
 
 Yellow ochre, calcination of. - 
 
 Some smoke. 
 
 Papers, painted and marble, manufac- 
 
 Danger of fire. 
 
 ture of. 
 
 
17 
 
 Description of the unwholesome, dangerous, or 
 inconvenient Establishments. 
 
 Shot factories. - 
 
 Plumbers, and makers of fountains. 
 
 Potass, manufacture of. 
 
 Sabots, establishments for smoking. 
 
 Saltpetre, manufacture of. 
 
 Soap boiling. 
 
 Salt refining. - - 
 
 Dry subcarbonate of soda, manufacture of. 
 
 Soda, manufacture of, by decomposition 
 of the sulphate. 
 
 Sulphate of copper, by means of sul- 
 phuric acid, and oxide or carbonate 
 of copper. 
 
 Sulphate of potass, refining. - 
 
 Sulphate of iron and alum. 
 
 Tartar, refining. 
 
 Wire-drawing. 
 
 Slaughter-houses in communes contain- 
 ing fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. 
 
 Cow-keepers in towns with more than 
 5,000 souls. 
 
 Verdigris, manufacture of. 
 
 Meat, preserving. 
 
 Vinegar, manufacture of. 
 
 Summary 
 of their inconveniences. 
 
 Slight. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Smoke. 
 
 Smoke and fire. 
 
 Bad smells, smoke, and 
 
 disagreeables. 
 Slight. 
 
 Slight smoke. 
 Smoke. 
 
 Slight, 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Smoke and smells. 
 
 Slight. 
 
 Noise and fire. 
 
 Bad smell?. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Slight. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 On the effects on health of various Professions and 
 Occupations. 
 
 The professions, if we except those called " liberal," are recruited 
 almost invariably from among the middling and lower classes. It 
 follows, that the influence of many occupations is engraved in per- 
 manent characters on the organization of certain classes of society, 
 and gives rise to hereditary modifications, which combine with 
 those of race, climate, &c. Such is the predominance of the 
 nervous system among persons devoted to literary pursuits ; the 
 disposition to pulmonary consumption transmitted to their children 
 by parents whom their occupations expose to this disease. Thus 
 M. Lombard, of Genoa, has found that in a thousand deaths, con- 
 sumption had furnished the following proportions: — 
 Occupations — 
 
 With vegetable and mineral emanations - 176 
 With various dusts - - - - - 14o 
 With sedentary life - - - - 140 
 
28 
 
 Occupations— continued. 
 
 With workshop life - i 38 
 
 With hot and dry air - - - -127 
 
 With stooping posture - 122 
 
 With sudden movements of arms - 116 
 
 With muscular exercise and active life - 89 
 
 With exercise of the voice - 75 
 
 Living in the open air - 73 
 
 With animal emanations - - 60 
 
 With watery vapour ... 53 
 
 In manufactures, the majority of workmen are affected with 
 scrofula ; this scourge marks the children, the youths with its 
 scars, its swellings, its infirmities, its hideous deformities ; it 
 attacks more especially the weavers and their families. 
 
 The populations of the manufacturing towns are weak and dimi- 
 nutive ; bent over their looms and living in shade, they become 
 etiolated like plants. Since the great increase of the manufactures 
 in the department of the Haut-Ehin (from 1810 to 1823), the 
 average height of the people has not increased in the same propor- 
 tion as in the neighbouring departments. Official documents prove 
 that the population of the manufacturing towns is less vigorous 
 than that of the rural district r-. Everything tends to exhaust it; 
 placed as auxiliaries by the side of the devouring activity of 
 steam or a fall of water which never reposes, it carries to its 
 utmost limits the development of its forces ; in the large assem- 
 blages of all ages and sexes, the passions are lighted up, the con- 
 tagion of vice acts with a kind of furor, and the excesses of 
 debauchery accelerate the deterioration of the strongest con- 
 stitutions. In this manner the sources of reproduction become 
 impoverished and corrupt: conceived in misery and libertinage, 
 the weak scions of this bastardised population pass in their turns 
 under the empire of the same causes of physical and moral degra- 
 dation : it is in tact a circle without end, in which health and 
 life go on exhausting themselves continually. 
 
 Sexes. 
 
 The comparative weakness of women exposes them to more 
 dangers in the works they execute in common with men, and 
 renders them more liable to the attacks of the noxious effects of 
 each calling: they furnish, indeed, in the occupations exercised 
 by the two sexes more di-.oa.-es and more maladies than the males. 
 This result is parti}' due to the difference of their earnings, which 
 are less than those of the men, because they have less strength to 
 spend. Up to the age of 15 or 16 the wages differ little for the 
 two sexes; but from that time, the earnings of the women are 
 much inferior to those of the men, and after the age of twenty, the 
 woman obtains in general but half the amount that the man docs. 
 Now the salary is the nourishment, the clothing, the lodging ; the 
 workwoman is therefore ill fed, ill clothed, ill lodged; she lan- 
 guishes in narrow circumstances, often in misery, which finishes 
 the destruction of her constitution. 
 
19 
 
 And as the deprivation of enjoyments does not extinguish the 
 taste or the desire for them, as want is a bad adviser, and quickly 
 triumphs over the weak resistance of a conscience without religious 
 light to guide it, first debauchery, then excesses of all kinds come 
 in to consummate the work of destruction commenced by distress. 
 Certain occupations have a more rapid decline to evil : needle- 
 women, dressmakers, embroideresses, modistes, &c, furnish always 
 more of the class of public Avomen than women employed in brush- 
 making, menders of old clothes, &c. The separation of the sexes 
 in the workshops is a measure imperiously demanded for the 
 moralisation of the working population. 
 
 Age. 
 
 On the 22d of March 1841 a law came into operation, of which 
 the following are the principal provisions. 
 
 On account of the clanger and insalubrity, children shall not be 
 employed under the age of 16 years in certain establishments, to 
 be determined by the Government. From 8 to 12 years of age, 
 they shall not work more than 8 hours a day, these hours to be 
 divided by a repose ; from 12 to 16 years of age, 12 hours of 
 work per day, divided by times of rest, and comprised between 
 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. In the works of urgency which take place 
 during night, children can only be employed if they are above 
 12 years of age, and during 8 hours only in the 24. 
 
 Health. 
 
 The various employments divide themselves under this head 
 into two classes, depending upon whether they are carried on in 
 the open air, or in confined air. Consumption is twice as frequent 
 in the first case as in the second. The latter group comprises 
 professions carried on in vast spaces well aerated, others which 
 confine the workmen in narrow close localities. M. Lombard 
 finds phthisis in a larger proportion among the latter than among 
 the former. Thus the workshop well closed, where are arranged 
 a certain number of workmen ; the schools where studious youths 
 are congregated; the closet where the professor passes long hours 
 in meditation, act all in a similar manner ; all these temporary 
 habitations sin by their dimensions, by the non-renewing of the 
 air, by the elevation of the temperature, and the hygrometric 
 saturation of the atmosphere, &c. In a great number of occupa- 
 tions the atmosphere is loaded with vapours or dusts, which exert 
 a direct action on the lung, and may give rise to general pheno- 
 mena. The matters in solution in the air are purely aqueous, 
 animal, vegetable, or mineral ; they will be discussed farther on. 
 
 As to the dusts, independently of the specific effects they pro- 
 duce by their nature, they exercise a direct influence on the lung, 
 which is in the ratio of the volume, the 'weight, and the consist- 
 ence of their molecules. 
 
 The inhalation of coarse particles is less dangerous than that of 
 dusts finely divided, which penetrate more easily into the last 
 ramifications of the air cells. The researches of Messrs. Benoiston 
 and Lombard have proved that sculptors, masons, plasterers, exca- 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 vators, hatters, brushmakers, harness-makers, mattress-makers, 
 &c, furnish fewer consumptive patients than millers, wig-makers, 
 paviors, sweepers of streets, charcoal-dealers, bakers, cutlers, 
 chimney-sweeps, polishers, &c. 
 
 Dusts from hard substances cause a much greater number of 
 consumptive cases than dusts from soft bodies, or of ordinary hard- 
 ness. The specific gravity of the dusts does not affect in any 
 marked manner the production of phthisis. 
 
 Under the consideration of their origin, mineral dusts are the 
 most noxious to the lungs ; then follow animal dusts, and lastly 
 vegetable. 1 he private habitations of workmen leave much to be 
 desired ; they live in narrow, dirty, obscure streets ; too fre- 
 quently only one room, encumbered with beds, tools, chairs, servea 
 at the same time as workshop, kitelien, and bedroom. M. Vil- 
 lerme, however, observes that the habitations of the labouring 
 classes are generally beginning to improve ; one sees many that 
 are healthily and conveniently constructed. 
 
 Generally those workmen, whose conduct and manners are 
 blameable, live in the same streets and the same houses, in the most 
 filthy and most unwholesome parts of the town, whilst the good 
 and meritorious artisans seek different quarters, and make pecu- 
 niary sacrifices to establish their separation from the former class. 
 The rendering healthy the habitations of the working-classes is one 
 of the first requirements of public health ; it is the duty of those in 
 authority to attempt it. The commodious settling of working 
 families would not be a fruitless enterprise ; it would implant in 
 them a love of home, a taste for domestic life ; it would strengthen 
 the ties of family, would inspire them with sentiments of fore- 
 thought and economy by the possession of the first element of 
 comfort. 
 
 Dress. 
 
 Labourers, although better dressed than formerly, have still 
 much to desire and to do for their cleanliness, for their vestimentary 
 protection ; they do not change their linen sufficiently often ; they 
 lieep on their bodies clothes impregnated with sweat, they put them 
 on badly, or do not cover themselves completely ; from thence arise 
 a host of diseases that they attribute to the action of cold, without 
 thinking that it is in their power to annul this cause by dressing 
 more properly. 
 
 Smelters, blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-heaters, stokers, 
 bakers, fcc, who are plunged in a burning atmosphere, take no 
 precaution whatever on quitting their work ; those who execute 
 works requiring great strength, cool themselves with the same 
 imprudence. 
 
 Greater care paid to the clothing, and its more fit appropriation 
 to the wants of various professions, would reduce the number of 
 severe diseases and the mortality thence ensuing. 
 
 Various Senses injured. 
 
 Certain employments fatigue particularly one or other of the 
 senses. Those which are concerned with very shining materials, 
 
21 
 
 as metals, looking-glasses, &c, injure the sight ; it is of importance 
 to interpose between the artificial light and the object worked at 
 a piece of stretched canvas, an oiled paper, a gauge, or some other 
 screen which intercepts the direct luminous rays, and will only 
 permit a diffused light to pass. 
 
 The smallness of the objects, and the intensity of direct or re- 
 flected light, always end in compromising the integrity of the vision. 
 Many astronomers, who have applied themselves to the observation 
 of the sun, as Galileo, have become totally blind ; opticians who 
 daily examine and test spectacles and microscopes, engravers, 
 watchmakers, compositors, &c, are threatened with amblyopia and 
 amaurosis ; night-work fatigues as much by the smallness of the 
 print or the writing, as by the whiteness of the paper reflecting the 
 light of the lamps; workwomen in linen, lace, &c, are forced by 
 the same cause to have early recourse to the use of spectacles. 
 
 It is not exactly known whether the trades in which hammers 
 are used, and the sojourn in workshops in which noisy engines ply, 
 cause a weakening of the organ of hearing ; but this appears to be 
 very probable, according to the observation of Percy on the effect 
 of detonations of artillery, which causes many gunners to experience 
 rupture of the tympanum. 
 
 Extracts from the Ordonnances concerning Public 
 Abattoirs in Paris. 
 
 (Condensed from the French Laws and Ordonnances de Police, from 
 
 1800 to 1850.) 
 
 Abattoiks. — Slaughter-houses. 
 
 By a decree made by Napoleon I., dated February 9th, 
 1810, it was determined to erect five abattoirs at the expense of 
 the city of Paris, as the following extract from the Moniteur of 
 February 10th shows: — 
 
 " A decree of February 9th, 1810, made by His Majesty, in His 
 " Palace of the Tuilleries, contains the following provisions : — 
 
 " ' There shall be established five abattoirs at Paris, three on the 
 " ' right bank of the river, one of which shall contain 24 slaughter- 
 " ' houses, the second 18, and the third 12. The two abattoirs on 
 " ' the left bank shall each contain 18 slaughter-houses.' " 
 
 This plan was subsequently very much altered and extended. 
 
 The following table gives a summary of the relative sizes and 
 capacities of each of the five abattoirs : — 
 
 
 Name of Abattoir. 
 
 Acres. 
 
 No. and Area 
 of Slaughter-houses. 
 
 
 Montmartre 
 Grenelle - - 
 Du Koule 
 Menilrnontant - 
 Villejuif 
 
 8| 
 
 71 
 
 5| 
 
 10* 
 
 5| 
 
 sq. yds. 
 64 - - 3,872 
 48 - 2,904 
 32 1,936 
 64 3,872 
 32 - 1,936 
 
22 
 
 Each of these u about If miles from the centre of the city, but 
 within the barriers, as the small plan attached will show. 
 
 These five abattoirs were completed in the year 1818. 
 
 The following are the principal clauses relating to the public 
 health : — 
 
 7. The inspector of police will attest the fact of the natural 
 death of any beast in the abattoirs. The inspectors of the butchers 
 will send the animals so dying to the menagerie, as well as all 
 other meats (in whatever place they are found) that they consider 
 unfit for human consumption. 
 
 48. All the animals intended for the butchers' trade of Paris, 
 without exception, can only be slaughtered and dressed in one of 
 the five public abattoirs. 
 
 52. The butchers must provide themselves with gambrels, 
 blocks, tubs, backets, wheel-barrows, and all other necessary tools 
 and instruments, which they must keep clean and in good condition. 
 
 64. Admission into the oxen sheds during the night with lights 
 is prohibited, unless they are covered. 
 
 67. Butchers may kill at any hour of the day or night. 
 
 68. Butchers who slaughter at night are ordered to declare the 
 same to the superintendent of police. 
 
 69. It is strictly prohibited to leave the doors open during the 
 slaughtering. 
 
 70. The butchers are enjoined to cause their scalding-houses to 
 be washed after killing. 
 
 71. They are prohibited from leaving in the scalding-houses any 
 tallow, grease, dung, intestines, or skins of any kind. 
 
 72. The butchers must remove the dung from the oxen's stalls 
 every month, or as frequently as requested by the police, and the 
 liquids every day. 
 
 73. Accumulations of hair and skulls are prohibited. 
 
 75. Xo slaughtering of oxen, cows, or calves is permitted in the 
 courtyards or paved yards. 
 
 76. The oxen and cows, before being killed, must be securely 
 fastened to a ring in the wall of each slaughtering room. 
 
 The butchers are responsible for any accident arising from 
 neglect of this article. 
 
 77. The bullocks and oxen known to be dangerous must be driven 
 to the abattoirs and scalding-rooms in chains, or coupled together, 
 together. 
 
 78. The calves and sheep must be bled in tubs, so that the blood 
 shall not find its way into the channels which lead to the drains. 
 
 79. The butchers to cause the walls, floors, and doors of the 
 scalding-houses to be frequently scraped and washed. 
 
 80. They must not deposit the skins and hides of the beasts in 
 the streets or paved yards. 
 
 92. The persons employed in removing the blood must remain 
 in the work yard during the killing. 
 
 93. They are prohibited from encumbering the passages and 
 paddocks with their casks, either full or empty. They must place 
 them where directed by the police. 
 
 9-1. Every day, after work, they mus ^ roll the casks full into 
 the appointed places. 
 
23 
 
 These must not remain in the abattoirs more than 24 hours. 
 
 95. The contractors for the liquids must remove them com- 
 pletely each day and hour prescribed. 
 
 96. The fats resulting from the slaughtering can be melted at 
 no other place than the abattoirs. 
 
 132. The entrails of all the animals slaughtered in each abattoir 
 to be dressed and prepared in the tripe establishment of each abat- 
 toir before they are removed. 
 
 Those entrails that are intended for the exterior of Paris are 
 excepted. 
 
 141. Butchers, melters, and tripe-boilers, to employ only covered 
 vehicles for the carriage of their goods. 
 
 155. Any butcher's boy selling calves found in the inside of 
 cows that he has killed, and who does not immediately declare the 
 fact to the superintendent of police, in order that these unwhole- 
 some meats may be cut in pieces, to be thrown into the common 
 receptacle, shall be tried and punished according to law. 
 
 261. The larger entrails only to be sold after having undergone 
 certain preparations. 
 
 These dressings only to be made in the tripe establishments of 
 the abattoirs. 
 
 The butchers and their assistants to transfer these parts forth- 
 with to the tripe preparers. 
 
 262. The tripe-dressers to remove these parts from the boiling- 
 houses to the drying-houses immediately. 
 
 Remarks and observations on the Public Abattoir system 
 of Paris, with explanatory remarks. 
 
 The abattoirs, intended at first only to receive oxen, bulls, cows, 
 calves, and sheep, required to be rendered complete by adding 
 similar conveniences for pigs, and, at the present time, piggeries 
 are almost everywhere united to the abattoirs for other cattle. 
 Nevertheless, although by Article 2 of the ordonnance of April 15, 
 1838, the establishment of public abattoirs for pigs, suppresses the 
 private killing of these animals, the authorities have thought it 
 right to permit private individuals to kill pigs intended for their 
 own family use, in closed places away from public paths. 
 
 In addition to the buildings used for the lodging of the persons 
 employed, the abattoirs of Paris are composed of four parts entirely 
 distinct : — 
 
 1st. That where the animals about to be slaughtered are kepi. 
 2d. The abattoir proper, with all its accessories. 
 3d. The places where are prepared the entrails of the slaugh- 
 tered animals. 
 4th. Lastly, those places where they prepare the tallow and 
 fat. 
 There is nothing particular to remark on the places of reception 
 for the oxen, sheep, and pigs, where are taken directly all the 
 animals coming from the markets, except that they must be suffi- 
 
24 
 
 ciently spacious, very airy and kept clean, particularly the pig- 
 geries, which must be cleansed every day. 
 
 The abattoir proper, commonly known under the name of 
 echaudoir (boiling house), i3 built round one or more work yards 
 completely paved, with gentle side slopes which conduct to a draft 
 hole in the centre all liquids which run from the e'ehaudoirs and 
 from the yards themselves: a tap opened at each corner facilitates 
 the cleansing. The buildings are divided into a certain number of 
 workshops called " cases d'abat," paved and piwided with a tap 
 for washing, a hollow trough made in the pavement to receive the 
 blood, a system of windlasses and pullies to raise the bodv of the 
 animal, of two frames on which are placed the rollers for suspend- 
 ing the quarters of beef, and long iron bolts or hooks for calves 
 and sheep. The roofs of the e'ehaudoirs project several yards, so as 
 to protect the interior from the rays of the sun and to keep up a 
 continual coolness. This coolness, according to M. Parent 
 Duchatelet, confirmed by the observations of Hugard, the elder, 
 in Alsatia and Switzerland, is necessary, not only for the pre- 
 servation of the meat in summer, but also for preventing the 
 flies from attacking it. " There is neither canvass nor metallic 
 gauze which can compare in this respect with a temperature lower 
 by some few degrees than the surrounding atmosphere." An 
 indispensable addition to the echaudoir is a court for the liquids. 
 Into this arc run all matters derived from the intestines, and all 
 the filth of the abattoirs. These yards, known under the names of 
 voiries or coelies, and provided witli the means of washing; found 
 necessary, are placed above a large drain, and cleaned out every 
 night. In the pig abattoir, there are in addition burners or 
 boilers, according as an open fire or boiling water are made use of 
 to skin the pigs, and hangers where the dressing t;d;es place. 
 
 Certain parts of the slaughtered animals, known under the 
 name of "issues," and intended for the tripe trade, must undergo, 
 before being removed from the establishment, particular prepara- 
 tions. From thence results the necessity of workshops perfectly 
 isolated, some of which are reserved for washing and eookin"- the 
 stomachs of oxen, cows, and sheep, and the preparation of sheens' 
 toes from which the wool and claws have been removed ; and 
 some serve for the preparation of calves' heads and feet, and for 
 cooking sheeps' heads, or for washing, scraping, and dressing; the 
 intestines of pig*. It is right that these buildings, built of hewn 
 stone, and consisting of one storey only, should have their summits 
 constructed of a framework of iron covered with zinc. 
 
 The ordonnances of police do not permit in Paris the meltinn- of 
 tallow " en branche,'' by which is understood all the fatty parts of 
 the animals, in any other place than the public abattoirs. The 
 advantages of this regulation, as regards public convenience, cannot, 
 recompense for the grave inconveniences that are caused by it, to 
 the abattoirs. The melting takes place in stoves of not less 
 capacity than 1,000 kilo-grammes. On account of the danger of 
 fire from this operation, and which contributes to add to the 
 opinion that the melting should be removed from the abattoirs, all 
 lights must be kept in closed lanterns, and with a metallic gauze. 
 
25 
 
 Water Supply. 
 
 Such are the different parts which compose an abattoir ; but 
 there is a condition essential to the salubrity of these establish- 
 ments, viz., the water supply. " Before constructing an abattoir,'' 
 says Parent Duchatelet, " we must be especially careful about two 
 circumstances of the highest importance : — 
 
 1. The means of having abundance of water. 
 
 2. The means of carrying it off again." 
 
 This twofold consideration must govern the choice of localities 
 for an abattoir. Wells, steam-engines, or mills, and reservoirs will 
 serve to bring and hold the water. Not less than 20,000 gallons 
 are required for the daily use of one of the Paris abattoirs, and at 
 Kouen about 8,000 gallons. This water is not only made use of 
 to wash the workshops and court-yards, in which places it should 
 be continually flowing, but it is employed in the preparation and 
 cooking of the entrails of the cattle, &c. It is also necessary that 
 the water employed in the cooking of tripe shall have undergone 
 no alteration, and that it is pure and well filtered. The Council of 
 Health of Nantes has well pointed out the importance of this. As 
 regards the water for washing, and especially the cooking waters, 
 in which 300 or 400 stomachs have been successively boiled, the 
 rapidity with which these putrify, and the noxious odom-s they 
 exhale, require that an easy and unobstructed flow be secured for 
 the waters which leave the abattoirs. There are different ways of 
 effecting this end. The usual mode consists in special drains 
 which lead either directly to the river or into other sewers, the 
 fall of which should be at least one in fifty. At Rouen, where 
 the abattoir is the model of cleanliness, the waters used for 
 washing run into immense subterranean aqueducts, which meander 
 through the entire abattoir, and conduct the waters to the lowest 
 and most distant part of the establishment. 
 
 But whatever care is taken, the drains of the abattoirs which 
 receive the remnants of animal matter, pieces of intestine, 
 blood, &c, always give off a more or less fetid smell, and expose the 
 men who clean them to greater dangers than the ordinary drains. 
 
 The cattle destined for food arc conducted immediately to the 
 abattoirs, where a special inspection is made by competent persons. 
 It is prohibited to slaughter in these establishments any animals 
 attacked with or suspected of being attacked with contagious 
 diseases. The animals affected by other diseases cannot be 
 slaughtered without the consent of the inspectors of the butchers, 
 and incase of doubt, without the previous inspection of a veterinary 
 surgeon. Animals dying accidentally in the abattoirs are subjected 
 to thesame pi'ovisions. Lastly, the meat itself mustbe inspected after 
 the killing, and if found deteriorated, hurtful, or stinking, is seized. 
 
 Every public and communal abattoir, and the private abattoir 
 of every town whose population exceeds 10,000, are langed in the 
 first class of unwholesome establishments, while the private 
 abattoirs of towns, with a smaller population than 10,000, are 
 placed only in the third class. 
 
26 
 
 On the Practical Working of the Abattoirs of Paris. 
 To the Eight Hon. Sir George Grey, Bart. 
 
 11, Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, 
 
 Sir, May 1855. 
 
 In compliance with the instructions contained in Mr. Wadding- 
 ton's letter to me of the date of the 8th November 1854, to the 
 intent that, if I considered it necessary to visit Paris to observe the 
 practical working of the French laws for regulating unwholesome 
 trades and occupations, I was authorized to do so, I beg to state 
 that having visited the French capital for this purpose, I had 
 every facility afforded me by M. Billault, the Minister of the 
 Interior. 
 
 I have the honor of submitting the following observations on 
 the practical working of the abattoirs in the neighbourhood of 
 Paris. 
 
 I visited those of Montmartre, La Villette, and Menilmontant 
 or Popincourt. 
 
 The abattoir of Montmartre, where, I understand, more beasts 
 are slaughtered than in the whole of the four other abattoirs 
 together, is considerably too small. It is also built too close to 
 the contiguous houses, not beiDg farther than fifteen metres from 
 the adjacent tenements, the inhabitants of which complain loudly 
 and repeatedly of the noxious odours emanating therefrom. 
 
 These odours are principally from the operations connected with 
 the process of melting tallow. This is done in two modes : the 
 old one consists in melting down the fat of the animals in a large 
 copper holding nearly eight hundredweights, and placed over the 
 open fire. The new process consists in placing the fat mixed with 
 a certain proportion of water and a fiftieth part of the same 
 amount of sulphuric acid in an air-tight closed copper, heated by 
 steam. It is the former old method alone which appears to cause 
 the very sickly disagreeable odour so much complained of. 
 
 The newly improved acid process is quite free from this dis- 
 advantage, and as I am informed, is about to be enforced in all 
 cases in the Paris abattoirs. The tallow formed by the two 
 processes varies in appearance, and to a certain extent in quality. 
 
 It appears that for all purposes of candle making, the one is as 
 serviceable and makes as good candles as the other ; but for the 
 purposes of leather making, the tallow formed by the acid process 
 does not answer so well as the other. I presume this to arise from 
 the tallow in this case containing a small quantity of the sulphuric 
 acid in combination with it. 
 
 This latter species of tallow is whiter and rather firmer than the 
 open fire tallow. 
 
 The vapours given off by the old process attack the throats of 
 the neighbours, causing a feeling of constriction and sickness. 
 However, it does not appear that the workmen themselves, when 
 they have once become habituated to these operations, experience 
 any ill effects from them. 
 
 They are particularly healthy, being free from bowel complaints 
 
27 
 
 and fever, and rarely or ever having attacks of cholera in seasons 
 of epidemics. This is a fact that has constantly been given to me 
 in evidence both in France and England, that workmen engaged 
 in manufactories connected with dead animal matter are particularly 
 free from disorders of this class. 
 
 All the bouveries or stables for the cattle, both of Montmartre 
 and the other abattoirs, are far too low and close, and very de- 
 ficient in means of ventilation. There is much ammonia given 
 off, and the dung and manure are not changed sufficiently often 
 — only once a month. 
 
 The semicircular windows are not nearly capacious enough. 
 
 The abattoirs, especially that of Montmartre, are far from being 
 as clean as such places should be. The slaughtering courts are 
 not well drained ; the fluids do not find their way off the pavements 
 sufficiently rapidly. 
 
 The courts themselves are too close and crowded ; and from not 
 being covered in with glass the workmen are exposed to rain 
 during many consecutive hours in wet weather. They frequently 
 suffer from cold and rheumatism. 
 
 In any abattoirs to be formed in this country, all the slaughtering 
 courts should be at least ten feet wider than those of Montmartre ; 
 and the upper storeys of these, known by the name of " sechoirs," 
 having been originally built for the purpose of drying the hides of 
 the animals before they were sold, are quite useless for this 
 purpose, which is not carried out. The sechoirs are now only 
 employed as dressing rooms for the journeymen butchers. 
 
 Much of the meat that is brought alive to the abattoirs by 
 railway is injured by the hind quarters of the cattle being bruised. 
 This part of the meat becomes injected with blood and quickly 
 putrefies, especially in the summer, and is seized by the inspectors 
 as unfit for human food. 
 
 I have the honor to be, 
 Sir, 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 Waller Lewis. 
 
 Ordonnances concerning Knackers. 
 
 A Police Ordonnance was issued in the year 1811 (24th 
 August 1811), by Baron Pasquier, which contained 15 articles. 
 
 It ordered that in 10 days from that date all knackers then in 
 business must present their licences, and get them renewed under 
 regulations which would only accord licences to those who were 
 provided, or would provide themselves, with certain tools, utensils, 
 
 &c. 
 
 The ordonnance of that date was subsequently altered and 
 modified by the following, dated 15th September 1842. 
 
 1. All persons exercising or wishing to exercise the occupation 
 of a knacker must declare the same at the Prefecture of Police. 
 
 He must declare what tools and utensils necessary for that 
 commerce he is possessed of, and these must receive our approval. 
 
28 
 
 2. The carts and vehicles for the transport of the animals must 
 be so constructed as not to allow the escape of any liquids, or the 
 contents of the carts to be seen. 
 
 These vehicles must, before being used, be submitted to the 
 examination of our agents. They will then receive an official 
 stamp. 
 
 Independently of the metallic plate with which they will be 
 furnished, the knackers must cause to be painted on some visible 
 part of the vehicle, in letters at least six centimetres in length, 
 their name, business, and address. 
 
 3. The vehicle must always accompany a train of live animals. 
 
 4. No living or dead animals intended for the knacker must 
 enter Paris. 
 
 5. No knackers' operations are allowed to be carried on in 
 Paris. These operations are only to be performed in the suburban 
 establishments erected for this purpose. 
 
 6. The dead animals removed from Paris, as well as the living 
 animals intended for the knacker, can only be taken to the 
 knacker's, from midnight to 6 a.m. in the summer, and to 8 a.m. in 
 the winter. 
 
 7. Glandered horses, and all other animals attacked with con- 
 tagious diseases, dead or living, must be taken forthwith to the 
 knacker's without stopping on the road, under any pretence. 
 
 8. Knackers to remove, on demand by any one, immediately, 
 animals dead on the public paths, or in any private place. 
 
 9. Infringers of the last article to be brought before the 
 public tribunals. 
 
 10. The ordonnance of August 1811 is repealed. 
 
 11. This ordonnance to be executed by the police, &c. 
 
 (Signed) Gr. Delessert. 
 
 Ordonnance concerning the opening and police regula- 
 tions of the Knackers Abattoir established by the City 
 of Paris at Aubervilliers. 
 
 CnAPTER I. 
 
 Regulations relative to the Knackers. 
 
 1. The abattoir to open 1st November 1841. 
 
 2. Knackers already authorized may cany 
 Aubervilliers. 
 
 They are to address their demand to the Prefet de Police. 
 
 3. If their operations require the aid of machines, furnaces, 
 &c, they must, previously to erecting such, receive the authority 
 of the Prefet of the Seine. 
 
 4. Animals intended for slaughtering, once brought into the 
 establishment, cannot leave it under any pretext. 
 
 5. When live animals pass a night in the abattoir, a truss of 
 hay, weighing 10 lb?., must be given to each horse or mule, and 
 half a truss to each donkey. 
 
29 
 
 6. Each stall serving as stable shall be cleaned out every 
 Homing by the knacker ; the dung must be removed. 
 
 No animal remains must be mixed with the dung. 
 
 7. Every dead animal, brought in during the day, shall be 
 immediately cut up, without leaving the spot. 
 
 Every dead animal, brought in during the evening or night, 
 shall be cut up the next day. 
 
 8. Each knacker only to cut up the number of animals that it 
 is feasible to cut up in a day. 
 
 All the products of the day that the knacker wishes to make 
 use of must be removed from the knacker's establishment before 
 nightfall, to be taken to the authorized establishments. 
 
 9. Knackers not to leave in the workshops any animal sub- 
 stance not disinfected. 
 
 Moreover, no accumulation of tallow, fat, skinning, shaving of 
 skins, and skins themselves, or hoofs. 
 
 10. No blood of animals to run elsewhere than in basins pro- 
 vided for that purpose. 
 
 11. The barrels brought to remove the blood not to encumber 
 the coui'ts, nor to be placed in the workshops. 
 
 The barrels, when filled, must be removed every day, and not 
 to remain there twenty-four hours ; they must be cleaned ex- 
 ternally with disinfecting powder, or some other equally efficacious 
 means, so as to leave no smell. 
 
 All instruments to be kept clean. 
 
 12. No vehicles for transporting dead animals to be allowed 
 to remain in the court-yards. 
 
 The horses employed in the service not to remain, even for a 
 moment, in the stalls intended for the animals to be killed. 
 
 13. No tools to be left in the yards, but to be kept in the 
 workshops. 
 
 14. Every matter coming from the knackered animals must, 
 within twenty-four hours from the slaughtering, be transformed 
 into products not putrefactive, or into disinfected products, or 
 else to be removed from the establishment in covered and well- 
 closed carts, and with all possible sanitary precautions. 
 
 An inspector to view the carriages or carts on leaving the 
 establishment. 
 
 15. The knackers who follow the plan of the concessionaire 
 to finish the slaughtering of their animals at 4 p.m. in winter, and 
 5 p.m. in summer. They must not, under any pretext, open the 
 steam-boilers when the steam has been introduced : they must wait 
 till the steaming is completed. 
 
 16. The knackers may give up to the concessionaire, without 
 being obliged to disinfect them, all the products and residue. 
 
 17. Knackers' boys, to be admitted, must be provided with a 
 livret, to be kept in the office of the inspector of the abattoir. 
 
 18. The knacker and his assistants to be each provided with 
 trousers and waistcoat for working in, which they must wear while 
 at work, but must not leave the abattoir in. 
 
 19. Journeymen not to destroy or damage any article be- 
 longing to the abattoir. 
 
 The masters are responsible. 
 
30 
 
 20. No writing, tracing, or drawing on the doors or walls 
 allowed. 
 
 21. All kinds of games of chance or skill in the abattoir dis- 
 allowed. 
 
 22. Assistants not to sleep in the workshops, stalls, or stables. 
 No chandeliers, candles, or hand-lamps to be used in the work- 
 shops, stalls, or stables. 
 
 Fires to be extinguished when finished with. 
 
 23. Journeymen or boys who misbehave may be dismissed by 
 the inspector. 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Of the Concessionaire of the Abattoir. 
 
 24. The concessionaire to keep in good condition the water- 
 conduits, so that there shall never be a want of water in the 
 different workshops. 
 
 25. He is to provide coppers and steam to the men who work 
 in the northern establishments. 
 
 These coppers to be kept constantly in good condition by him, 
 and as numerous as they are required to be. 
 
 He is also to provide steam for those in the southern establish- 
 ments who shall desire to be supplied by his method. 
 
 26. Concessionaire to clear out horse-boxes, court-yards, and 
 workshops every night ; to clean, wash, and deodorize every par£ 
 of the abattoir, if required for health, twice a day. 
 
 27. The same with streets, &c. of the abattoir. 
 
 28. He is to keep the reservoirs constantly filled with water. 
 The water that has been used in the cutting up the animals to 
 
 be thoroughly disinfected. 
 
 The drains to be kept clean and deodorized. 
 
 29. The liquids to be emptied daily. 
 
 30. The concessionaire to disinfect immediately all unwholesome 
 animal matter brought to the abattoir. 
 
 31. All live or dead animals brought or sent to the abattoir, and 
 abandoned to the concessionaire, to be cut up and disinfected 
 forthwith. 
 
 32. The concessionnire to deliver to the prefect for his approval 
 a scheme for the healthy carrying on of the processes of disinfec- 
 tion, &c. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Tariff of the sums to be paid for cutting up, S,x: 
 
 33. There shall be paid to the concessionaire by the knackers 
 and other persons licensed by the Administration, with the excep- 
 tion of those after mentioned, the sums following : — 
 
 For Killing and Cutting u//. 
 
 For each horse, dead or living, ox, or cow 3 francs. 
 „ mule, pig, or ass - 11 „ 
 
 „ small animal, dogs, cats, &c. 10 cents. 
 
 For unwholesome meats ■■ - - 2 1 frs. per 200lbs. 
 
31 
 
 For Cooking, Furnishing Steam, and for the Use of the Copper. 
 
 For each horse, ox, cow, calf, mule, or ass 1^ francs. 
 „ small animal, dog, cat, &c. - 10 cents. 
 For unwholesome meats - 2\ frs. per 2001bs. 
 
 Those who find their own steam to be exempt from these latter 
 dues. 
 
 Tariff of location. 
 
 Annual rent for a single stall or workshop - 500 francs. 
 
 „ „ double „ - 1,000 „ 
 
 34. No charges to be paid by persons sending or bringing 
 objects to the abattoir and leaving them to the concessionaire, who 
 is bound to accept them. 
 
 This rule applies to all objects sent by the police to the conces- 
 sionaire. 
 
 35. The concessionaire must adopt the above tariff without 
 increase. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Of the Theatre for judicial autopsy. 
 
 36. The knacker who has placed in the theatre the body of an 
 animal, the cause of whose death is in dispute, shall, as soon as 
 this has been settled, cut up the body and remove the different 
 portions. 
 
 The concessionaire shall immediately clean the place. 
 
 37th. If the examiners charged with the post-mortem examina- 
 tion shall recpiire that some portion of the body be kept, the con- 
 cessionaire shall take all necessary precautions for health in so 
 doing. 
 
 38. No other operations than those mentioned in Article 36 shall 
 be carried on in the theatre without the authority of the prefect. 
 
 39. If such authority be given, it shall only be on those days 
 when the theatre is not required for post-mortem examinations. 
 
 40. The concessionaire to keep the theatre clean at all times. 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Inspector of the Abattoir. 
 
 41. The abattoir and the workshops of the knackers are under 
 the personal surveillance of an inspector, specially charged by this 
 police with this duty. 
 
 42. The inspector to inhabit one of the lodges at the entrance 
 of the abattoir. 
 
 43. He is to keep a register, where will be inscribed, day by - 
 day, distinguishing their species, the living and dead animals which 
 are brought to the knackers. 
 
 44. He will supply to the Prefet de Police, weekly, a list of the 
 animals killed and cut up. 
 
 45. If several animals of the same species shall have died 
 within a short time of the same disease, giving cause to fear an 
 
32 
 
 epizootic disease, the inspector will forthwith report the circum- 
 stances to the Prefet de Police. 
 
 46. He must not leave the establishment without our special 
 permission. 
 
 47. If he has dismissed any journeyman for bad conduct in the 
 abattoir, he is to send in to the Prefet a written account of the 
 causes. 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 General regulations. 
 
 48. The trains of horses for slaughtering to be brought direct to 
 the abattoir without stoprung. They must traverse Paris only 
 from midnight to 6 a.m. in summer, and from midnight to 8 A.M. 
 in winter. 
 
 49. No strangers admitted without permission. 
 
 50. No animal, except those employed on the service or for 
 slaughtering to enter the abattoir. 
 
 51. No pigs, rabbits, pigeons, poultry, goats, or sheep to be 
 brought up in the abattoir. 
 
 52 to 55. Publication of this ordonnance. 
 
 (Signed) CI. Delessert. 
 
 Description of the operations carried on, and the methods 
 of preparation of the flesh and bones of horses and 
 other animals slaughtered at or taken dead to the 
 knackers' establishment at Aiibervilliers, near Paris. 
 
 Some idea may be formed of the importance of properly con- 
 structed knackers' establishments in the neighbourhood of large 
 towns, when it is considered that, during the last forty years, 
 there have been slaughtered at Montfaucon more than 400,000 
 horses, and 1,500,000 cats and dogs. 
 
 The live horses may be slaughtered in several manners : either 
 by injecting air into the veins, in dividing the spinal marrow, or 
 by killing them like oxen, as is done at the abattoirs. At the 
 present time, the following method is generally pursued : The 
 animal is attached to a stake, and a knife plunged into the chest 
 opens the veins and arteries. Large quantities of blood escape 
 by the wound. At first motionless, the horse staggers, falls, and 
 dies in a few minutes, without apparent suffering. The animal is 
 then turned upon his back, his blood is carefully collected, and his 
 ,skin removed as speedily as possible by the aid of extensive in- 
 cisions. The tail is cut off at the root, the feet removed, after- 
 wards the limbs ; the fat is carefully put aside, and the flesh cut 
 off in large masses. This done, all the dismembered parts of the 
 animal are thrown into the water in a large and well closed boiler, 
 and submitted to the action of fire. Twelve or fifteen hours are 
 required for the complete boiling. In Paris the boiler is put to 
 
33 
 
 work by means of steam. When the flesh is well cooked, it has 
 lost a large portion of its grease and gelatine, and is easily de- 
 tached from the bones, the tissue of which is become more 
 brittle. 
 
 The boiler then contains a quantity of liquid, divided into 
 three layers ; the upper stratum is grease, which is removed with 
 large spoons, the middle is gelatine dissolved in water, the lower- 
 most is a mixture of blood and other organic matter. 
 
 Messrs. Salmon and Payer proposed, in 1833,*" the following 
 process for the disinfection of dead horses, by means of steam 
 pressure. The blood of these animals is collected with care, and 
 after the skin and all the useful portions have been removed, the 
 carcass, cut in pieces, is placed in a large iron case, together with 
 the blood and entrails. This case, large enough to contain four 
 horses, is placed in communication with a steam boiler worked at a 
 high pressure. In an hour or two the flesh is completely detached 
 from the bones, and converted into a kind of marmalade, which 
 is afterwards submitted to hydraulic pressure. 
 
 The hair, skin, blood, muscular parts, entrails, tendons, fat, 
 bones, even the shoes and nails, all may be utilized either for 
 commerce or agriculture, or for the food of animals. The carcass 
 of a horse may be made to yield from three to four pounds, or 
 upwards. 
 
 M. Parent-Ducliatelet recommends the following as the prin- 
 ciples to be kept in view by Boards of Health in erecting such 
 establishments. 
 
 A surrounding wall shall encircle the building and yards, 
 whose isolation is to be perfect. No habitation to be permitted 
 within 150 metres ; the wall to be of hewn stone, with a glazed 
 surface ; the blood to run upon an inclined plane, paved with 
 stone or bitumen, and received in a barrel, immediately dried and 
 mixed with the manure. All the gases and other emanations to 
 be received in a tall chimney or flue, so as to convey them to a 
 height in the atmosphere. 
 
 None of the operations connected with knackers to be carried 
 on in the open air, with the exception of slaughtering. Cooking 
 the flesh, the principal to be done in close vessels, and carried on 
 by means of steam ; afterwards the flesh, well pressed, dried, and 
 pulverized, to be converted into manure. The slaughtered horse 
 shall be cut up, submitted to all the operations of equarissage 
 (the knackers), and removed from the abattoir within twenty-four 
 hours. The yards must be perfectly paved with hard stones, 
 cemented together with bitumen, and grooved with sloping 
 channels for carrying off the waters and fluids. When loaded 
 with organic matter, these waters would give off into the atmo- 
 sphere noxious vapours, if exposed to the open air ; they must, 
 therefore, be received into cesspools, or conducted by covered 
 channels into water-courses, if such there be within reach. Such 
 waters as contain organic matter that cannot be otherwise utilized, 
 shall be received into large parallel basins, and made into inodorous 
 manure. All accumulations of fresh organic matter, bones, blood, 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 tendons, and skin, shall be strictly prohibited. In all large 
 establishments of this kind, the slaughtering sheds should be 
 provided with drying rooms open to the winds from every quarter, 
 also with a sewer one metre in breadth by one and three-quarters 
 in height, with a basin for receiving temporarily the organic 
 matters, paved or covered with bitumen, in slope, and with the 
 sides built of stone for a height of at least two metres. 
 
 The yards of knackers are ranged in the first class of unwhole- 
 some establishments. 
 
 However, there is no doubt at the present day, according to 
 the observations of M. Parent-Duchatelet, that the emanations 
 from them are in no way detrimental to health, even to that 
 of the children who are brought up or of the workmen who live 
 in the immediate vicinity. The vegetation in the neighbourhood 
 is a gainer by them. But the stench that these establishments give 
 off, whatever precautions may betaken — the hideous spectacle they 
 present — as well as the number of rats that always multiply there 
 in an astonishing ratio, — every thing renders it impossible that 
 any habitation should exist in their neighbourhood. 
 
 The Minister of Police having; consulted M. Parent-Duchatelet 
 on this subject in 1832, was informed, among other things, that 
 the police seized every year in the horse market, and sent to 
 Montfaucon (the old knackers' establishment), 800 horses affected 
 with farcy, glanders, or affected with black spots ; that out of 
 250,000 horses reputed healthy, taken to Montfaucon during forty 
 years, 144,000 proved to be labouring under contagious diseases. 
 Nevertheless, although these animals have been killed, their skins 
 mixed up together, their remains heaped together and spread on 
 the soil, not only at Montfaucon itself, but also in the neighbour- 
 hood, there was no example of any case of glanders or smut 
 being communicated to either man or animal employed in the 
 establishment, or who had frequented it during many years. 
 
 On the practical working of the public slaughtering 
 establishment for killing diseased or worn-out horses, 
 cows, dogs, SfC, at AuberviUiers, near Paris. 
 
 Operations carried on at the Abattoir of AuberviUiers. 
 
 1. The slaughtering of the larger animals, having only for ob- 
 ject to separate the hair, hide, and feet, which are sold without 
 undergoing any preparation ; the animal is then cut up into 
 pieces weighing from six to ten kilograms, which are placed in the 
 large air-tight steam boilers, and boiled under great pressure. 
 
 2. The slaughtering of dogs, cats, sheep, &c, only the skins of 
 which animals are taken off and sold after being dried. Their 
 carcases are then placed whole in the boilers, with the larger 
 animals. 
 
 3. The cooking takes place in large boilers, containing about 
 three kilolitres each (3,000 quarts); these are made of sheet 
 
35 
 
 iron, six or eight millimetres in thickness, having two doors each 
 for the insertion of the flesh, and are provided with a double bottom, 
 the upper one of which is bored with holes. The false bottom is 
 placed half a metre above the true bottom at the level of the 
 lower door, the upper door being fixed in the highest part of the 
 side of the boiler. 
 
 The flesh must be so placed in the boiler that it does not form 
 a solid compact mass, but that by means of the head, the bones of 
 the limbs, and those of the pelvis and chest, interstices are left so 
 as to leave a passage for the steam, which is introduced into the 
 boilers at a temperature of from 112° to 121° of centigrade (1^ to 
 2 atmospheres) during a period of ten or twelve hours. 
 
 This steam, condensing on the flesh, carries with it into the 
 space between the two bottoms the oils and the gelatine. These 
 two products are withdrawn by means of a tap, but the gelatine is 
 not utilised. 
 
 At the termination of the boiling, the bones and the flesh com- 
 pletely separated are drawn out by the door placed above the false 
 bottom. 
 
 The former are sold to the manufacturers of animal black, the 
 latter are placed in a press of great power, in order to remove 
 the remainder of their oils. This flesh is afterwards picked into 
 small pieces by hand, spread out on the ground in a hot room, 
 dried, ground, and sifted through sieves, and afterwards sold as 
 manure. 
 
 These operations are all very offensive, but do not appear to 
 have any ill effect on the health of the workmen after they have 
 once become accustomed to the work. Sickness and loss of appe- 
 tite are generally experienced temporarily by those who are fresh 
 to that or similar work. The abattoir is very isolated. The ma- 
 nager, M. Collignon, is a most intelligent person. His remunera- 
 tion, under the police, is only 4,000 francs (160?. per annum). 
 Between six and seven thousand horses are, on the average, annu- 
 ally slaughtered there. They are bought at an average price of 
 from seven to ten francs. 
 
 Instructions for preserving the Public Health, and pro- 
 tecting the health of the artizans and others employed 
 in cleaning and preparing intestines of animals. 
 
 Gut cleaning. 
 
 This occupation comprises the fabrication of different products 
 employed in the arts, formed from the intestines of oxen, sheep, 
 and horses. 
 
 The cleaners commence by separating the fat that the butchers 
 have left adhering to the intestines, and which serves to make 
 very inferior tallow. The intestines are first emptied, by running 
 water through them ; afterwards, in order to detach the parts of 
 the peritoneum still remaining attached, the guts are steeped in 
 
 C * 
 
36 
 
 large barrels of water during two or three days in summer, and 
 six or eight in winter. When putrefaction is sufficiently ad- 
 vanced, the intestines are thrown into buckets of water frequently 
 renewed, and the workmen scrape them with their nails through- 
 out their entire length. They are then ready to be blown. For 
 this purpose the workman makes use of a piece of reed which he 
 introduces into the base of the intestine, and with the mouth 
 blows air into it, and makes a ligature at a distance determined 
 by the condition of the bowel. This is frequently torn, and the 
 apertures would allow the air to escape. Lastly, the gut so in- 
 flated is dried by the air, and taken to the sulphur room, where it 
 is bleached and deodorized. 
 
 It is impossible to form an idea of the horrible stench which 
 pervades establishments of this kind, and which is disengaged not 
 only from the large vessels in which the putrefaction of the intes- 
 tines is carried on, but also from the solid or liquid residue which 
 encumber at all times the soil, and in the midst of which the 
 cleaners live without attempting to diminish the stench developed 
 by the process. 
 
 This extreme carelessness, which strikes with astonishment all 
 those who have the courage to visit such establishments, arises 
 partly from the fact of the stenches which abound there not 
 giving rise to the fatal effects upon health which one might expect 
 from them. Parent-Duchatelet affirms that the emanations from 
 these gut establishments may be breathed with as perfect impu- 
 nity as the most agreeable odours. Neither the workmen who 
 live in this pestiferous atmosphere, nor the persons who are 
 temporarily exposed to it, according to Parent-Duchatelet and 
 Guersaint, experience any ill effects from it. The inflation of the 
 bowels, however, presents strong indications of insalubritv. One 
 has difficulty in understanding how a man can work at such pain- 
 ful labour as this inflation. The infectious air which comes out 
 from the intestines penetrates his chest and causes him extreme 
 fatigue, so that he can only continue this painful exercise for a few 
 days at a time. 
 
 The air which passes through the bowel spreads through the 
 factory, and carries a stench difficult to describe. Messieurs Che- 
 vallier and Guerard report that, in the visits they have repeatedly 
 made to these establishments, they have been informed that the 
 workmen, at the commencement of their work in these establish- 
 ments, were in a few days attacked with fever and derangement of 
 the digestive functions, which required a course of puro-atives for 
 their relief. 
 
 Use of Chlorides. 
 
 However, since Labarraque's discovery of the disinfectino- 
 powers of the chlorides, it is now quite possible to prevent innu^ 
 merable inconveniences, up to that time inseparable from the 
 preparation of intestines. 
 
 After the bowels have been cleansed from the fat, and for a 
 barrel inclosing the email intestines of fifty oxen, there' should be 
 
37 
 
 used two or three buckets of water containing 3£ lbs. of chloride 
 of soda. The intestines then lose all colour, the membrane is easily- 
 detached, and their inflation is completed without any inconve- 
 nience ; the disinfection is complete, and no change need take 
 place in the ordinary processes of the workmen. 
 
 Messieurs Chevallier and Gucrard recommend that the bowels 
 should be emptied at the abattoirs themselves, and that they 
 should be washed at the gut-cleaning establishments with chloride 
 of soda before proceeding to remove the fat and inflate them. 
 
 The same authors advise the gut-spinners to utilize for agricul- 
 ture the offal and other matters that they are obliged to throw 
 away in such large quantities, after disinfecting them with char- 
 coal or the disinfecting powder of MM. Payen and Salmon, 
 which is only earth containing vegetable matter, and which, 
 submitted to calcination, acts by means of the finely divided char- 
 coal it contains. 
 
 The gut-spinning establishments are ranged, by decree of 15th 
 October 1810, in the first class of insalubrious establishments. It 
 is generally enacted that all these establishments should be isolated 
 at least 100 metres from any habitation, and situated, if possible, 
 on the borders of a river or stream. If there is no water-course 
 near at hand, there must be a well, furnished with abundant sup- 
 plies of water at all seasons. 
 
 Ohdonnance relating to Gut Spinners and Manufacturers 
 of Musical Cords. 
 
 Whereas the situation and the arrangement of the workshops 
 of the greater number of gut-spinners and manufacturers of music 
 strings, present inconveniences as to ventilation and discharge of 
 the waters ; that these inconveniences aggravate those that result 
 from the imperfection of the processes employed by the manufac- 
 turers in the preparation of the intestines, with regard to the 
 public health ; and whereas while waiting till it shall be possible 
 to improve the manufacture, it is necessary to oblige manufac- 
 turers to take the requisite precautions to diminish these evils, 
 "VVe therefore ordain: — 
 
 1. All persons desirous of forming any of the establishments 
 comprehended under the three classes in the Royal Ordonnance 
 of 14 January 1815 must apply for permission to the Prefet de 
 Police. 
 
 2. The localities named for establishing manufactories of gut 
 spinning or musical strings, must be at least 1 10 yards distant 
 from any habitation, (except such as are equally unwholesome,) 
 and must be situated whenever possible on the bank of a river or 
 stream. 
 
 If there be no river or water-course in the neighbourhood, such 
 deficiency must be supplied by a well furnishing an abundant 
 supply of water. 
 
 A plan, showing the localities and the projected buildings, 
 
38 
 
 must be appended to every application for permission to establish 
 such manufactory. 
 
 3. No gut spinning works, or any other establishment giving 
 out unwholesome or disagreeable smells, can be established without 
 permission given in the forms prescribed by decree 15 October, 
 1810. Art. 1. 
 
 4. Every gut spinner or musical string manufacturer, whose 
 factory is at this time legally established, is hereby enjoined, if not 
 already provided, to sink a well that will supply in all seasons 
 sufficient water for the requirements of the works. 
 
 5. No cesspool for the reception of the washing and steeping 
 waters allowed to be made under any pretence. 
 
 Existing cesspools shall be filled up and suppressed without 
 delay. 
 
 6. Waters used for washing and steeping not to run into the 
 public pathways, but they must be collected in a barrel, placed in 
 some vehicle, to be emptied at night into some channel or sewer 
 or neighbouring river. 
 
 7. The barrels for the maceration of the intestines to be 
 placed in a paved shed or workshop, open if posible to all winds. 
 
 Those manufacturers whose workshops are not so arranged, to 
 alter them accordingly without delay. 
 
 8. The police to send in official reports of all infringements of 
 this ordonnance. 
 
 Such infringements to be punished conformably to the laws. 
 
 9. This ordonnance to be published. 
 
 (Signed) Count Angles. 
 
 On bone-boiling and depots of bones, the manufacture 
 of animal charcoal, Sf-c. 
 
 Bones have formed, since 1813, the period at which animal 
 black was first used in the fabrication of sugar, a very important 
 branch of commerce. 
 
 The largest portion of bone charcoal consumed in France and 
 her colonies was made originally in the department of the Seine ; 
 this is easily understood, as the raw material is more abundant 
 there than elsewhere. 
 
 The bones form about one fifth of the entire weight of the 
 recently slaughtered animal, and in Paris nearly 11,713,500 
 kilograms of bones are annually made use of. Every year, also, 
 the importation of bones from the provinces and from foreign 
 countries increases. The Departement du Nord has undertaken 
 on a large scale the fabrication of bones into charcoal for her 
 numerous sugar manufactories. The establishment of M. Kuhlmann 
 near Lille, is one of the finest and best conducted of this kind in 
 the empire, and is indeed a model one. 
 
 All the bones collected are not employed in the fabrication of 
 charcoal. Those which are sufficiently large, heavy, and thick, are 
 
39 
 
 intended for making into handles of knives, forks, &c. The 
 remainder are divided into two sorts, wet and greasy, and dry. 
 
 The former come from the butchers and are still fresh, or have 
 served culinary purposes. They contain about 9 per cent, of 
 grease. After extracting this substance from them, they are then 
 employed, under the name of boiled bones, in the manufacture of 
 animal black. One portion of them is treated in large coppers 
 or boilers, in order to extract their gelatine, by the process called 
 " Papin's." The dry bones are at once turned into the animal 
 black. A few words on the organotrophic and chemical composi- 
 tion of bones will serve to point out more clearly their properties. 
 
 Bones contain per cent., — 
 
 Organic matter = 50 and Mineral substances 50 
 
 o" 
 
 Fibrous tissue 32 
 
 Fat 9 
 
 Albumen, vessels,&c. 1 
 
 viz., 
 
 Phosphate of lime 38 
 
 „ magnesia 2 
 
 Carbonate of lime 8 
 
 Water - - 8 Various salts - 2 
 
 The greater part of the organic matter constitutes a spongy 
 tissue, in which is found the mineral substances. 
 
 This tissue is transformed almost entirely into gelatine by boiling 
 in water. 
 
 It is very easy to isolate the organic tissue from the inorganic. 
 The bones are digested in water acidulated with from the 20 to 
 the - 25 of its weight of hydrochloric acid; all the salts of lime 
 dissolve, aud there remains a soft transparent substance requiring 
 purification : 
 
 lstly. By aid of a weak solution of hydrochloric acid. 
 
 2dly. By "a thorough washing with pure water. 
 
 The organic tissue thus purified is very supple as long as it is 
 combined with water ; it retains the form of the bone. 
 
 When it is required to extract the grease from bones, they must 
 not be allowed to become dry first. 
 
 When fresh bones and some more or less dry are collected in 
 considerable quantities they give off effluvia which may affect 
 public health ; therefore, these depots should only be tolerated in 
 large spaces of ground, situated in quarters thinly inhabited and 
 capable of free ventilation. The fetid emanations that escape 
 from accumulations of bones are constantly the source of loud 
 complaints from the neighbours. The Council of Health and 
 Salubrity of Versailles being consulted on this subject, proposed to 
 place the mass of bones in a covered building, perfectly aerated, 
 and to make use of a layer of animal black requiring revivification, 
 and even, if necessary, new active black, in order to absorb the 
 emanations. These applications are certainly to be approved, but 
 are they sufficient to prevent putrefaction, so readily developed in 
 animal matter, having once commenced in the heap of bones ? 
 These heaps, disturbed to furnish material for the day's work, will be 
 certain to allow the emanations momentarily shut up in their 
 interior, to escape through the openings. It appears clear that 
 the means indicated would essentially fail in the necessary con- 
 
40 
 
 dition, namely, that of a permanent and continuous effect. As to 
 using the perfect " animal black," we are of opinion that if applied 
 according to the quantity that would be necessary to insure its 
 efficacy, it would cause so much expense and difficulty that few 
 manufacturers would faithfully carry out such a measure. 
 
 The Council of Health and Salubrity of Dunkirk was consulted 
 in 1852, as to a request made by a possessor of such a depot, and 
 who, by a simple order of police had been obliged to shut up his 
 works. The police order was founded upon : 
 
 1, As depots of bones were classed in the second rank of 
 
 insalubrious establishments, the Prefect of Police alone 
 has the regulation of such. 
 
 2. As the establishment was anterior to the promulgation of 
 
 the decree of the 15th October 1810, the regulations 
 in article 11 of the said decree were applicable to it. 
 The following was the decision arrived at by the Council : — 
 
 1. Mr. must only admit into his warehouse kitchen 
 
 bones perfectly clean and dry; the quantity accumulated 
 at one time never to exceed 200 kilograms (about 420lbs.) 
 
 2. He is formally interdicted from receiving any other osseous 
 
 matters coming from the public knackers or the tanneries. 
 
 3. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays, the warehouse to 
 
 be completely emptied. 
 
 4. The spot where the bones are deposited shall be perfectly 
 
 ventilated ; it shall be paved with hard stone, and cleaned 
 carefully the two clays named. 
 
 If depots of bones are a powerful cause of insalubrity, the 
 operation of extracting the grease from them disengages odours 
 much stronger and much more disagreeable. This industry is 
 directly connected with the manufacture of animal charcoal and of 
 bone buttons. The Council of Health of Bordeaux was consulted 
 in 1851 as to the keeping up of an establishment for de-greasing 
 bones, to which was annexed a manufactory of bone buttons. 
 
 The following was the adjudication: — 
 
 " The Commission, after due examination of the places and 
 factory, has not shut its eyes to the inconveniences attached to de- 
 greasing bones ; but these inconveniences will be annulled if the 
 following conditions arc made peremptory : 
 
 1. The bone-boiling shall be performed in a close boiler. 
 
 2. The internal pressure of the boiler never to exceed an at- 
 
 mosphere and a-half. 
 
 3. The boiler to be furnished with the safety apparatus 
 
 required bv the Royal Ordonnance of 1843, regulating 
 steam-boilers. 
 
 4. The greasy waters cannot remain more than 24 hours in 
 
 the establishment, and cannot under any circumstances, 
 be poured on the public ways or shut up in the establish- 
 ment. 
 
 5. After having been boiled, the bones are not to remain 
 
 above 24 hours in the establishment. 
 
 6. The furnace chimney must be elevated at least 8 metres 
 
 above the soil. 
 
41 
 
 With these conditions!, the public health and security have 
 appeared to your committee sufficiently provided for." 
 
 After the bones have been sorted, so as to make use of the 
 best for table use, and after having been dc-greased and half- dried 
 in the air, they are carbonised for the formation of animal black. 
 This product is obtained by heating the bones out of contact of 
 the air, by decomposing the organic matter and volatilizing the 
 jgases, so as to sift out the charcoal interposed between the 
 inorganic substances. The quantity of charcoal contained in the 
 black of bones is about 10 per cent. 
 
 The bones are carbonized in cylinders or in large melting pots 
 of baked earth, which are generally three-tenths of a meter in 
 diameter and four-tenths in height They are then gradually 
 heated in a furnace to a white heat, which is maintained from six 
 to eight hours, and the pots when cold are removed. The char- 
 coal is then powdered between cylinders. 
 
 The manufacture of animal charcoal itself has no special incon- 
 venience, except the dangers inherent in all operations which put 
 in movement pulverulent bodies, and which require considerable 
 heat by means of ovens or furnaces, which may cause danger 
 from fire. 
 
 What requires the strictest attention to be devoted to this class 
 of works, however, is, that frequently they join together several 
 different sorts of works, and become in fact several knackers' 
 establishments, factories of animal charcoal, and of manures. 
 
 Powdered animal charcoal is principally employed in the clari- 
 fication of sugars and vinegars. This operation consir-ts in adding, 
 for sugar, three kilograms of animal charcoal in tine powder to 
 100 kilograms of raw sugar, with one or two kilograms of 
 albuminous matter coagulable by heat; bullocks' blood beaten 
 and thus deprived of its fibrine, then mixed with four times its 
 volume of water, is made use of for this purpose. The residuum 
 of the animal charcoal is sold as a manure under the name of 
 '•' black from the refineries." 
 
 Ordunnance respecting depots of manure and of 
 collections of animal matter. 
 
 Whereas there is constantly formed in country places in the 
 suburbs of Paris a considerable number of depots of manure com- 
 posed of mud, sweepings of the streets, filth, and remains of animal 
 matter, which give out infectious exhalations ; and whereas it is 
 important to preserve the habitations as well as the high roads 
 from the unhealthy effects that might be produced by these exha- 
 lations ; 
 
 We ordain, 
 
 1st. No depot of manure composed of animal de'bris coming 
 from the abattoirs, or gut spinners, or knackers, or glue fac- 
 tories, or other workshops of the kind, shall be formed at a less 
 
42 
 
 distance than 220 j-ards from any habitation, and 110 yards from 
 the high roads. 
 
 2d. If these manures have not been made use of for the space 
 of two days, counting from the day on which the depot has been 
 made, the agriculturist while waiting to make use of it, is to piace 
 it in a ditch and cover it over with a layer of earth two inches at 
 least in depth. 
 
 3d. All deposits of mud and filth intended for sale, with the 
 exception of the contents of the sewers ordered for sale by the 
 authorities, to be kept at a distance of 280 yards from habitations, 
 and 110 yards from the high roads. 
 
 4th. The above orders not to apply to dung of horses, cows, 
 and sheep. 
 
 5th. Infringements, when proved, to be punished according 
 to law. 
 
 Gth. This present Ordonnance to be printed and published. 
 
 (Signed) Gr. Delay au. 
 
 Ordonnance concerning Depots of Manure and Filth in the 
 Suburban Parts. 
 
 We ordain : 
 
 1st. No depots of mud and filth, except those coming from the 
 sewers and ordered to be sold by the public authorities, are to be 
 made without our authority. 
 
 2d. Tn no case shall authority be granted to form such depots 
 in the interior of court-yards, gardens, or other enclosures con- 
 tiguous to habitations, or in open spaces which are at a less 
 distance than 200 metres from every habitation, and 100 metres 
 from high roads. 
 
 This distance may be shortened when the high road is only 
 used for agricultural purposes. 
 
 3d. When the mud and filth are being applied as manure to 
 the soil, it shall be done within twenty-four hours of their being 
 brought to the spot. 
 
 4th. Horse, cow, and sheep dung not to be included in the 
 above articles. 
 
 5th. Infringements to be punished. 
 
 6th. The Ordonnance of 31st May 1824 to be abrogated. 
 
 7th. '1 his Ordonnance to be published. 
 
 (Signed) G. Delessert. 
 
 On the large establishment for the manufacture of 
 Poudrette, or artificial manure, in the Forest of 
 Bondy, near Paris. 
 
 Paris being entirely unprovided witbj a system of sewerage, 
 the whole of the night soil has to be removed by manual labour. 
 
43 
 
 This is done in the following manner, and with the following 
 results : — 
 
 The houses are provided with cesspools, either fixed or mov- 
 able. The former are known by the term " fosses immobiles," 
 the latter " fosses mobiles." 
 
 The former are emptied in two ways, either by the descent of 
 men into them, or by withdrawing their contents by means of a 
 large iron cask or tumbril, exhausted of its air, connected with 
 the cesspool by means of a flexible tube. Although this latter 
 method was far less objectionable than the former one, as the 
 workmen were saved a considerable amount of very filthy work, 
 and the fosse was emptied with much greater rapidity, and a 
 much less amount of nuisance was caused during the operation, 
 nevertheless the mode of emptying by exhaustion has been obliged 
 to be abandoned, on account of the great expense of keeping 
 the apparatus in a state of efficiency. The large iron vessels 
 formerly used in this process are now employed in the old method. 
 But the greater number of houses in Paris are supplied with 
 strong wooden barrels, which, when full, are removed, and their 
 places supplied with others empty. This industry is carried on by 
 contractors, who perform their contract under the strictest police 
 regulations. The firm that contracts for the greatest number of 
 the houses in Paris is named Richer and Co., who, I am informed, 
 do this work for five-sixths of the houses in the capital. Their 
 establishment is very large, and the operations are carried on with 
 as small an amount of bad smells as such a business will admit of. 
 They adopt what is called the " system e diviseur." This consists 
 in receiving all the night soil in a fosse with a false bottom and 
 sides, which, being perforated, allow the liquid portions to escape 
 by means of a tube and stopcock into another fosse in connexion 
 with the first receptacle, and which second fosse, not being perfo- 
 rated, retains the liquids. 
 
 The contents of the fixed cesspools are removed in very large 
 barrels ; and the moveable cesspools themselves, containing sepa- 
 rately the liquids and solids, are conveyed in carts to a place 
 constructed for this purpose. It is called the Depotoir, and is 
 situated just outside of Paris, at the Barrier of La Villette. 
 Prom this place a canal is constructed to Bondy, and by this 
 canal the large and small barrels, containing the solid matters, 
 are conveyed to the manufactory of poudrette at Bondy in barges. 
 
 The liquid portions are not conveyed in that manner. The 
 distance between the Depotoir at La Villette and the forest of 
 Bondy is about 12 kilometres. A large iron tube runs under- 
 ground from the former place to the latter, and the liquids are 
 pumped, by means of a powerful steam engine, through this tube 
 to the place of reception at Bondy. 
 
 The manufacture of poudrette is carried on in the interior of 
 the forest of Bondy, at a distance of 13 kilometres from Paris. 
 It is at a distance of about a kilometre in a direct line from the 
 public road, and surrounded with trees. 
 
 These and other precautions, however, by no means prevent 
 
44 
 
 this factory from being a very great nuisance, and a pregnant 
 source of complaint from the inhabitants of the neighbourhood for 
 a very considerable distance round it. 
 
 When I visited this locality, although the weather was very 
 cool, the odours made themselves perceptible at a distance of 
 five kilometres ; and I am assured on good authority that in hot 
 weather, with a wind blowing from that direction, the smell is 
 distinctly perceived in the metropolis. I was particularly struck 
 with one circumstance regarding the smell given off, which was 
 strengthened by the evidence of M. Trebuchet, the Chef du 
 Conseil de Salubrite, who accompanied me. It was, that the 
 odour was far less offensive at the factory itself, where the work 
 was being actually carried on, than it was at a considerable 
 distance from it. M. Trebuchet assured me that this fact had 
 been observed by himself and numerous other persons. 
 
 However, the complaints from owners of property in the neigh- 
 bourhood are both loud and deep, and I am informed that the value 
 of property has considerably diminished since the factory has been 
 established there. 
 
 The process of manufacture is as follows: — 
 
 The solid matters, arriving in the large and small barrels by 
 canal and boat from the Depotoir, are emptied into one of two 
 very large basins excavated in the soil. These are each about two 
 acres in extent, and ten feet in depth. From these receiving 
 basins the liquid portions pass slowly off to other basins ; and after 
 depositing the more solid portions therein, the liquids pass off to 
 other basins, numbered 3 and 4, consecutively. The liquids from 
 the last basin (Xo. -i) are sold to the proprietor of a large esta- 
 blishment erected contiguously, and sulphate of ammonia is 
 extracted from them after the deposition of as much of the solids 
 as possible. 
 
 The solids that have been deposited are dried by long exposure 
 to the air and by frequent turning by hand, until after a lapse of 
 time, varying from two to four years, they become so dry as to 
 fall into a powder ; and this is then disposed of under the name 
 of poudrette. 
 
 Although, from the evidence brought before me, there is little 
 doubt that this poudrette is a very fertile species of manure, 
 still there is a great prejudice against its employment among the 
 farmers and market gardeners in the neighbourhood of Paris. 
 The conductor of the establishment informs me that it is all sold 
 to fanners residing in distant parts of the country. He added 
 that no farmers will purchase the liquid, nor indeed would thev 
 use it even if given to them for nothing. This has been tried. 
 
 The town of Paris is paid 85 centimes for every cubic metre of 
 solid and liquid that enters the factory. 
 
 The voirie of Bondy, where the poudrette is made, measures 
 superficially 32 hectares. The eight basins which receive the 
 liquid and solid matters hold 160,000 cubic metres. The Canal 
 de l'Ourcq is the medium of transport of the solids from Paris. 
 
45 
 
 Manufactories of glue and she, placed in the 1st and 3d 
 classes of insalubrious establishments according to 
 the materials used in their manufacture. 
 
 Glue. Size. 
 
 Under these names are distinguished those adhesive substances 
 that are prepared from animal matters more or less rich in gelatine, 
 as membrane, skin, fascia, tendons, cartilage, bones, &c. 
 
 The raw material used in the preparation of glue are — 
 
 Scrapings of skins prepared by the leather dressers, called 
 brochettes. 
 
 Buenos-ayres or packing skins and parings of skins coming from 
 Brasil. 
 
 The soles or large tendons of oxen. 
 
 The clippings of parchment. 
 
 Pieces rejected by the tanners, as sheep's ears, calves' toes, 
 tails, &c, and lastly, bones, which scarcely fifty years ago were 
 accounted of no use whatever, and which are now become so 
 great an object of industry as to be imported from foreign 
 countries. 
 
 The preparation of the tendinous and membranous materials 
 consists in macerating them for several days in milk of lime, then 
 straining and drying them, afterwards separating them in boiling- 
 water in a water-bath, continuing the ebullition until the liquid in 
 the boiler on exposure to cold air becomes a thick jelly. 
 
 To extract gelatine from bones, the grease must first be ex- 
 tracted, for which purpose they are boiled in water, after being- 
 broken in small pieces ; the grease melts and floats on the surface 
 of the liquid, from which it is removed with a spoon. After 
 removing the grease, the gelatine of the bones may be extracted 
 by two different methods : — 
 
 1st. By heating in a boiler called " autoclave." 
 
 2d. By removing the calcareous salts contained in the bones by 
 means of muriatic acid. 
 
 In the first process, the bones are mixed with lime, which sepa- 
 rates the last remains of grease from them, then submitted to the 
 action of very hot water = 248°, in a boiler capable of supporting a 
 pressure of several atmospheres. At this elevated temperature the 
 bones become soft, the gelatine dissolves in the water, and the 
 calcareous matter, while preserving its form, loses its hardness. 
 
 By the second process, the bones are macerated in tubs containing 
 muriatic acid of ten degrees of strength at the most ; by this 
 operation, the carbonate and phosphate of lime in the bones are 
 dissolved, and the animal matter remains untouched. After being 
 removed from the acidulated water, the bones are drained, washed, 
 then allowed to macerate sufficiently long to saturate the hydro- 
 cloric acid and the acid phosphate of lime remaining in the 
 waters : lastly, when the alkaline maceration is finished, the 
 bones are boiled in a steam boiler, as if they were membranous 
 substances. 
 , Before the glue is run into buckets, it is clarified, if not already 
 
46 
 
 very transparent, by means of alum, if it is alkaline ; by albumen if 
 neuter. Lastly it is dried in a drying room. 
 
 The factories of glue are classed, by the Ordonnance of 15th 
 October 1820, in the first class of inconvenient or unwholesome 
 establishments, on account of the bad odours they cause. How- 
 ever, when bones only are used, they are placed in the third class by 
 the Ordonnance of the 9th February 1825. 
 
 Messieurs Montfalcon and de Poliniere remark on this subject, 
 that flesh is frequently made use of in establishments only autho- 
 rized to extract gelatine from bones, and that sometimes there is 
 great difficulty in providing against such an infringement. 
 
 Glue manufactures, therefore, are not authorized within a certain 
 distance of inhabited places, and in taking into account the ordinary 
 direction of the winds ; it does not, however, appear that they 
 prpsent any condition of real unwholesomencss. 
 
 The waters running from these factories are charged with a 
 certain quantity of animal matter as well in solution as in sus- 
 pension ; they give off a disagreeable odour, and take on putrefaction 
 very rapidly. They must be discharged, after as short a journey as 
 possible, into cisterns or butts, which must be emptied on a 
 neighbouring field or meadow, or into a sewer if the locality 
 permits. 
 
 On tanning, dressing, and currying leather. 
 
 Like all establishments in which animal matters undergo pre- 
 paration, tan yards are foci of emanations, more or less disagree- 
 able, but which can scarcely be considered noxious. 
 
 There is scarcely any town of importance where such establish- 
 ments do not exist, and every where councils of salubrity are 
 unanimous in acknowledging that leather dressers present but few 
 inconveniences, and authorise them under certain conditions. 
 
 The preparation of skins comprises a series of operations, which 
 it will be- useful to repeat. 
 
 The skins, brought in fresh or green or previously salted and 
 dried into the establishments for tanning, are immediately sub- 
 mitted cither to immersion in lime or to the action of steam or of 
 a current of hot water, or lastly to the action of running water, 
 after which the hair is easily removed by scraping. This first 
 part of the operations, which the neighbourhood of a stream of 
 water much facilitates, is known under the name of "rivering/' 
 and explains the situation of the greater number of tan-yards. It 
 may, however, without difficulty be carried on in the interior of 
 the establishment. 
 
 The hide thus prepared is submitted to the operation of tan- 
 ning, either by alternate layers of skin and tan or bruised bark of 
 oak, or by the action of alum. To these very long ojDerations 
 succeed the drying, and subsequent greasing by aid of melted 
 tallow or oils. The manipulations of the currier and of the 
 inorocco maker, who place the skins, more or less finely prepared, 
 
47 
 
 in a state to be worked, are less complicated, and consist chiefly 
 in moistening, beating, greasing, and dyeing the leathers. 
 
 This short description is sufficient to show that the work of the 
 tanner gives rise to the production of a great quantity of solid and 
 liquid residues of organic nature and easy of putrescence, an 
 accumulation of which would constitute an evident cause of 
 disease. But these inconveniences may easily be avoided by 
 means of certain very simple precautions. 
 
 The fresh skins should be immediately, at the moment of their 
 arrival, plunged into lime water or into any other liquid that will 
 render them imputrescible. The subterranean reservoirs for 
 receiving the foul waters, the coppers, the pits, ought to be 
 perfectly air-tight ; the courts and all the dependencies of the 
 manufactories should be paved with well jointed sandstone, and 
 should present an inclination sufficient to direct all the liquids 
 to the general receptacle. 
 
 The dirty waters, called greasy waters, must be transported out 
 of the establishment, either by subterranean drains or in well 
 closed barrels, as far as a stream of water, where they may be 
 emptied without inconvenience. The mass of hair and tan must 
 not be retained in the interior of the works. 
 
 Tanneries, currier's yards, and leather dressers are classed in 
 the second class of unwholesome works. 
 
 A peculiarity, only recently pointed out, relating to the 
 influence of the profession of tanning is worthy of notice. 
 
 The leather dressers of Annonay, according to M. Armieux, 
 and undoubtedly also, those of all countries, are subject to diseases 
 of the fingers not described by any author. The first consists 
 of an ecchymosis which invades the internal portion of the 
 fingers where the epidermis is very thin. This ecchymosis, 
 which has a blackish appearance, remains in this state several 
 months without becoming troublesome or painful ; but more often 
 the skin ulcerates, and then the workman undergoes most severe 
 sufferings by the contact of the bleeding surfaces with the lime, 
 which it is impossible to avoid using in preparing the skins. 
 
 Some few days of repose, and the application of a simple oint- 
 ment, usually suffice for the cure of this malady ; but it relapses 
 frequently when the workman exposes himself anew to the cause 
 which has produced it, constant contact with lime water. The 
 workmen call this disease cholera of the fingers. 
 
 The second disease is named by them Nightingale, because it is 
 still more painful, and makes them throw out cries of pain. This 
 consists in a small cavity which forms at the extremity of the pulp 
 of the fingers ; this cavity, which appears to be capillary, is due to 
 the thinning of the skin corroded by the lime. There is exudation 
 of small portions of blood, communication of the atmosphere with 
 the nervous papillas, and severe pains. 
 
 The workmen continue their trade in spite of this, and do not 
 appear to experience any evil consequences therefrom. The 
 mischief disappears without any medicine, by the mere cessation 
 from work. 
 
48 
 
 " If the workmen," says M. Armieux, •• would prevail upon them- 
 selves to wear oilskin gloves, it is probable that they would 
 preserve themselves from these disagreeable accidents. I have 
 recommended them, but they have invariably replied, ' It is not 
 the custom,' so true is it, that routine is the most terrible and 
 incurable of evils." 
 
 On various establishments of tanners and curriers 
 in Paris. 
 
 TnE tanneries of Paris are under the strict surveillance of the 
 police, and are not allowed to be established in any locality that 
 is not provided with an abundant supply of water. The more 
 important establishments of this kind, indeed, in the interior and 
 in the suburbs of Paris, are situated on the banks of some running 
 stream, and preference is always given by the authorities to such 
 works as select such a site for the erection of their factories. 
 
 The greatest attention is required to be given to ventilation, so 
 that thorough currents of air are established in all the workshops. 
 
 The first step in the process of converting hides of animals into 
 leather, a step common to all factories as well in Prance as in 
 England, is the placing the hides in a mixture of lime and water, 
 known by the name of the lime bath. 
 
 This has for object to remove the hair by the caustic quality 
 of the lime. The next process, which appears to be in universal 
 use among the tanners in the vicinity of London, or at any rate 
 among those whose works I have had occasion to visit in Ber- 
 mondscy, is one that I have been informed by some of the London 
 tanners as quite indispensable. 
 
 Its object is to remove the superfluous lime, which, from long 
 contact with the skin, lodges itself in the pores or cellular tissue 
 thereof. This is attained in the London factories by steeping the 
 hides, after the removal of the hair, in a solution of the putrified 
 dung of dogs, pigeons, or certain other animals. To so great an 
 extent is this process carried on in the metropolis, that I am 
 assured by the local police and other persons, that between 300 
 and 400 persons are employed in collecting the feculant matter 
 from these animals, especially dogs. This is purchased by the 
 tanners, by whom it is known under the name of " pure." 
 
 I am informed that the term is intended to convey the idea of 
 the dung so purchased consisting purely of the dung of dogs, 
 without admixture of that of other animals. 
 
 This faical matter must be kept in mass until it is in a state of 
 hot fermentation, when it gives off large quantities of carbonic 
 acid, sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen gases. It appears 
 then to be fit for use. 
 
 But this process constitutes by itself a very considerable nui- 
 sance. The gases given off from the fermentation of this excre- 
 mentitious matter, pervade more or less the whole establishments, 
 and can be smelt at a considerable distance. In inquiring into 
 
49 
 
 this part of the process of dressing leather in Paris, with the 
 object of learning what other, if any process, could be substituted 
 for this most objectionable operation, I learn that it is utterly 
 unknown in France. I am informed that the lime is most com- 
 pletely removed from the skins by the French manufacturers, by 
 various mechanical processes. These all nssuim: the form of 
 pressure, with complete washing with large quantities of water. 
 
 The most perfect plan for removing the lime left in the skins 
 that I have seen in operation in the French factories, is the one 
 invented by Messrs. Artus, and patented by them in France, 
 though not, I believe, in England. It is known by the name of — 
 Appareil purgeur Svsteme de Artus freres, vendeur de l'appa- 
 reil. 1853. 
 
 n f M. Delpech, mechanicien, 
 
 Lonstructeurs < Ar riL ^ r -r> • 
 
 I i\l. Onoureaux, tonneuer, 1 aris. 
 
 It consists of a large, hollow, wooden wheel, 2-L metres in 
 diameter, fitted in the interior with a number of blunt wooden 
 teeth, and pieiced with numerous holes. A tap, connected with 
 a cistern of water, opens into the interior of the wheel, into which 
 the limed skins are thrown, and the wheel is then rotated rapidly 
 by the steam-engine that works the other parts of the factory. The 
 water escaping through the holes is for some time very white and 
 turbid, from its containing a certain quantity of lime; but this 
 gradually being washed out of the skins, in a period varying from 
 twenty minutes to an hour, according to the size and number of 
 the skins in the apparatus, the water comes out as it went in, and 
 the skins are then found to be free from the caustic material. One 
 such apparatus will, I am informed, cleanse from lime a great 
 number of skins. Messrs. Artus, who only, however, prepare the 
 smaller sized skins for varnishing, have only two of these appareils, 
 and thus finish 1,200 skins per day. 
 
 The apparatus complete costs 2,000 francs, or 80/. 
 
 Another improvement relating to the business of tanning, but 
 not having reference as the one ju>t described has to the public 
 health, is a patent that has lately been taken out for forming 
 the shavings and scrapings made in dressing and currying the 
 skins into good solid leather fit for manufacturing into soles or 
 boxes. 
 
 This is done by steej^ing these remnants in glue, and afterwards 
 submitting them to considerable pressure. 
 
 This patent is secured by M. Poulier, 2-4, Kue St. Bernard, 
 Paris. 
 
 The factory of M. Leven, pure et lils, Pue St. Hippolyte, 
 ]S T o. 10^ is a model tannery establishment. The health of the 
 workmen is better than at any other similar works in Paris or 
 elsewhere that I have visited. The paving, ventilation, drainage, 
 and lighting, are all effected in a most superior manner. 
 
 Some of the largest skins are not steeped in milk of lime at all 
 in M. Leven's factory. 
 
50 
 
 On the precautions necessary to be adopted in the 
 exhumation of dead bodies. 
 
 There are circumstances where the necessity of recognising the 
 identity of a body, or of searching for the traces of a crime, or 
 other reasons, make it a duty to remove a corpse from its grave, 
 or authorize this operation, a tiling otherwise altogether an ex- 
 ception to our ordinary manners and habits. 
 
 The putrid decomposition that goes on in corpses, and the mias- 
 mata they exhale, necessitate great precautions. But the dangers 
 that the act of exhumation presents have been much exaggerated. 
 The emanations given off from animals in a state of putrefaction, 
 when exposed to the open air, appear generally free from much 
 inconvenience to the health. Parent-Duchatelet made many obser- 
 vations on this subject in the public knackers' yard of Montfaucon, 
 proving the complete innocuousness of an enormous accumulation 
 of putrefying flesh. The exhumations of the cemetery and of the 
 church of the Saintn-Innocents in Paris, performed in 178.5-86, 
 lasted six months; more than from 15,000 to 20.000 corpses, 
 belonging to many ages, were exhumed with their coffins. " One 
 remarked," says Thouret, " all shades of destruction, all the meta- 
 morphoses of death assembled, from the body which was in a state 
 of solution and putrefaction, to those that were changed into 
 mummies, dry and fibrous ; notwithstanding which, no accident 
 whatever happened among the workmen or neighbours. 
 
 Gravediggers have themselves observed, moreover, that they are 
 only exposed to real danger in the first -period of the decomposition 
 of the bodies ; that is to say, some days after their interment, when 
 the abdomen, after having been distended by gas, is rent about the 
 lower part, and the navel ; a sanious, brownish fluid, of a most 
 fetid odour, escapes through the apertures, and there is at the same 
 time disengaged an elastic fluid, very mephitic, the dangerous 
 effects of which are strongly to be feared. 
 
 Parent-Duchatelet remarks, that every year there take place at 
 Paris, in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise, nearly two hundred 
 exhumations, to transport into lands acquired by the families, or 
 into proper sepulture, the corpses which had been provisionally 
 buried in the private trenches. These exhumations take place at 
 all times of the year, two. three, or four months after death, often 
 much later. One can conceive that putrefaction is at that time in 
 all its activity, but nevertheless, it has not yet been found that any, 
 the slightest accident has happened to the gravediggers employed 
 on this work, which is the more troublesome, and which should be 
 the more dangerous, that they are obliged to respire in the same 
 ditch the emanations which have been confined there a long time 
 in a narrow space. 
 
 As regards the manner of performing exhumations for judicial 
 purposes, and the precautions necessary to be taken, we must, 
 says M. Orfila, make a distinction between a case in which a corpse 
 is simply being removed from a particular trench, and that which 
 intends to cause the evacuation of cemeteries and sepulchral vaults, 
 or the extraction of a corpse from a common trench. 
 
51 
 
 Although there is really no danger in the extraction of a corpse 
 from a private grave (fosse), it is nevertheless proper to take 
 certain precautions, if it were only to diminish the inconveniences 
 of the operation. This should be performed in the morning, par- 
 ticularly in hot weather ; several workmen should be employed, so 
 as to finish the work as quickly as possible ; the grave and coffin 
 should be sprinkled with chloride of lime ; but M. Oifl la recom- 
 mends that none should be sprinkled on the corpse itself, the 
 essential conditions of which might be considerably altered by such 
 application. The necessary researches should he made as soon as 
 possible after the corpse has been extracted from the coffin, for 
 contact with the atmosphere accelerates rapidly the decomposition. 
 
 Exhumations for emptying a cemetery, or which require exca- 
 vations, demand much more rigorous precautions than the above. 
 If one is free to choose the season, the coolest weather should be 
 selected, and the operation should be suspended if the weather 
 becomes hot, and the wind blows from the south. As many 
 workmen as possible should be employed, and any gravediggers 
 that become affected should be forthwith replaced. The clothes 
 should be changed every other day, and carefully aerated. 
 
 The instruments should be provided with long handles, so that 
 the gravediggers should not be obliged to bend forward. The 
 soil should be well sprinkled with chloride of lime. 
 
 If the men are forced to enter a cave or pit, a current of air 
 must be previously carried through it, by means of a lighted stove 
 or some similar means. 
 
 The safety of the confined air there must first be ascertained bv 
 putting down a lighted candle, and no one must enter if the candle 
 does not burn as it would in the open air. The fir.-t workmen who 
 descend should have a handkerchief, steeped in vinegar, applied to 
 their mouths ; they should be suspended by a cord, passed under 
 the arms, so as to be drawn out quickly in case of danger. 
 
 Solution of chloride of lime should be spread about in the pit. 
 
 The same precautions should be used in removing a body from 
 a common trench. 
 
 Candle making. — Regulations in force in France. 
 
 Candles are manufactured in two modes, by dipping, or by 
 running into moulds. 
 
 Mould candles are made by running the tallow, sufficiently 
 melted, into tin or glass moulds placed vertically in a frame, and 
 in which moulds the wick has been placed. 
 
 Dip candles are prepared by passing the wick at first two or 
 three times over a bath of melted tallow, afterwards plunging it 
 into the bath enclosed in a framework of wood, and replunging it 
 several times, allowing the tallow to run off and harden, until they 
 have acquired sufficient thickness. 
 
 Candle manufactories have nothing insalubrious about them, 
 but they give off an insipid and sickly odour extremely disagree- 
 able, and are liable, besides, to great danger from fire. They are 
 therefore placed in the second class of insalubrious works. 
 
 d 2 
 
No establishments for melting tallow should be permitted else- 
 where than in suburban districts ; they ought not to be tolerated 
 in towns. If the factory is close to an inhabited place, a street, or 
 a promenade, no authority will be granted except on condition of 
 surrounding it with a wall 8 or 10 metres in height, without any 
 door, window, or opening, on the side of the street or promenade. 
 Provided, however, the locality chosen be proper, manufactories 
 of candles present neither danger nor serious inconveniences. 
 
 The Central Board of Health of the De"partement du Nord has 
 decreed : — 
 
 1. That all boilers used arc to be surmounted with a hood 
 
 for conducting the vapours into the chimney. 
 
 2. All tallow made use of to be purified beforehand. 
 
 ">. To place the boiler used in melting in another locality, 
 that is, not in the same chamber as the hearth and cinder 
 holder. 
 
 4. Interdiction against using presses for graves (animal fats). 
 
 On the manufactories of Prussian Blue, classed injirst 
 division of insalubrious establishments. 
 
 The manufacture of Prussian blue, so much used in the arts, 
 may be accompanied by grave inconveniences and real danger if 
 old processes are employed. At the present time, remedies for 
 these inconveniences and dangers are known. 
 
 All organic nitrogenous substances may serve for the prepara- 
 tion of Prussian blue. Those ordinarily made use of are, dried 
 blood, horns, horses' hoofs, leather heated in a crucible, with an 
 eighth of its weight of potash and a little iron filings. When all 
 these ingredients are converted into a paste, thev are removed 
 with an iron spoon, and thrown into hot water ; violent detona- 
 tions then take place, which might prove dangerous for the work- 
 men if the boiler was not covered with a dome of sheet iron, 
 presenting an aperture only large enough to admit the spoon. 
 The liquid, after boiling a sufficient time, is filtered through linen, 
 and the residue being lixiviated anew, all the liquids are mixed 
 together, and precipitated by a solution of a mixture of sulphate 
 of iron and alum. When the lixivium of fresh blood is mixed 
 with a solution of sulphate of iron and alum, a large amount of 
 sulphuretted hydrogen gas is liberated, which might give rise to 
 accidents ; but D'Arcet has proposed an apparatus which prevents 
 all such accidents. It consists of a large barrel, closed by a cover, 
 provided with a funnel through which the liquids can be intro- 
 duced, and an agitator or stirrer fa.-tened by means of a leather 
 or bladder to put the whole in movement; lastly, a pipe intended 
 to conduct the hydro-sulphuric acid gas as it is generated into the 
 fire-box of a furnace, where it is completely consumed. 
 
 All the inconveniences disappear if another process is followed ; 
 this consists in employing ferro-cyauide of potassium, a salt con- 
 taining no sulphur. 
 
The Boards of Health only authorize manufactories of Prussian 
 blue on condition that all the Hues and chimneys of the boilers 
 communicate with the chimney, 1 ~> feet in height, of the calcining 
 furnace, and that the waters of lixiviation of the manufactory shall 
 not remain either in the culverts, trenches, or public ways. 
 
 On the Hygiene of soap boiling. 
 
 The fabrication of soap is not of itself very insalubrious. 
 
 If it finds a place among the classed establishments, it is only 
 in the third class, and that is on account of .the lixivium and the 
 disagreeable smoke that it gives off. But there is one very im- 
 portant point as to the salubrity of soap factories, viz., the nature 
 of the solid and liquid residues resulting from the manufacture, 
 and which, easily decomposable, may give rise to considerable 
 disengagement of infectious vapours and sulphuretted hydrogen 
 gas. These different circumstances give peculiar interest to the 
 hygienic study of soap works, and justify the details about to be 
 entered into. 
 
 The Councils of Public Health of the Bouches-du-Pvhone and 
 the Xorth, in which this manufacture is largely carried on, have 
 brought to light many important elements for this study. 
 
 A soap factory comprises three distinct parts: the first consists 
 of trenches or basins, known in the south under the name of 
 barquieux, where the carbonate of soda, the lime, and the water 
 for dissolving them, are placed. 
 
 The second comprehends the boilers, from five to six metres in 
 depth, built in hewn stone, at the bottom of which is the hearth. 
 
 The third consists of chambers called "mises," intended for 
 cooling the paste. 
 
 The following are the functions of these three parts : — The soda 
 mixed with the water and lime in the barquieiu- gives rise to a 
 solution, which, by means of a conduit, is conveyed into the boilers 
 placed opposite each other. In the boilers is placed the oil, which, 
 by its mixture with the soda, yields soap after a sufficient boiling. 
 When the materials have attained the required consistency, they 
 are withdrawn from the boiler, and placed in the chambers or 
 " mises," where they are cooled. 
 
 Besides the three portions just described, there exists a supple- 
 mentary part, which, as far as respects public health, is that upon 
 which attention should particularly be fixed. When the matter 
 placed in the boiler has undergone a first boiling, the workman 
 withdraws from the surface the portion that is ready for furnishing 
 soap, and carries it into the "mises," where it is to cool. The 
 residue of this matter, in which are the elements of soap not yet 
 separated, is submitted to more boiling, by which these elements 
 are then extracted. 
 
 This second operation gives rise to a last residue, which is called 
 lixivium or " lessive " reboiled, and is of no known use. This 
 lessive has a disagreeable, if not a noxious odour. At Marseilles, 
 
54 
 
 it is run into the sea by subterranean canals, and, without any 
 doubt, it is not the slightest cause of the insalubrity of that port. 
 In other places this lixivium is enclosed in stone pits placed five 
 or six metres below the level of the soil. These basins should be 
 hermetically sealed, and the masonry forming the walls should 
 permit no infiltration to vitiate the springs or waters of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Under all circumstances, the solid residues arising from saponi- 
 fication should always be placed provisionally in covered sheds, so 
 that rain waters cannot have access to them and spread them on 
 the public highways, and the liquid residues should be carefully 
 collected in a pit or in a perfectly air-tight recipient, to be emptied 
 occasional!)'. 
 
 As to the smoke and the thick and nauseous lyes which are 
 produced during the process of saponification and the drying of the 
 paste, it is of importance to prevent their dissemination in the 
 environs of the factories, either by combustion of the vapours or 
 by their expulsion through very lofty chimneys. 
 
 There is one other peculiarity which should not be passed over 
 in silence, since it concerns the life of the artizans employed in 
 stirring the paste in the boilers. In some works there has been 
 danger of the workmen being precipitated into the boilers of boiling 
 lye. M. D'Arcet has proposed employing a strap and suspension 
 cord fixed to a bar of solid iron, which would be a safeguard to 
 the workman ; this is a precaution which should be by no means 
 neglected. 
 
 On tallow melting, with suggestions for improving 
 the usual processes. 
 
 The commerce of tallows has lost much of its ancient prosperity ; 
 the progress of industry, and particularly the discovery of car- 
 buretted hydrogen gas, as a method of lighting, have singularly 
 confined the consumption and production thereof. 
 
 The tallows extracted from animals are either melted in vast 
 stoves, which, placed in the open air, contain as much as 7,000 
 kilograms at one time, or they are melted by chemical means 
 in closed vases. The first method is very simple : journeymen 
 melters stir the material with a species of ladle, 2^ metres long, 
 during the boiling, in order to prevent any jiortion from adhering 
 to the boiler. A vapour, heavy and nauseous, rises above the 
 boiler; it spreads its fetid odour as far as the outskirts of the 
 abattoirs, and causes frequent complaints on the part of the 
 neighbours, who forget that they came to fix their abodes in the 
 vicinity of the melting houses long posterior to the establishment 
 of the abattoirs, for the police ordonnances have long ago forbidden 
 tallow melting to be carried on elsewhere in Paris than in the 
 abattoirs. 
 
 The melted tallows naturally leave a residue, which is made to 
 undergo great pressure under a powerful press, so as to extract all 
 the grease. 
 
55 
 
 The residue of this is known by the name of " graves," and is 
 sold for the food of pigs and dogs, and may be advantageously 
 employed as manure. 
 
 The second method of melting tallow is that which is performed 
 by chemical processes in closed vessels. This method excludes 
 the production of graves, which is composed of the de'bris of flesh 
 attached to the fat. In this case, there are introduced into the 
 vessels intended for the melting acids which change these particles 
 of flesh into fat, so that the melting only produces tallow without 
 residue. The tallow melted in closed vessels, by this method, has 
 less odour than that melted in open boilers ; the acid modifies the 
 nature of this odour, which at first was not unwholesome in spite 
 of its disagreeableness ; but thus modified, it assumes, according 
 to M. Bizet, a truly insalubrious character, although it is less 
 nauseous to the smell. 
 
 According to this author, the workmen employed in this latter 
 kind of work exjterience pains in the chest, with a feeling of illness 
 that they do not suffer from while melting in the open boilers. 
 
 Many methods have been proposed to destroy or carry off the 
 odour of the vapours of tallow ; sometimes chloride of lime has 
 been used, sometimes a ventilating flue, sometimes pipes for con- 
 ducting these vapours into the furnace in order to consume the 
 inflammable matters they contain : lastly, it has been proposed to 
 use autoclave boilers. Of all these methods, some are insufficient, 
 others only feeble palliatives, while others present in their applica- 
 tion dangers which prevent their use. 
 
 The most certain mode of not presenting incommodious vapours 
 would be to avoid the production of any vapours. It is with this 
 object that M. Delunel proposed the heating the raw tallow in a 
 water bath. The advantages which he describes as resulting from 
 the use of his process, are to furnish a finer quality of tallow, to 
 avoid all danger of fire, and to give off no insalubrious odours. 
 Unluckily his process has not been able to be put into execution 
 profitably ; for although tallow melts considerably under the 
 temperature of boiling w r ater, it requires a much higher tem- 
 perature to permit the fatty matter to break by its dilatation the 
 cellular tissue in which it is enclosed, and which imprisons it. We M. Darcet's 
 owe to M. Darcet, whose name is attached in so honourable a Method, 
 manner to all questions relating to industry, the knowledge of a 
 process of open fire melting, which presents the fewest incon- 
 veniences. 
 
 This process consists in introducing the raw tallow, cut into 
 small pieces, into a boiler of copper, and to heat it there in contact 
 with a certain quantity of water and sulphuric acid. 
 
 The proportions recommended by M. Darcet are as follows : — 
 
 Tallow 100 parts. 
 
 Water 50 „ 
 
 Sulphuric Acid - - 1 >> 
 
 The quantity of sulphuric acid may vary according to the nature 
 of the fats to be melted. 
 
.56 
 
 This process presents, according to the author, great advantages 
 in various respects" Although there are still sebaeic vapours given 
 off, they are less strong and are modified by the action of the sulphuric 
 acid ; the tallow being produced at a lest- elevated temperature, 
 preserves a great whiteness, and acquires more firmness on cooling 
 than in the ordinary process. The action of the acid seems to have 
 specially for its object to react chemically on the cellular tissue, 
 and, consequently, to facilitate the exit of the fatty matter which 
 it envelopes. The graves dry better than by the old method. 
 One hundred parts of raw fat leave but eight parts of graves by 
 -the acid process, whereas the same quantity leaves fifteen by the 
 old system. 
 
 The graves press, so largely employed, becomes almost useless 
 by the use of the acid. 
 
 The adoption of the process of M. Darcet is, therefore, a most 
 valuable improvement in the melting of tallow. Nevertheless, 
 this process is not free from odour. 
 
 To get rid of these incommodious vapours two means present 
 themselves : one to cause them to be consumed in the fire-place, 
 the other to direct them into the drains, as has been proposed at 
 X' antes ; but, besides the inconvenience of interfering with the 
 operations, of increasing the cost of the apparatus considerably, as 
 the boiler must lie closed and provided with tubes, the first 
 method would render it liable to explosions, by the obstruction of 
 the pipes, or to tires by the communication of fire to the boiler 
 through the pipes ; the other method could not be applied in all 
 localities. 
 
 The cause of the odour is evidently the long boiling to which 
 the fat must be submitted in order that the cellular tissue should 
 yield all its grease. In searching for methods of ameliorating the 
 processes of melting tallow, sufficient attention has not been paid 
 to the causes which determine the production of the infectious 
 vapours. If the existence of the cellular tissue necessitates the 
 prolongation of the boiling process to permit the escape of the 
 whole of the grease, the method of hastening this melting would 
 be, it appears to us, to break up the cells before the application of 
 the heat, and, to effect this, tin- fat should be previously chopped 
 very much jiner. This method, inducing an easier melting, would 
 avoid a great proportion of the vapours which are given off, and 
 even might, i;i some cases, dispense with the use of the acid, which 
 causes the loss of the value of the graves, and which (acid process) 
 cannot be carried on in the brass boilers which are now in general 
 use. If, by means of suitable apparatus, the cellular tissue can be 
 economically broken up, no doubt but that it would be useless to 
 prolong the melting in order to extract all the grease, and the 
 press alone, after the application of a temperature of 100 Centi- 
 grade (212° Fahr.) obtained by water or steam, would doubtless 
 suffice to extract all the tallow, in taking care to facilitate the 
 running off of the melted portions. 
 
 Tallow melting is one of the manufacturing operations the most 
 disagreeable, by the infectious and irritating smell which commonly 
 results from it, and which is conveyed to great distances ; the 
 
57 
 
 decree of the 15th October 1810, has ranked tallow melting among 
 the insalubrious fabrications of the second class, on account of the 
 incommodious smell and dangers of tire resulting from it. As the 
 consequence of this classification, the banishing from dwelling- 
 houses is not rigorously necessary, but the setting up of tallow- 
 melting establishments is submitted to a previous examination on 
 the part of the authorities, to make certain that the operation, as it 
 is proposed to carry it out, is not of a nature to inconvenience the 
 proprietors of the neighbourhood, or to cause them damage. 
 
 It was, however, soon discovered that the nuisance to thy 
 neighbourhood of these works was far too great to tolerate their 
 existence in the outskirts of towns ; therefore we find in the 
 general statement of the dangerous, insalubrious, or incommodious 
 establishments, drawn up in 1826, by order of the Minister of the 
 Interior, the melting of tallow by the open fire, as it is generally 
 practised, ranked in the first class of insalubrious fabrications, 
 while the melting by water bath or by steam is retained iu the 
 second class. 
 
 But, as laws cannot have a retroactive effect, the result has 
 been, that, at the present time, we have a great number of melting 
 houses in the towns, authorized in virtue of the decree of 1810, or 
 the existence of which was anterior to this date. The incon- 
 venience caused by these establishments, especially when on a 
 laro-e scale, is such that it has been considered already sufficient 
 to give rise to two ordonnances, one of 20th February 1821, which 
 suppressed a melting establishment at Rouen, and the other of 
 17th October 1826, which did the same at Mans; and, in these 
 two cases, from the time that our legislation on unwholesome 
 establishments exists, the Council of .State lias considered the 
 inconvenience sufficiently serious to the public health and the 
 o-eneral interest to call for the suppression of ebtablishments that 
 had been authorized. 
 
 On the health of the workmen employed on mutlicr-oj- 
 pearl shells, tuitions, raid funs. 
 
 The shells of nacre, or mother-of-pearl, serve for the manufac- 
 ture of a number of objects of utility and luxury, such as buttons, 
 double and simple, fans, accordion notes, and many fine objects for 
 the table. 
 
 This employment is very widely spread, particularly in England, 
 Germany, and Holland, where it occupies a very considerable 
 number "of artizans ; in France it is carried on only in Paris and 
 some few departments. In the department of Oisc, however, 
 several thousand men, women, and children are employed in it. 
 
 The pearl shells employed in this work are of three varieties, called 
 in commerce mother-of-pearl, from China, bastard mother-of-pearl, 
 from the Red Sea or Egypt, and lastly, that from Panama, The 
 first variety bears the highest price, especially for fans ; the other- 
 two are used principally for buttons and objects for table use. 
 
58 
 
 Working these shells into fans and buttons necessitates very 
 different operations, amongst which are some that operate injuri- 
 ously on the health of the operatives. 
 
 To make a fan, a shell must first pass through the hands of the 
 sawyer, then successively through those of the " emeuleur," the 
 dresser, the fashioner, the engraver, the cutter, and sometimes 
 through those of the silkier. 
 
 To become buttons, the shell passes through the hands of the 
 cutter, the sealer, the turner, the '" emeuleur." and the piercer. 
 
 Each workman has his own special work, and is constantly em- 
 ployed on the same kind of work. 
 
 Of all these works, the operatives only complain of the sawing, 
 the grinding (emeuleur), and the work " au tour," /.<_'., the turner's 
 work. These are, in effect, those which present the greatest 
 inconveniences for the health of the workmen. 
 
 The sawing necessitate? a considerable expense of muscular 
 force, a permanent vertical position, and a continual movement of 
 the body on the part of the workmen so as to saw the pearl shell 
 fixed in a vice. In addition, the sawyer constantly breathes a con- 
 siderable quantity of dust, which each cut with the saw causes to 
 flv towards his face. 
 
 The second operation, called emeulage, or working at the grind- 
 stone, consists in polishing that portion of the shell sawn off, on 
 the mill. The mills employed are of the diameter of -^-„- or -^V of 
 a metre ; they are raised on buckets half full of water, the grind- 
 stone dipping a third of its diameter in it. The grinder, placed in 
 front of the stone, puts it into motion by means of a pedal; he 
 places on the surface the object to be ground, which he holds 
 firmly in pressing strongly, sometimes with one hand, sometimes 
 with both at once. These inconveniences M. Jorrand sums up 
 to be : standing always on the same foot ; continual movement with 
 the oilier; continued efforts of pressure, except the interruptions 
 necessary for the inspection of the article, and for changing the 
 ohject to lie ground ; heat of body, resulting from fatigue and 
 continuity of work , icy coldness of the haiiils, w/iic/i are always wet ; 
 toe/ether with incessant respiration of ivateri/ vapour, mixed with 
 dust. 
 
 hhmravi'.ii;', cutting, and fashioning- likewise disengage much 
 dust, but in smaller quantities, and in a way less injurious to the 
 workmen than the other kinds of work. 
 
 To cut the buttons, the tower in the air is made use of. A 
 horizontal tree is put in rotation by a wheel moved by a pedal; 
 the IVee extremity of the tree is armed with a fraise, or little 
 circular saw, of the diameter of the button required, and resemhlino- 
 the crown of a trephine. This work, says M. Jorrand, is extremely 
 fatiguing, and rei/nires force. The workman lends forcibly the 
 elbows, and leans forward the upper part of the body, which causes 
 his mouth to be in front of a thick cloud of dust of mother-of-pearl 
 raised by the round saw or fraise. 
 
 The above are the occupations which in the manufacture of 
 objects of mother-of-pearl more particularly affect the health. 
 
59 
 
 The disengagement of dust and working at the grindstone are 
 therefore the two great causes of the maladies which may affect 
 the workmen. 
 
 This dust, of a yellowish white colour, is exceedingly abundant ; 
 it is very light, and composed of small grains, excessively thin, 
 which give to the touch a rough and sandy sensation. As soon as 
 one enters a workshop where five or six cutters are working, you 
 are suffocated by this dust, and feel a slight smell of animal matter. 
 This odour is due to the composition of the shells, which enclose 
 an organic animal matter, more or less abundant, according to the 
 age of the mollusc, &c. The fibrous and nacreous structure is that 
 part which generally contains most animal matter, and consequently 
 gives off most of the dust. This explains how it is that the water 
 in which the grindstone bathes becomes so quickly putrid, and 
 renders the work of the mill still more insalubrious. 
 
 Chronic bronchitis, hemoptysis, ophthalmia, and cracks in the 
 hands are the maladies which particularly affect the workmen. 
 The thin and abundant dust which escapes from the shell when 
 being sawn, and while being worked on the mill or stone, evi- 
 dently causes these affections of the organs of respiration and 
 sight. Completely inert, this dust enters into the ramifications of 
 the bronchi, but seldom into the smallest of them, and produces in 
 them an irritation which augments the mucous secretion; the 
 mucous membranes thicken, and cause, especially in the morning, 
 and sometimes during work, a very exhausting cough, followed by 
 considerable expectoration. Chronic bronchitis, frequently com- 
 plicated with hemoptysis, and still more frequently with pulmonary 
 emphysema, quickly ensues. 
 
 The women, who are mostly employed in engraving fans, and 
 placing the buttons on cards, suffer much from chlorosis ar;d 
 similar anaemic complaints, but this depends much on their bad 
 sanitary state, and on the sedentary nature of their employment. 
 
 The workmen do not appear to be more subject to phthisis than 
 others, but they are very liable to chronic troublesome asthma, 
 which does not leave them even after their change of employment. 
 
 Most of them are not sober, taking a considerable amount of 
 spirits. 
 
 The best way to diminish the amount of mischief caused by the 
 inhalation by the mouth and eyes of so much of this sharp dust is 
 to cause currents of warm air to be directed strongly through 
 the workshops of the turners and those who work at the mills and 
 grindstones, and to cause the sawyers to work under a shed, but 
 in the open air. The number of men working in the same cham- 
 ber should be very limited. 
 
 The water in which the stones dip should be frequently renewed, 
 indeed daily, so that the grinder shall not constantly have his 
 hands wetted with stagnant water, and the face continually 
 plunged in a cloud of infected vapour. 
 
 The use of masks of very fine silk, recommended and employed 
 in several analogous works, will be very useful to the artizans. 
 
"60 
 
 On the laws regulating coivkeeping, fyc, in Paris. 
 
 Tjie establishments for keeping milch cows, goats, asses, and at 
 former times, pigs, poultry, and rabbits, in towns containing more 
 than o, 000 inhabitants, are looked upon as inconvenient establish- 
 ments, and placed in the third class. They have continued, 
 especially in Paris, to be objects of assiduous surveillance, which 
 is not only justified from reasons of public health, and of con- 
 venience to the neighbourhood, but which is imperiously commanded 
 by a more considerable interest, the health of the animals them- 
 selves, and consequently, the good quality of their alimentary 
 products. It is on this account that the Council of Salubrity of 
 the Seine has frequently had to occupy itself with the numerous 
 cowkeeping establishments spread over the town, the faubourgs 
 and the suburbs. 
 
 This branch of industry, regularly looked after by the adminis- 
 tration, has arrived, in regard to the public health, at a point to 
 leave almost nothing to desire for the good condition of the stables, 
 and the free escape of the waters. 
 
 The complaints against this sort of establishments become each 
 day more infrequent; but some few still are deficient in their 
 arrangements, and the milk furnished from these partakes of the 
 faults of the stables. 
 
 Thus, they place sometimes in stables fir too small such a 
 number of cows as ought not to be admitted even into much 
 larger stables. It is easy to conceive, therefore, that cows which 
 never leave the cloaca where they are placed, breathing only an 
 impure atmosphere, often badly fed, and still worse attended to, 
 cannot furnish milk of good quality. To obviate this grave 
 inconvenience, the Council of the Seine has thought that it should 
 encourage the formation in Paris of larger and more numerous 
 " vacheries," and submit all those that exist in the rural com- 
 munes of the department to the surveillance that the administration 
 exercises over those in Paris itself. 
 
 The old ordonnance of police on these establishments having 
 been submitted to the revision of this Council, its different articles' 
 were examined with great care ; the measures prescribed for 
 cleanliness appeared satisfactory ; but it did not equally approve 
 of the dispositions relative to the dimensions of the stables, the 
 influence of which on the health of the cattle, and consequently 
 on the nature of the milk furnished by them, is incontestable. 
 
 Thus, experience has shown that all that was ordered for the 
 aeration and the ventilation of the stables, was rendered completely 
 useless by the keeper, who, knowing that heat favours the develop- 
 ment of milk, shuts, as he chooses, all the apertures through which 
 air could enter ; so that the cattle fixed in one spot, lived in a 
 species of stove, where they breathed only hot air more or less 
 altered in its composition, and infected by putrid miasmata. 
 
 This accumulation of heat, the deficiency of ventilation in the 
 stables, and the sedentary lives towhich the cows were submitted, 
 gave rise to the development of frequent maladies, amongst which 
 
61 
 
 should be reckoned in the first rank pulmonary consumption, and 
 acute and chronic inflammation of the lungs. 
 
 To obviate, as completely as possible, so serious an inconvenience, 
 the Council has decided that it would only authorize the establish- 
 ment of vacheries in very open and spacious localities, at the same 
 time, fixing in an invariable manner, the number of cows permitted 
 to be kept there. 
 
 Therefore, it proposed to exact, in future, the following con- 
 ditions : — 
 
 1st. The stables for cows not to be less than 4 metres in height. 
 
 2d. The stables for one row of cows not to be less than 4 metres 
 in breadth from the manger to the opposite wall. 
 
 3d. The stables for two rows of cows not to be less than 7 
 metres in width, from one manger to the other, if the mangers are 
 placed against the walls ; and not less than 8 metres if the 
 mangers are placed in the centre of the stables. 
 
 4th. The space reserved for each cow not to be less than 2 
 metres in breadth. 
 
 Lastly, the Council has decided that it was necessary to determine 
 positively that no cow establishment situated lower than the 
 surrounding soil should be authorized, and that authorization 
 should always be refused when it is sought for in a locality 
 where the waters which drain from the stables arc to be received 
 into cesspools. 
 
 These wise regulations have been confirmed by the ordonnance 
 of police of 27th February 1838, which has completed those of 
 the 12th June 1802, and 25th July 1822. 
 
 Ordonnakce Xo. 1,646. 
 
 Paris, 27th February 1838. 
 We, Prefect of Police, ordain : 
 
 1. In future no cow-keeping establishment to be opened in 
 Paris, except in localities situated between the surrounding walls 
 and the lines directly to be mentioned, namely : 
 
 On the left side of the Seine. 
 
 The esplanade and the Boulevard des Invalides ; the Boulevard 
 of Mont Parnasse, &c. &c. 
 
 On the rigid side of the Seine. 
 
 The Alice des Veuves ; the Streets d'Angouleme, Pepiniere, 
 Saint Lazare, Coquenard, Montholon, &c, &c. 
 
 2. The stables to be paved sloping ; they must be provided 
 with a stream of water, to facilitate the running aw r ay of the 
 liquids. 
 
 3. The purveyors to cause the dung to be removed at least 
 once a week, before 6 a.m. in summer, and 8 a.m. in winter. 
 
62 
 
 4. The flooring of the stables to be made a smooth surface. 
 
 5. The forage stores to be separated from the stables by a wall 
 in masonry, if they arc placed on one side, and by an area pugged 
 with plaster or brick pavement, if the stores are above the stables ; 
 in no case can any grate, stove, or fire-place be erected in the 
 store-rooms of the forage. 
 
 6. The purveyors to keep the cows in the most perfect state of 
 cleanliness; they are to conform to all the precautions for salubrity 
 prescribed by the permission with which they must be provided, 
 conformably to the regulations for dangerous, insalubrious, or in- 
 convenient establishments. 
 
 7. The purveyors are expressly prohibited from placing malt in 
 any cellar under any pretext whatever. 
 
 They may only deposit malt in excavations constructed on pur- 
 pose, under sheds provided with skylight*, and in well-lighted 
 places. 
 
 These places for depositing malt may only be used after direct 
 permission of the administration. 
 
 They must remain constantly open ; the malt alone may be 
 covered over with straw or some other substance for preserving it 
 in good condition. 
 
 8. The ordonnance of police of the 25th July 1822 is 
 repealed. 
 
 G. Delessert. 
 
 On the physical changes produced on the limbs of 
 bleachers of wool. 
 
 In the manufactories where tissues of wool are bleached by means 
 of the vapour of sulphur, as in that of Al. Verite, at Courbevoie, 
 near Paris, the workmen employed in drawing out the pieces 
 which roll from between the cylinders, have their hands in a pecu- 
 liar condition. 
 
 The skin first becomes softened by the frequent contact of 
 sulphurous acid ; the epidermis, completely blanched, is wrinkled, 
 upraised, and destroyed in places. This disposition is most par- 
 ticularly marked on the thumb and index finger, because these 
 are the two fingers which seize and stretch the material. 
 
 It is seen on both hands to an equal degree, because the work- 
 man uses both equally, in order that those fingers of the right 
 hand may not be too deeply and severely injured. 
 
 On the Police laws regulating the trade of bakers 
 in France. 
 
 In France, for a long series of years, regulating the com- 
 merce of bread has excited the solicitude of the Government, 
 which has endeavoured to ensure the constant sale of bread at a 
 moderate price, by subjecting this branch of commerce to a very 
 strict system, and to a special surveillance. 
 
63 
 
 The end to obtain in this matter is the constant provisioning of 
 every locality, in conjunction with salubrity and unadulterated 
 products. We propose to show by what conditions this result is 
 obtained, or, in other words, what is actually the regime of the 
 bakers' trade, as well in France as in foreign countries. 
 
 The freedom of trade, substituted by the revolution of 1789 for 
 the privileges of corporations, extended to bakers as well as other 
 traders. But on the 19th Venddmiaire, year X., the Consular 
 Government, desirous of facilitating the surveillance of the bakers 
 of Paris, some of whom had, under serious considerations, threatened 
 to close their shops or refused to bake the same quantity of bread 
 as heretofore, and anxious to ensure more fully the proper pro- 
 visioning of the city, published an order which established the 
 following conditions, to be obeyed by all members of that trade : 
 
 1st. Obligation to obtain a special provision from the Prefect of 
 Police. 
 
 2d. Deposit in a public magazine, of fifteen sacks of flour of the 
 first quality, weighing 159 kilograms. 
 
 3d. Private and permanent provision of sixty, thirty, and fifteen 
 sacks, according to the relative business of each baker. 
 
 4th. Nomination of four syndics, charged with the surveillance 
 and the administration of the de'pot. 
 
 5th. Granting a patent to each baker as an encouragement. 
 
 6th. Prohibition to quit the trade without giving six months' 
 notice. 
 
 7th. Prohibition to diminish the number of ovens without 
 authority of the Prefect of Police. 
 
 8th. Infringement of any of above rules, to cause baker to lose 
 his licence. 
 
 9th. The depot of guarantee to be forfeited if baker quits his 
 profession without permission. 
 
 This order of the year X. has remained the basis of the regime 
 of the bakers in Paris to the present day. It did not limit the 
 number of bakers, which, however, in consequence of the obliga- 
 tions imposed by it, has become gradually reduced and has re- 
 mained limited, for twenty years past, to 601 establishments 
 actually existing. 
 
 Various modifications have been successively introduced into 
 the police laws of the trade ; the principal relating to the pro- 
 visioning. 
 
 By the last police regulations (May 1848), the Paris bakers are 
 obliged to keep a total amount of 128,583 quintals of flour of the 
 finest quality. 
 
 This corresponds to a consumption of about thirty-two days. 
 
 The keeping up a store of flour at their own private shops being- 
 very likely to become incomplete, in spite of the surveillance of 
 the authorities, and a delay in the arrival of flour on account either 
 of drought, or of floods, or frost, being liable to cause much 
 mischief, it was thought necessary to guard against such accidents, 
 and such is the object of the Ordonnance of 19th July 1836, 
 which obliges bakers to deliver into a public reservoir which is 
 
64 
 
 ]oaned (o them gratuitously for this purpose, three-fifths of the 
 store of flour which thev ought to have constantly in their pos- 
 session. 
 
 Ordonnances of police had introduced many restrictions to the 
 sale of bread in the Paris markets; that of the 1 9 th November 1828, 
 removed the whole of these entirely, and has allowed the bakers 
 both of Paris and the suburbs to bring and sell bread everyday, in 
 all the markets, and in any shape they may choose. 
 
 Bread is sold there, of similar qualities, 2-i- centimes per kilogram 
 under the tariff price, and it has been remarked that this trade, so 
 useful to the poorer part of the population, acquired considerable 
 extension during the high, prices of 1847, since the sale of the 
 suburban bakers alone, in the Paris markets, which in 1845 only 
 amounted to 5, 760, .'349 kilograms, were 6,871,42.5 kilograms in 
 1846, and in 1847, 8,139,606 kilograms; the amount fell off again 
 in 1848 to 6,286,702 kilograms, and to 6,3.34,639 kilograms in 
 1849. 
 
 In 1847 there were 42,62s bakers in the whole of France, that 
 is to say, one baker for every 8.30 inhabitants. 
 
 Baking houses do not figure, and properly so too, among the 
 classed establishments, and the influence of the manufacture of 
 bread affects no others than those actually employed. The Council 
 i if Salubrity of the Seine, however, has had to consider several 
 questions relating to baking, questions of general interest. It was 
 of importance in the first place to ascertain if the use that the 
 Paris bakers make of leaden cisterns, to preserve the water em- 
 ployed in making bread, could give rise to accidents, and whether 
 the use of these reservoirs should be interdicted, or whether it 
 mitrht be tolerated with certain modifications. 
 
 After long continued and decisive experiments, the Council has 
 determined formally that the bakers may be allowed to continue to 
 use leaden cisterns, on condition that they place the tap at a 
 distance of three inches from the bottom of the cistern, in order 
 that the insoluble carbonate, if any be formed, may deposit itself 
 at the bottom, below the tap, and also on condition that they cause 
 the cisterns to be (leaned out once a month. For further se- 
 curitv the Council has considered it necessary to require that the 
 sheets of lead which line these reservoirs should be covered with a 
 slight coat of varnish, so as to prevent the contact of the lead and 
 water, and prevent the formation of insoluble carbonate of lead. 
 To apply this wax, it will suffice to warm the lead gently, to rub 
 it rapidly and several times with a piece of wool covered with 
 wax. 
 
 The second fact relates to the use of copper scales for weighing 
 the dough with which the bread is made. A report of the in- 
 spector of bakers of Taris has caused it to be known that in J;j9 
 out of the 601 baking houses that exist in Paris, they employ 
 copper scales to weigh the dough, and that these scales, instead 
 of being cleaned with linen, as might be supposed, are cleaned 
 by the chains which suspend them, being used as a brush. The 
 Council saw the danger of this custom. In truth, the dough, 
 
65 
 
 composed of water and flour, and containing, besides, a certain 
 quantity of salt, attaches itself to tho plates of the balance, 
 and exercises on the metal a chemical action, resulting in the 
 formation of oxide of copper. This oxide, or the salts of copper 
 so formed, then penetrate the portion of the dough which, later, is 
 detached by the friction of the chains It is easy to conceive that 
 in this case, oxide of copper may be introduced into the bread, 
 and that it is of importance, in the interest of the public health, 
 to take measures for preventing, either through neglect or im- 
 prudence, bread that contains even very small quantities of salts of 
 copper being distributed for consumption. The Council has con- 
 sidered that it would prevent all such danger, — 
 
 1st. By obliging bakers to use balances whose scales should be 
 of tin plate ; 
 
 2d. By ordering the scales to be cleaned by means of a rubber 
 made with tinned iron, and used for this purpose alone ; 
 
 3d. By obliging them to wash these rubbers with hot water ; 
 
 4th. By prohibiting bakers from using in their shops utensils of 
 copper, brass, or zinc ; 
 
 5th. Lastly, by ordering bakers, if it is thought inadvisable to 
 impose on them the execution of the measures indicated by 
 Nos. 1 and 3, to cover solidly with tin the chains and scales of 
 their balances, and their utensils of copper, brass, or zinc. 
 
 Two more points deserve all the attention of hygienists and 
 government officers. Generally speaking, the bread is made in 
 cellars, narrow, badly ventilated, and impossible to be kept clean. 
 The walls are frequently in a state of dilapidation which offers 
 shelter to a crowd of insects, which are often found again in the 
 bread. The kneading done by the hands of men, has, besides, 
 something very repugnant. And on these two points it would be 
 very desirable that the influence of authority should hasten to 
 propagate improvements already accomplished in this art. 
 
 The profession of baker, known generally as a very unhealthy 
 one, is, however, less so than it has been said to be. The bakers' 
 assistants, divided into " briijadiev " who shapes and places in the 
 furnace, into "c/eindre" who kneads, and into " aide " or assistant, 
 who heats the ovens and helps the principal workmen, are exposed, 
 some to the excessive heat of the furnace, others to the very severe 
 labor of working the dough, and to the dust given off from the 
 flour. The operations of bakers take place at night. And with- 
 out taking into consideration any influence that a night life may 
 exert on the physical and moral consitution of man, an influence 
 reduced to its just proportions by Mr. Turner Thackrah, we cannot 
 but acknowledge that there are objections to the great changes of 
 temperature, which must be felt after his work at the oven, or after 
 kneading, by the workman who exposes himself to the morning's 
 cold. Rheumatic affections, and acute inflammations of the chest, 
 are in fact, as Ramazzini had already pointed out, those which most 
 frequently attack bakers. In a report of the Institute of Hamburgh, 
 quoted by Thackrah, it is stated that acute rheumatism attacks one 
 sixth of the bakers, while it only shows itself in one fifteenth of the 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 tailors. Every one also has remarked the pallor so strongly char- 
 acteristic of baker's journeymen. It must be attributed particularly 
 to that anasmic condition peculiar to all artizans who live in a very 
 hot atmosphere. This influence, in conjunction with the smell given 
 off by heated paste, doubtless contributes to predispose bakers to 
 dyspepsia, which frequently, also, the habits of drunkenness and 
 disorder, well known to be common to them, determine. 
 
 The dust of flour which penetrates into the air cells of the work- 
 men, does not exert the disastrous effects which have been assigned 
 to it ; and the statistics of M. Benoist de CMteauneuf, and 
 M. Lombard, of Geneva, have demonstrated that this profession 
 is not decimated, as has been stated, by consumption. 
 
 The former of these authors has observed, that out of 2,800 
 bakers deceased in ten years, fifty-seven only died of tuberculous 
 affections. The irritating matters mixed with the flour, such as 
 remains of insects, different pellicles, perhaps also the contact of 
 the yeast, cause a squamous eruption to show itself on the hands, 
 which Ramazzini perhaps had in view in describing the thickening 
 of the hands of bakers, and which is referred by Thackrah to a 
 species of psoriasis. This affection is very distinct fiom the 
 muscular development caused by the operation of kneading the 
 dough. 
 
 These observations on the hygienic influence of the profession 
 of baker, hardly allow us to specify to what special cause was due 
 the frightful mortality which ravaged these artizans in the plague 
 of Venice, according to Mercurialis, and in that of Marseilles, in 
 1720, which carried them off in mass. 
 
 It is difficult not to think that some local influence, or some un- 
 perceived coincidence, could alone explain this extraordinary fact. 
 This opinion would be confirmed by the observation of what 
 occurred in the first cholera epidemic in Paris, where the bakers 
 figured only to the number of ninety-six in the table of deaths, 
 a proportion very inferior to that of a number of other professions 
 understood to be much more salubrious than that of which we are 
 now treating. We must also count as due more to imprudence 
 than to the necessities of bakers' work, the possibility of asphyxia, 
 from the vapours of ill- extinguished coke. The most simple pre- 
 cautions will suffice to avoid all accidents of this kind that may 
 have occurred. 
 
 Indeed, the greater part of the inconveniences to which bakers 
 are liable, may be removed by putting into general use the im- 
 provements lately discovered. 
 
 On the diseases of workmen employed in the manufacture 
 
 of tobacco. 
 
 Nicotine is the active principle of tobacco ; it appears to exist 
 in it in a state of combination. 
 
 Fermented tobacco contains less of it, although it smells more ; 
 it is because a portion of the nicotine has been destroyed by the fer- 
 
67 
 
 mentation ; the ammonia which has been developed has set at liberty 
 a part of the nicotine. 
 
 The nicotianine, according to the observations of Messrs. Henry 
 and Boutron- Char lard, is a species of solid essence, which owes its 
 properties to its mixture with the nicotine. In snuff, the ammonia 
 is in the state of a salt, the nicotine is partly free, partly in the 
 state of a neutral of basic salt ; it is to these two salts that tobacco 
 in powder owes its power of over-exciting the mucous membrane 
 of the nose. The leaves of tobacco yield from 19 to 27 per cent, 
 of ash, which are generally very siliceous ; they contain, in addi- 
 tion, carbonates of lime, potass, and soda, and different other salts. 
 
 In France, the culture of tobacco is under certain regulations ; 
 the annual crops amount to about 16,000,000 of kilograms in the 
 departments of Ille-et-Vilaine, Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, Nord, Pas- 
 de- Calais, &c. 
 
 Of all the industrial cultivations, the most general in the Alge- 
 rian colonies is that of tobacco. 
 
 In France, the Government, which possesses the monopoly of to- 
 bacco, directs from Paris, by its Director General of Duties, the 
 different manufactories in the kingdom ; this central administration 
 has wished, in the interest of the consumers, as well as to facilitate 
 its own labours, that a uniform mode of fabrication, that which 
 gives the best prepared tobaccos, should be adopted in all the esta- 
 blishments, and it is on this footing that they are formed ; there do 
 exist some differences, but these have no sensible results on the 
 products, they arise from the peculiar ideas of the chiefs of the 
 establishments ; but among these differences there are some which 
 may exercise some influence on the health of the workmen, and 
 which it is important to know. 
 
 To respond to the ever-increasing wants of the consumers, ten 
 great manufactories are constantly occupied in the manufacture of 
 tobacco ; they are situated in the following towns : — Paris, Lille, 
 Strasburg, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Tonniens, Bordeaux, Mor- 
 laix. In some of these tobacco is manufactured in all its forms ; 
 in the others, they only make cigars, or what are called " Carottes," 
 "rolls." 
 
 This difference should be noted, because it has an important 
 bearing on the health of the workmen. 
 
 Medical men are attached to these factories ; their institution 
 goes back to the earliest times of the monopoly, that is to say, 1811. 
 For a long time their duties consisted merely in visiting the work- 
 men, either at their entrance into the works, in order to certify as 
 to their health, and to put aside those in ill health and those 
 labouring under contagious diseases, or during their sojourn in the 
 factories, to give them advice and attention. At the present time, 
 the mission of these physicians is more extended. The adminis- 
 tration has increased it by requiring them to transmit, in detailed 
 reports, annually, the remarks which they may have made upon 
 the health of the workmen, upon the maladies observed in the 
 manufactories, and on the peculiarities which these maladies may 
 have presented ; a most excellent measure, which bears witness to 
 
 B 2 
 
68 
 
 the zeal of the administration for the interests confided to it, and 
 which should be adopted in all establishments which occupy a 
 number of workmen. 
 
 This would be the best means of uniting, as to the influence of 
 employments, precise information, information that the science of 
 Hygiene would know how to profit by, and that the legislator 
 himself might usefully consult. 
 
 But a short time has elapsed since observations have thus been 
 demanded from the physicians of the tobacco manufactures, and 
 already the collection of their reports present a high interest. 
 M. the Viscount Simeon, director-general of the administration of 
 tobaccos, has drawn up, in a short work, the information furnished 
 by the physician in the course of the year 1842. The principal 
 questions therein examined arc three: — 
 
 1st. The workshops and their conditions. 
 
 2d. The diseases and accidents met with during the vear. 
 
 ?>d. The effects of the tobacco on the health of the workmen. 
 
 According to the observations made by all the medical attend- 
 ants, tobacco appears but rarely to produce sensible effects on the 
 workmen, even at the commencement of their work. 
 
 There are only two work-rooms, that of the fermentation of the 
 masses intended for the fabrication of the tobacco in powder, and 
 that of the drying of the " scaferlati," in which the emanations of 
 the tobacco have appeared to exercise any real and durable im- 
 pression on some very nervous subjects. But the eases are few, 
 and as a whole, the manufacture of tobacco is not injurious to 
 those who work at it. The action that the emanations have 
 exercised on some individuals, develops phenomena more or less 
 intense, but entirely analogous to those produced by an excess in 
 using this substance. Some of the medical attendants assert that 
 the manufacture of tobacco is not only not injurious to the men, 
 but that it e\en prevents phthisis and other diseases of the chest. 
 
 Dr. Melier, who ha* lately investigated this subject with the 
 greatest care and attention, states that fresh workmen have always 
 some difficulty in accustoming themselves to the atmosphere of 
 the workshops, charged as it is with particles of the tobacco. He 
 states that they expedience the following symptoms in general : — 
 a more or less severe headache, accompanied with sickness and 
 nausea ; they lose their appetite and sleep, and many of them 
 suffer from diarrhoea. 
 
 These effects are more constant with the females than the 
 males, but the former are more in number than the latter ; in 
 Paris there being 800 women employed to 500 men. 
 
 This sort of acclimatisation for the new workers is always 
 more difficult in summer than in winter, and the hotter the season 
 the more it is painful and long, the heat always augmenting the 
 effects of the tobacco, as Eamazzini had before remarked. Once 
 the first difficulties surmounted, the workmen become habituated to 
 the work and cease complaining ; indeed, it seems as if they do not 
 perceive the emanations that surround them. They even appear 
 to like to sleep on tobacco leaves, and the belief is extremely 
 
69 
 
 • general among them that the manufacture is favourable to rheu- 
 matic pains. 
 
 Certain workmen, however, experience a considerable change, 
 which deserves attentive study. It consists in a particular altera- 
 tion of the complexion. It is not a simple discoloration, an ordi- 
 nary paleness, it is a grey aspect, with a wan dull appearance, a 
 mixed shade between chlorosis and certain cachetic diseases. 
 The j)hysiognomy receives from it a peculiar character, which an 
 eye accustomed to see these cases can recognise immediately as 
 occurring only to tobacco workmen. This fades is only observed 
 amonsr those that have been lono; at work at tobacco. Dr. Hur- 
 tt'aux states that it requires at least two years to acquire this 
 countenance. The preparations of iron remedy this condition of 
 things, and restore to the men their original tint. 
 
 The diarrhoea so often brought on at the commencement of this 
 work, requires no special remedy, as it is at the same time a sy inpton 
 and a remedy of the evil. 
 
 Remedies. 
 
 The best methods of remedying the injurious effects which may 
 be caused by the emanations arising from tobacco manufactures 
 appear to be : — 
 
 1st. To use that mode of fabrication which causes the least 
 disengagement of dust. 
 
 2d. To facilitate, by physical means, the exit from the esta- 
 blishment of the dust which is in the air. 
 
 3d. Lastly, not to employ individuals of weak or nervous con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The first end will be attained by causing the tobacco to be 
 worked in a moist state ; the dryer it is the more dust will be pro- 
 duced. In the month of August 1827, the tobacco was delivered 
 to the workmen of Lyons in a much less moist state than usual ; 
 many of them fell ill, and declared that their indisposition was due 
 to this circumstance. 
 
 The second end, that of favoring the carrying away of the 
 tobacco dust from the work-rooms, will be secured by the following 
 means : — In the first place, the work-rooms must be large in pro- 
 portion to the number of men that they are meant to contain, that 
 they must be open from the north to the south, in order that by 
 simple currents of air they may be swept from the dust which 
 collects everywhere, and which would remain there indefinitely, if 
 great care was not taken. This ventilation should be made in the 
 absence of the workmen, and renewed twice a-day ; the windows 
 of the work-rooms should be very large, and should reach from the 
 ceiling to the floor. Lastly, the exit of the dust will be much 
 favored in rooms where it is very abundant, by constructing draft 
 furnaces. 
 
 It must be owned that the Administration spares nothing in what 
 may concern the interests of the workmen, and it thus succeeds 
 gradually in alleviating the inconveniences to which they are 
 
70 
 
 exposed. For this reason, when M. Chevallier pointed out the 
 danger of using lead to envelope the tobacco, tinfoil was forthwith 
 ordered to be used instead, although this apparently simple change 
 caused a considerable increase in expense. 
 
 Tobacco is constantly adulterated with many noxious ingredients, 
 some of which are used to colour false ingredients. Among other 
 substances the following have been detected : — marine salt, sal 
 ammoniac, potass, saltpetre, cream of tartar, honey, treacle, sulphate 
 of copper, sulphate of iron, animal black, sand, alum, fine sawdust, 
 tan, ivory black, dried earth, dried dung, red lead, orpiment, 
 cinnabar, and sulphuret of antimony. 
 
 On the health of the workmen employed in the 
 manufacture of sulphate of quinine. 
 
 The preparation of sulphate of quinine has quite recently been 
 the object of very interesting observation, in a hygienic point of 
 view, on the part of M. Chevallier, who has rightly considered that 
 this kind of work, known only the last thirty years, might be the 
 occasion of certain special accidents. On this subject he made 
 numerous researches, and with the assistance of evidence obtained 
 by himself, as well as from correspondents in England and Ger- 
 many, from the most important manufacturers of sulphate of 
 quinine, he has arrived at the following conclusions : — 
 
 The artisans who work at the fabrication of the sulphate of 
 quinine, are exposed to be attacked by a disease of the skin, which 
 obliges them to suspend their work during a fortnight, a month, 
 or longer. 
 
 There are some workmen who cannot resume this work, and who 
 are forced to quit the establishments where they have been em- 
 ployed. M. Zimmer, a manufacturer at Frankfort, has found that 
 the workmen who were occupied in powdering the quinquina in 
 hia works, were attacked with a peculiar fever, which he designates 
 by the name of " Quinquina fever." 
 
 This disease is so painful, that those workmen who have suffered 
 from it have refused to powder the quinquina, and have preferred 
 quitting the establishment. This complaint has not yet been ob- 
 served in France. No prophylactic means are known at present 
 for preventing the skin disease. It attacks, however, not only the 
 workmen who are actually employed in various operations con- 
 nected with the manufacture of the quinine, but also those persons 
 who come into contact with the emanations of the manufactory. 
 
 It attacks those workmen who are sober, equally with those who 
 give way to excesses. 
 
 It has not been shown that there are any causes that predispose 
 the workmen to be attacked by this disease, although several 
 persons admit predisposing causes. 
 
 Although the memoir of M. Chevallier contains an imposing 
 number of cases, it has not completely convinced us. 
 
71 
 
 This savant deserves much praise for having directed attention 
 to a question interesting to the health of quinine workmen ; but the 
 greater portion of the facts, which may have some value, emanate 
 in general from persons who are not medical men, as directors of 
 factories or manufacturers themselves. Thus Mr. Henry writes : — 
 
 " I know that the little scraps of the barks of calysaya are capable 
 of determining irritations in the dermis and of causing some incon- 
 veniences ; but I do not think that they are of the same nature as 
 those remarked in the disease which occupies your attention. This 
 complaint, of which, for my part, I have never had the slightest 
 attack, although I have lived and worked a long time in manu- 
 factories of sulphate of quinine, mostly attacks scrophulous or very 
 lymphatic individuals ; it attacks the men who boil the bark at 
 least as much, and more than those who reduce it to powder, and 
 it attacks those who bottle the sulphate." 
 
 However it may be, the principal accidents which may arise 
 from the fabrication of sulphate of quinine, consist in a fever more 
 or less severe, and an exanthem. The fact of this fever arising 
 from the manufacture is certainly proved, but we do not think that 
 that is the case with the exanthem. 
 
 Nevertheless, we will add that now that public attention has 
 been called to this point, further observation will demonstrate or 
 invalidate the facts newly studied by our learned colleague. 
 
 On the health of the workmen employed in cotton 
 factories in France. 
 
 The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute 
 of France, charged M. Benoiston de Chateauneuf and M. le 
 Docteur Villerme to make a series of researches into political 
 and statistical economy in the departments of FraDce, with the 
 view to show, as minutely as possible, the physical and moral 
 condition of the working classes. 
 
 The reports on the workmen in cotton, silk, and wool, are those 
 of M. le Docteur Villerme'. 
 
 Cotton. 
 
 One of the most insalubrious parts of cotton factories is that 
 where the beating of the raw cotton takes place. This operation, 
 whether done by hand or machine, produces a thick cloud of 
 irritating dust and of cottony down, which is deposited upon the 
 workmen, dirties them, attaches itself to their woollen clothes, to 
 their hair, their eyebrows, their eyelids, the entrances of their 
 ears, to the nostrils, their beard, wherever hair can retain it, and 
 give them, during their work, a strange aspect. 
 
 It finds its way into the nose, mouth, and throat ; and also into 
 the minute ramifications of the air tubes. 
 
 This down, or dust, that the beaters raise and inhale in such 
 large quantities, can but exert a most deleterious influence on 
 
their health. It is a point on which there is no dispute in any of 
 the places where cotton is spun. 
 
 Not only do the workmen themselves complain of it, but also 
 the foremen, sometimes even the masters, and always the medical 
 men. 
 
 This insalubrity is so generally recognized, that in many mills, 
 especially in those of Alsace, where the beating is performed by 
 machinery and employs consequently but few men, the work- 
 men in the carding rooms are successive!}' and in turns employed 
 in looking after the beating, like soldiers mounting guard. 
 
 Whether it is the dust in the raw cotton or the down itself 
 which ruins the health of the workmen employed in the beating, 
 it is quite undoubted that their death is certain, proved ; that they 
 complain of dryness of the mouth and of the throat, and are 
 seized after a short time, sometimes in a few days, with a cough 
 which becomes more and more troublesome. 
 
 I have, nevertheless, seen in some beating rooms, men in good 
 health, who assured me that they could work there several years 
 consecutively without suffering. It is to be remembered, how- 
 ever, that they received very high wages, either directly from the 
 manufacturer or through a small contribution raised on the sala- 
 ries of their numerous fellow workmen employed in carding, 
 which contribution exempted them from taking their turns in the 
 beating department. 
 
 The cough is the first symptom of a slow and formidable disease 
 of the chest, which is always relieved by simple cessation of this 
 kind of work, and which at the commencement is cured by aban- 
 doning altogether the beating room. 
 
 I have acen workmen who have in this manner suspended and 
 resumed the cough. This disease takes on, during its develop- 
 ment, the appearance of consumption, and the physicians of the 
 countries where the cotton mills exist, call it " cotton phthisis," 
 and some " cotton pneumonia." These names are significant. 
 The victims frequently go to the hospital to die. but I have been 
 unable to ascertain the proportion of such. It is especially the 
 women, children, and young persons who thus die, because beating 
 by machinery not requiring muscular efforts, full grown men arc 
 never employed at it. When the cotton is beaten by hand or by 
 sticks this is different. 
 
 Formerly there was no other means of beating cotton but this 
 latter. J5ut at the present time, in all the mills where ihey do 
 not manufacture the finest threads (and they are the greater 
 number) machinery lias been substituted. 
 
 The invention of these machines and their application to the 
 manufactures of cotton and woollen materials, especially the latter, 
 have been a great benefit to the workmen, and the cause of great 
 saving to the manufacturer; for they have permitted, in the 
 greater number of the factories, the suppression of the hand- 
 pickers, of whom there were great numbers, and to diminish, in a 
 very large proportion, the number of workmen employed in the 
 beating. 
 
73 
 
 In order to appreciate tliirf benefit, one should see, in the" estab- 
 lishments where cotton is still beaten by sticks, the fatigue of the 
 wretches doomed to this operation. It is much to be regretted, 
 however, that up to the present time (1840) it has not been pos- 
 sible to construct a machine fit for opening and cleaning all kinds 
 of cotton, and that it is always necessary, for fine spinning, to pick 
 and beat by hand. 
 
 Insalubrity of the same nature as that caused by the beating, 
 but in a far less degree, menaces the workmen charged with the 
 early operations connected with carding. 
 
 This is not the case, however, with the subsequent operations. 
 It appears easy, at first sight, to remove from this dangerous 
 influence those who are exposed to it, by means of a gauze mask 
 on which the dust and the down suspended in the air might 
 deposit itself at each inspiration. But this deposit would render 
 such a mask more and more impermeable to air, would oblige the 
 workmen to make considerable efforts to breathe, so that in a 
 short time he would throw it aside, and it would not be possible to 
 prevail on him to take to it again. 
 
 Very lately the machines for beating and cleaning cotton have 
 been modified so as to work without raising so large an amount of 
 dust and down. I saw at Zurich, at the mills of M. Escher, a 
 work-room of ventilating beaters so modified. To my great as- 
 tonishment, the face and clothing of the workmen bore scarcely 
 any traces of their occupation, notwithstanding that all the win- 
 dows of the hall were open. Till that time I had always seen the 
 contrary. 
 
 The most unwholesome operation in connexion with the cotton 
 manufacture was thus made healthy. '1 his result ought to cause 
 the universal adoption of that machine. Indeed it is adopted in 
 Alsace, but in no other part of France or in Belgium. 
 
 Another cause of insalubrity in cotton mills, but one which acts 
 in a less injurious degree than the preceding, is the high tempera- 
 ture that it is necessary to keep up in several works. 
 
 For the carding a temperature of about 60° Fahrenheit is 
 enough. 
 
 The spinning requires a higher temperature for the finer 
 threads ; without that they would break every instant. A tem- 
 perature of about 60° or 62° Fahr. is required for the coarser 
 threads ; of from 67° to 70° for the middle sizes; and from 75° to 
 77° for the finest. These high temperatures are as necessary as 
 the absence of every current of air. 
 
 The works for rrinting Indian handkerchiefs, and those for 
 drying the cotton, require to be kept equally warm. 
 
 Lastly, the temperature is commonly from 100° to 104° where 
 they dress the cotton by machinery, and from 93° to 104° where 
 certain other operations are carried on. 
 
 One must remain for a time in the different rooms where these 
 high temperatures exist to know what amount of inconvenience is 
 experienced there ; the workmen, arms, feet, and legs naked, and 
 with but little other clothing on, are constantly in a state of abun- 
 
n 
 
 dant perspiration. It is easily understood, therefore, how easily 
 accidents to health arise, especially in winter. 
 
 The women, employed in what is called the " Scotch" depart- 
 ment, the hottest of all, appear paler than the others. But if I 
 may believe the proprietor of one establishment, where I saw fifty 
 of these women in one apartment, the only inconvenience they ex- 
 perience is a kind of erysipelas, which develops itself at the bend 
 of the thigh especially in the stoutest, and frequently obliges them 
 to desist from their employment. But, according to the managers 
 of two other similar establishments, many of the women are obliged 
 to abandon the work altogether ; and if nearly all of them are 
 between 16 and 25, or 30 years of age at the most, it is partly 
 because the young support this great heat better. On the other 
 side, the physicians of Mulhousen, Thann, Tarare, Saint Quentin, 
 Rouen, &c, agree in asserting that the women in question are 
 oftener than the others attacked with colds and severe inflammation 
 of the chest, in consequence of the sudden changes of temperature 
 to which they are exposed. The drying rooms of these establish- 
 ments are sometimes heated to a temperature of 122° Fahrenheit, 
 but there are few workmen at a time in those rooms, and they 
 remain there but a short time. 
 
 A temperature of above 122° may appear surprising, but 
 Dr. Ure, in his Philosophy of Manufactures, says that there are 
 stoves in some of the works which give off a heat of from 140° to 
 150° Fahrenheit, that is 30° or 40° higher than the temperature of 
 the human body ; and he adds, that the workmen, exposed alter- 
 nate days and in all seasons to so great a heat and to the open 
 air, find in these hot rooms a remedy against the colds which 
 attack them, are in as good health as the others, and are received 
 as members of benefit societies, a proof that their work is not 
 considered unhealthy. 
 
 Two kinds of workmen in the cotton mills demand a more par- 
 ticular mention ; they are the fleecers, and the sharpeners of the 
 carding machines, or rather of their points. 
 
 Both of these, especially the latter, are said to pursue an occu- 
 pation very noxious to their health; opinion is unanimous on this 
 point everywhere. 
 
 The danger arises from the great bodily exertions they use, 
 and the dust they inhale. The former suffer just as the cotton 
 beaters do, while the latter are injured from the same causes as the 
 polishers of steel. 
 
 These are both diseases of the chest, and principally consumption. 
 
 It is therefore highly desirable that the fleecing and the sharpen- 
 ing by hand should be displaced by machinery, or at any rate 
 that some amelioration in these operations be introduced. 
 
 The beating cotton is therefore the most dangerous employment 
 for the number of persons employed. 
 
75 
 
 On the plantation of trees in the interior of towns. 
 
 It is an opinion generally admitted that the planting of trees 
 contributes equally to the embellishment, the charm, and the 
 healthiness of towns. This opinion appears to be solidly founded, 
 as to the question of health, on incontestable facts of vegetable 
 physiology. 
 
 This opinion, however, requires to be received with certain 
 modifications, as, unless these plantations are made under certain 
 ascertained regulations, more mischief than benefit will arise from 
 this practice. 
 
 After going into many details and discussing many questions 
 connected with the physiology of plants, Dr. Jeannet, of Lisle, 
 sums up with the following 
 
 Conclusion and propositions. 
 
 1. The plantation of trees in the interior of towns does not pro- 
 duce any appreciable improvement of public health. There exists 
 too great a disproportion between the production of carbonic acid 
 resulting from a city life, and the atmospheric purification resulting 
 from the respiration of some thousands of trees planted in the 
 principal streets. 
 
 2. Large trees planted too near houses are a powerful cause of 
 insalubrity. They render the atmosphere in their neighbourhood 
 humid, because their transpiration pours out into the air enormous 
 quantities of water ; because they retain the rain waters, which, 
 instead of running rapidly on to the surface of the soil, evaporate 
 gradually in the atmosphere ; because they determine during the 
 night the precipitation of the atmospheric humidity under the form 
 of a fine shower ; and because this shower, with which they are 
 covered as if it had been raining, returns into the atmosphere in 
 the state of vapour during the day. 
 
 Moreover, trees are injurious to the free circulation of air, and 
 they intercept light and heat. This is a very serious inconvenience 
 in the interior of towns, where all the efforts of public administra- 
 tion should tend to favour the penetration of air, heat, and light, 
 even into the lowest habitations and the most remote corners. 
 
 For air, light, and heat being the chemical and physical pro- 
 moters of organization, are at the same time the only true agents 
 of the salubrity of dwellings. 
 
 3. Trees planted in the principal thoroughfares as pursued in 
 some of our towns produce only a questionable embellishment ; they 
 are in unfavourable conditions for vegetating vigorously ; the plan- 
 tation is continually disfigured by the disease or natural death of 
 a great number of members. 
 
 4. Inasmuch as trees are a delightful object at a certain distance 
 from houses, when they do not cast their shadows on them, in so 
 much do they become inconvenient and injurious, as a general rule, 
 when they are near enough to intercept the sun's rays. 
 
 They must be considered as noxious zohen their distance from the 
 houses does not exceed their height. 
 
76 
 
 5. The following system which I propose will reconcile the 
 interest of the public health with the pleasure of the inhabitants 
 and the decoration of the towns. 
 
 Those streets having not less than 25 or 30 metres in breadth 
 must alone be planted with trees. In these streets, the trees will 
 form in the middle of the space existing between the houses an 
 avenue 6 metres brood only. 
 
 The trees should be cut aw;«.y at the height of about 7 or 8 
 metres ; their tide branches should be cut away so as to jirevent 
 their extending too far, without causing them to become straight 
 lines. 
 
 In the streets of 30 or 40 metres in width, like the Boulevards of 
 Paris, the trees should never be planted nearer than 10 metres to 
 the houses ; only one row should be planted on each side, and the 
 lateral branches should be directed towards the centre of the street. 
 
 Thus the houses should be 10 or 12 metres from the trees; 
 these, being only 7 or 8 metres high, would rarely shade the 
 ground floors, but always the foot-paths. 
 
 As to the large spaces, like the cpmis, the squares, open spaces, 
 &c., I would propose to plant them with trees allowed to grow into 
 their most majestic beauty, compatible with their not being too 
 near to habitations 
 
 I do not think that the lime and the ash trees generally 
 adopted in most places, offer to a sufficient degree the conditions that 
 are desirable for the decorations of towns, viz., a thick foliage, a 
 rapid growth, robust health, and a tap root. 
 
 to 
 
 On the best means of ensuring the salubrity of towns. 
 
 M. E. Ciievkeul, in a paper read before the Academy of 
 Sciences of Paris, stated that he had proved by directexperiment that 
 wherever there existed alkaline sulphates, together with certain or- 
 ganic matter, in a body of water out of contact of air, a sulphuret 
 is of necessity formed, and that he thus explained the pollution of 
 the waters of the Paris basin, which contain sulphate of lime, as 
 well as of the water kept in oaken barrels for the use of sailors, 
 and the infection of sea water that had penetrated the hold of a 
 ship. 
 
 Prom the decomposition of organic matter, and its accumulation 
 in the soil of populous cities, is derived the cause of the insalubritv 
 and even of the poison that this soil, and the waters of the wells 
 sunk in it, may show after the lapse of a certain time, when the 
 ground, being permeable, is not capable of being always cleansed 
 jier descensum. 
 
 Animal remains buried in the earth, matters escaping from 
 water-closets, privies, and cesspools, organic matter from houses 
 which penetrates the soil, liquids formed in gas pipes by conden- 
 sation, and escaping therefrom by cracks or badly formed joints, 
 these are some of the causes which give rise to the changeable 
 organic matter which helps to carry insalubrity and infection into 
 the strata which they penetrate. 
 
7? 
 
 To this we must add the tendency of a porous calcareous soil 
 to produce nitrates of potass, of magnesia, and especially of lime, 
 under favourable conditions, and a certain proportion of sulphate of 
 lime being present, wo shall have all the substances which will 
 produce, with the organic matters, the effects of sickness and 
 disease which would not take place without their presence and in- 
 tervention. It is particularly the sulphate of lime which gives to 
 the soil of Paris a strongly marked character of insalubrity or in- 
 fection, which is not remarked in towns whose soil and water are 
 not provided with this salt. 
 
 The means to be employed to assure the salubrity of towns are, 
 the one preventive only, the others capable of preventing the insalu- 
 brity, and of combating it if it shows itself. 
 
 The preventive measures consist in diminishing as much as pos- 
 sible the quantity of organic matter which enters the soil. Such 
 are the establishment of cemeteries and receptacles for sewage at a 
 distance from the towns ; the establishment of paved water-closets ; 
 incessant washing by means of fountains and water-conduits in the 
 streets ; numerous drains and sewers, into which will empty them- 
 selves the conduits for water and gas. 
 
 The means of preventing the insalubrity and combating it if it 
 exists, are not numerous. 
 
 The first of these consists in bringing atmospheric oxygen and 
 light, wherever organic matter susceptible of becoming unwhole- 
 some by a commencement of decomposition, exists. The reason for 
 this prescription is the tendency of oxygen to convert definitively 
 all organic matter into water, carbonic acid, and nitrogen, by slow 
 combustion — products perfectly innocuous to the animal economy ; 
 and the influence of light is favourable to this tendency. One 
 consequence of this prescription is great breadth of the streets, and 
 a sufficient extent of the court yards of houses, so that air and light 
 may freely penetrate them. 
 
 A second mode exists, when wells are sufficiently numerous, and 
 placed in conditions such that the water in them is frequently re- 
 newed, because there is a constant demand for that liquid, either 
 for daily domestic use, or to purify the soil from the matters that 
 the water dissolves. In addition to this, wells may be considered as 
 tending to the purification of the water that they have received from 
 the soil, since it is there more exposed to the action of the oxygen 
 of the air than it was while in the strata of the earth, and this 
 contact is a cause of salubrity. But if, on principle, this influence 
 on health is accorded to wells, we are obliged, unhappily, to own 
 that, as we find them at the present time, in populous towns, where 
 the soil is polluted, their real efficacy is, to say the least, extremely 
 limited. 
 
 These are the reasons which have caused M. Chevreul to attach 
 so great an importance to a third method of purifying towns, a 
 method, in some sort the only one which we are now able to em- 
 ploy actively on the soils which are not in a condition to be inces- 
 santly washed by masses of water which act per descensum, or which 
 introduce themselves as if they formed part of a great stream, on 
 account of the permeability of the soil. This method consists in 
 
78 
 
 making numerous plantations in the interiors of the towns. The 
 great influence of trees on the health of towns is incontestable, 
 since they only increase in size by robbing the soil of decomposable 
 matters, proximate or ultimate causes of infection. But it is ne- 
 cessary to make plantations with judgment, both as to their number, 
 their situations in the town, and the precautions to take, so that 
 the roots can, while extending sufficiently, satisfy the wants of 
 the development of the species planted, without being liable to 
 reach an already infected soil, where the oxygen of the atmosphere 
 cannot gain access. 
 
 On the manufacture of white lead and shot. 
 
 In commencing a report on the hygienic questions connected 
 with the effects of lead on the health of man, there is one dominant 
 point that must never for an instant be lost sight of. It is that 
 this metal, in all its forms, and under all conditions, is a poison ; a 
 poison the more terrible that its action is slow and insidious. 
 
 And parallel with this fact is another, the multiplicity of uses 
 to which the various preparations of lead are applied, in the arts, 
 manufactures, and domestic economy. Some of the compounds of 
 lead are considered impossible to be replaced by any other material. 
 It does not follow, however, that it is not our duty, by every means 
 in our power, to endeavour to substitute for substances extremely 
 dangerous, other materials which are innocuous to health, and that 
 we should not look upon every progressive step made in this 
 direction as a true service rendered to humanity. 
 
 While waiting a result that science will be nearly certain in 
 process of time to accomplish, it is of importance to point out, in as 
 clear a manner as possible, all the circumstances in which lead may 
 exercise its deleterious action, and to pass in review the numerous 
 occupations exposed to its influence. 
 
 It should be remarked, however, that numerous ameliorations 
 have, of late, been introduced, and that the victims of poisoning by 
 lead are far less numerous than they were in times but lately 
 passed. 
 
 Influence of lead on health. 
 
 The action of the preparations of lead on the human frame is 
 shown in a more or less rapid manner. 
 
 Sometimes a few clays suffice to show the effects, but more 
 generally it is only after two or several months' sojourn in an 
 atmosphere vitiated by saturnine emanations that the first 
 svmptoms appear. 
 
 Indeed, for the greater part of the time, there is observed, during 
 a period shorter or longer, certain phenomena which indicate that 
 the lead is acting slightly on the system. 
 
 Thus, sometimes at the end of two or three weeks at most, 
 individuals placed in conditions where the absorption of the poison 
 is very active, become pale and thin ; their flesh becomes flabby ; 
 
79 
 
 the skin, especially that of the face, takes on a pale yellowish 
 tint, slightly jaundiced, in which the sclerotic membrane of the 
 eye participates, and which coincides with a deep yellow colour of 
 the urine. 
 
 The strength diminishes. Many persons have a sweetish or 
 styptic taste in the mouth; their breath gives off a smell of peculiar 
 fetor, as if there were sordes. Though the gums are generally firm, 
 they sometimes bleed, and there is ptyalism. The edges of the 
 gums present a bluish-grey colour, which sometimes extends to the 
 teeth. These phenomena continue during a variable time without 
 interfering very seriously with health, until the more severe 
 symptoms of poisoning manifest themselves. 
 
 Most generally these commence by colic. But sometimes it is 
 by neuralgic pains in the limbs, or even by cerebral symptoms, and 
 especially by epileptiform convulsions, by a comatose attack, or 
 delirium, that the invasion of the mischief is characterized. In 
 some rare cases, amaurosis, vertigo, or continual headache present 
 themselves. But it is matter of observation that in almost all the 
 cases of poisoning by lead, an anesthesia, banishing all sense of pain, 
 either in the entire body or parts of it, especially the arms and 
 forearms, is seen. 
 
 After this the disease becomes more fully developed, and displays 
 its well known severe symptoms. 
 
 Manufacture of shot. 
 
 In making shot for sporting purposes, from -,%■ to -fo per cent, 
 of arsenic is added to the lead. 
 
 The addition of this small quantity of arsenic gives to the lead 
 the property of forming perfectly round pellets. The combination, 
 when fully melted, is poured into a sort of spoon pierced with 
 holes, and lined with scum of lead ; it filters through the scum, and 
 falls in drops from a great height, so that they become solid in their 
 fall. 
 
 This operation generally takes place in old ruined towers or in 
 wells. 
 
 These establishments are classed, but only in the 3d class. They 
 require, nevertheless, great attention, both with respect to the 
 nature of the locality and the danger of fire. 
 
 manufacture of white lead. 
 
 It is this branch of industry which is the most active cause of lead 
 poisoning. It is against this branch that all the complaints, all the 
 threats of prohibition, have been directed, which have only been 
 staved off by introducing great improvements in the manufacture. 
 
 The number of workmen engaged in this manufacture in 
 France has never been large. In 1836, M. Chevalier reckoned 
 for all France only 450 men thus employed. 
 
 The principal localities where such works are established are 
 in the department of the Seine, in the environs of Lille, and 
 at Strasbourg. 
 
■80 
 
 Melting. — To each factory is annexed a melting house, in which 
 the lead intended to be carbonated is placed. 
 
 Carbonatation. — The formation of the carbonate takes place 
 everywhere now by the Dutch method. 
 
 A number of sheets of lead are rolled up, and exposed for two 
 or three months to the action of fumes of vinegar, to the air, to 
 watery vapour and carbonic acid gas, which, aided by a temperature 
 of from 100° to 140°, oxydize the metal, and form a neutral acetate, 
 which the progress of oxidation renders tribasic. This is after- 
 wards decomposed by carbonic acid, forming carbonate of lead. 
 This same action, repeated several times, produces variable quan- 
 tities of white lead. 
 
 The separation of the white lead from the lead which it covers, 
 the reducing this salt to powder, and the sifting, are the most in- 
 salubrious parts of the operation?. 
 
 The workman first detaches the large scales or crusts of white 
 lead, which are but slightly adherent to the lead not acted upon ; 
 he takes in his hands the bluets of lead covered with white lead, 
 unrolls those that were placed in the pots, twists them about in 
 different directions, and puts aside the detached crusts. This 
 operation, called in France " epluchage" in which the workmen 
 have their hands constantly charged with carbonate of lead, is not, 
 however, the most insalubrious part of the fabrication, because the 
 white lead separates in thick scales, producing but little dust. 
 
 The sheets of lead so scaled still retain in different places white 
 lead, which adheres strongly there. The operation of removing 
 the white lead from those parts is known by the name of '"•' decapage.'" 
 It was formerly performed by placing the sheets of lead on stone 
 ends, and beating them with a piece of wood. The white lead 
 then came off, some in scales, some in fine powder, inhaled with 
 the atmosphere by the workmen. This operation was most in- 
 jurious. The decapage is performed at the present time, in most 
 of the factories, by mechanical processes, which injure the health 
 of the artisans much less. 
 
 The white lead is then mixed with water and ground in mills, 
 so as to form a soft paste, ami made to pass under several mill- 
 stones. This operation is perfectly inoffensive. The workmen do 
 not touch the paste with their hands. 
 
 The soft paste is put into conical earthern pots, and exposed to 
 the action of fire. Much of the water is thus evaporated, and the 
 contraction of the mass of white lead separates it from the inside 
 ■of the p:>t, so that it is easily extracted. After being entirely 
 dried by hot air, much of the lead is then sold in that condition, 
 viz., loavc-. This docs not, therefore, at all undergo the dan- 
 gerous process of dry powdering. 
 
 But the greater part of the white lead in loaves undergoes 
 another powdering, followed by sifting, before being sold for com- 
 mercial purposes. This grinding is even still performed, in many 
 establishments, by vertical stone mills, turning on horizontal stone 
 tables, and it is afterwards sifted through a fine sieve. The grind- 
 ing, dry sifting, and subserviently packing it in barrels, by the 
 
81 
 
 above processes, are operations evidently highly insalubrious, on 
 account of the powder which spreads over the workshops. 
 
 M. Lefebvre, of Lille, one of the principal manufacturers of 
 white lead, has modified this method of working. Instead of 
 vertical mills working exposed to the air, he employs horizontal 
 mills of white marble, enclosed in metallic drums, perfectly air- 
 tight. The lower mill or stone is motionless, the upper mill 
 makes 260 revolutions per minute. The lead, reduced to powder, 
 is thrown by the centrifugal force to the circumference of the 
 stones ; from thence it passes into a strainer enclosed in a closet 
 with double doors, and falls, in the state of powder, into a kind of 
 waggon, capable of holding 2,500 lbs. This waggon is not with- 
 drawn until the powder has entirely subsided. 
 
 But the most important progress of all those that have been 
 made in the manufacture of white lead consists in the practice 
 which is now becoming very general, of delivering it mixed with 
 7 or 8 per cent, of oil. 
 
 A diminution of the inconveniences of the latter operations, 
 which are performed entirely in closed boxes, disappearance of 
 the dangers which accompany the packing, the pounding, and of 
 the making into paste by the journeyman painter ; such are the 
 principal results of this practice, as fortunate for health as in a 
 commercial point of view. 
 
 It is difficult to give an accurate account of the proportion of 
 workmen attacked. It is, however, quite certain that, thanks to 
 the improvements introduced, there are now scarcely any attacks 
 among the men employed in Lille. The witnesses are unanimous 
 on this point, and M. Lefebvre says that he can now actually dis- 
 pense with a medical man. It is unfortunately not the same in 
 Paris. A great number of workmen there suffer ; and, remarkable 
 to relate, it is precisely at Clichy and Ivry, where means reputed 
 to be prophylactic, particularly sulphur baths, sulphur lotions, and 
 change of work, are put into force. Nothing similar is practised 
 at Lille, and at M. Lefevbre's, whatever has been said, the men 
 are neither regularly inspected by a surgeon, nor forced to go 
 to the baths, or to use lotions, or particular beverages. At the 
 very most, they are furnished with blouses for work, and with 
 gloves, which the great majority neglect to use. The daily wages 
 of the men are 2 francs, If francs, and 1 -i- francs. One fact cannot 
 be passed over in silence, it is the almost constantly renewing of the 
 workmen in the factories in the environs of Faris, so that for one 
 hundred men daily employed, there will have worked during a 
 year some fifteen hundred, whilst in the north, for a second-rate 
 factory, that of M. Lecroart, for example, who employs eighteen 
 workmen, scarcely more than twice that number pass through. 
 
 Adjoined is a table giving the number of attacks and deaths 
 from lead affections, taken from the Paris hospitals, for the last 
 14 years, distinguishing the men from the two factories, from 
 Clichy, where the recent improvements have not been introduced, 
 and from Ivry, where they have. This table comprises also 
 painters and other professions where men have suffered from lead 
 affections. 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 Table showing Attacks of Lead Diseases in Paris Hospitals 
 during 14 Years. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Total 
 deaths. 
 
 Total 
 attacks. 
 
 White Lead Workers. 
 
 
 Other 
 
 
 Deaths. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Clichy. 
 
 Ivry. 
 
 fessions. 
 
 1839 
 
 8 
 
 211 
 
 7 
 
 139 
 
 130 
 
 7 
 
 48 
 
 24 
 
 1840 
 
 10 
 
 248 
 
 — 
 
 1.52 123 
 
 28 
 
 47 
 
 49 
 
 1841 
 
 12 
 
 302 
 
 11 
 
 236 ! 161 
 
 51 
 
 39 
 
 27 
 
 1842 
 
 22 
 
 316 
 
 18 
 
 252 , 169 
 
 53 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 181", 
 
 9 
 
 260 
 
 — 
 
 204 
 
 — 
 
 . — 
 
 45 
 
 11 
 
 1844 
 
 14 
 
 325 
 
 12 
 
 231 
 
 159 
 
 62 
 
 41 
 
 53 
 
 1845 
 
 17 
 
 475 
 
 13 
 
 257 196 
 
 29 
 
 113 
 
 105 
 
 1846 
 
 13 
 
 552 
 
 9 
 
 355 ■ — 
 
 — 
 
 133 
 
 64 
 
 1847 
 
 10 
 
 425 
 
 < 
 
 227 180 
 
 40 
 
 132 
 
 66 
 
 1848 
 
 1 
 
 172 
 
 — 
 
 88 
 
 65 
 
 22 
 
 59 
 
 25 
 
 1849 
 
 1 
 
 202 
 
 — 
 
 118 
 
 108 
 
 10 
 
 38 
 
 46 
 
 1850 
 
 1 
 
 238 
 
 1 
 
 154 
 
 134 
 
 20 
 
 49 
 
 35 
 
 1851 
 
 1 
 
 216 
 
 — 
 
 140 
 
 125 
 
 — 
 
 48 
 
 28 
 
 1852 
 
 1 
 
 217 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 120 
 
 4,159 
 
 78 
 
 2.553 
 
 1,550 
 
 322 
 
 835 
 
 574 
 
 However much diminished the dangers arising from the manu- 
 facture of white lead may have become, the well-known and 
 constant insalubrity of this industry has not ceased for one moment 
 to be an object of solicitude to men of enlightened minds : and when 
 the discovery of white of zinc showed the possibility of substi- 
 tuting this inert preparation for the very noxious one of white 
 lead, much excitement was produced amongst those who occupy 
 themselves with the health of workmen. His Imperial Majesty's 
 Government could not remain a stranger to this emotion, and the 
 question of the absolute suppression of the manufacture and use of 
 white lead has been seriously discussed. This question was sub- 
 mitted to a Committee of the Academy of Sciences, composed of 
 the following gentlemen : — 
 
 Messrs. Chevreul, Majendie, llegnault, Sequier, Bussy, Legentil, 
 Barbie r, Davenne, and A. Tardieu, Secretary. 
 
 After giving the subject much deliberation, the Committee 
 presented to the Minister a report, ending in the following recom- 
 mendations : — 
 
 1st. There are not sufficient reasons for interdicting the manu- 
 facture of white lead, the improvements introduced into this fabri- 
 cation having removed from it almost completely its insalubrity 
 and its dangers ; but it is of importance that the Administration 
 should take measures that these improvements be adopted in all 
 the factories, and that these themselves should be an object of 
 special surveillance. 
 
 2d. There ore no sufficient reasons for interdicting the use of 
 white lead in works or painting, because certain precautions can 
 
83 
 
 place the workmen out of all danger of lead powder and dust ; 
 and also because, to a certain point, for this particular use, the 
 substitution of white zinc for white lead is gradually taking place 
 of its own accord ; and the support of the Government, and the 
 difference of duty in favour of zinc over lead, encourage this sub- 
 stitution, without violent disturbance or interference with the 
 freedom of commerce. 
 
 3d. The interdiction of the fabrication and the use of white lead 
 in the arts and in commerce would have, moreover, the inconve- 
 nience of exciting grave difficulties as regards the state of the 
 finances, &c. 
 
 The report, of which these are the conclusions, was read and dis- 
 cussed in the presence of the Minister and the Director General, and 
 adopted unanimously. The Minister thought it necessary, while 
 maintaining the manufacture of white lead, to ensure to all the 
 workmen employed the benefit of the improvements already realised, 
 as well as of such as might hereafter be brought about. 
 
 He, therefore, confided to the same Commission the task of 
 preparing a general regulation applicable to all manufactories of 
 white lead, and also of issuing a code of instructions on the use of 
 this substance. 
 
 This required a profound study of all the processes made use of 
 in the principal factories in France and in foreign countries. This 
 study is not yet completed, and we cannot anticipate its results; 
 we will, therefore, limit ourselves to saying, that making the 
 manufacture of white lead perfectly healthy requires, besides the 
 generalised employment of the machinery and apparatus above 
 described, the greatest possible extension of working under water, 
 and the preparation of the white lead in the form of ground paste. 
 
 We subjoin the conclusions of the Commission of the Academy 
 of Sciences, composed of Messrs. Kayer, Pelouze, and Combes : — 
 
 " The maladies of white-lead workers may generally be pre- 
 vented by the substitution of mechanical processes for manual 
 work in those operations where the men are obliged to touch and 
 handle the white lead. 
 
 " By the medium of water in the separation of the scales from 
 the sheet lead, the powdering of these scales, and the sifting which 
 follows. 
 
 " By substituting moulding in the form of prisms or bricks for 
 the potting of the white lead made into paste with water. 
 
 " By making into a paste with oil, in the manufactory itself, by 
 the aid of suitable apparatus, all the lead which has to be mixed 
 with oil before being used. 
 
 " By enclosing in isolated chambers of the work-rooms all the 
 machinery used for pulverizing, straining, or dry packing the white 
 lead, when these operations are indispensable. 
 
 " Lastly. These measures will be rendered complete by a very 
 active ventilation of the work-rooms, and by hygienic precautions 
 of a nature easy for the workmen to observe." 
 
 F 2 
 
84 
 
 On the manufactory ofvjhite lead in Paris, conducted 
 by 31. Besancon. 
 
 The large manufactory of white lead conducted by M. Besan- 
 con, in Paris, employs constantly twenty-five men, and produces 
 annually one million kilograms of this substance. 
 
 The first process, that of melting the lead, for the purpose of 
 running it into moulds of the form best adapted for its carbonata- 
 tion, does not appear to have any injurious effect upon the health 
 of the workmen, except their occasional liability to burns. The 
 same man has been employed in that part of the work for upwards 
 of seven years. No emanations take place during the melting. 
 There is always a high temperature, but by means of an inverted 
 funnel over the stove and melting place, great part of the caloric 
 ascends the flue without escaping into the general atmosphere of 
 the workshop. 
 
 The lead is then exposed to the action of fumes of vinegar 
 permeating layers of tan, and when this process is completed the 
 white lead is beaten off from the bars of metallic lead. This 
 process is done by hand, and is the only part of the manipulation 
 as conducted at these works that appears to present any real 
 danger to the workmen. 
 
 Here they are exposed considerably both to the inhalation of 
 the white lead in powder, as well as to the continual contact of it 
 with their hands, and other parts of the body. Every precaution, 
 however, is taken to diminish this danger as much as possible. 
 
 No man is allowed, under any circumstances, to continue at this 
 work for more than seven days consecutively. On quitting their 
 work the men are obliged to wash their hands and face in water 
 containing a solution of sulphuret of potassium, secondly in water 
 holding clay in suspension, and thirdly in pure water. They 
 must iise these ablutions whenever they cease work, before taking 
 a meal, or retiring for the day. These are among the regulations 
 of the police, and are made known to the workmen by placards 
 printed and fixed up in various parts of the factory. 
 
 The white lead in small lumps beaten off from the cast lead is 
 then ground to an impalpable powder, under water, between 
 horizontal stones. Not the slightest powder, vapour, or smell 
 escapes during this process. When the white lead has been thus 
 finely ground, as much water as possible is pressed from the paste 
 thus produced, which is then cut into masses, placed upon plaster 
 of Paris or some absorbent material, and exposed to a current of 
 warm dry air until it is perfectly anhydrous. These dry masses 
 are then placed in large receiving boxes and reduced to small 
 pieces by receiving a few gentle taps with a hammer. 
 
 No dust escapes in this manner, and this is an improvement in 
 this part of the process well worthy of imitation in the English 
 manufactures. 
 
 It is then placed in mills and mixed with a certain proportion of 
 oil immediately, and the grinding is performed in contact with the 
 oil, to prevent the escape of particles of the lead. No lead 
 whatever is sold at this factory in the state of powder. It is all 
 sent out previously mixed with the oil. 
 
85 
 
 After the drying, as the lead before admixture with the oil 
 must be in the form of an impalpable powder, it is passed through 
 very fine sieves. This process, which in many manufactories ia 
 still done by the workmen themselves who shake the powder 
 through the sieves, is performed here in hermetically scaled closets 
 or small rooms, in sieves supplied with the lead and having their 
 shaking motions communicated to them by the steam engine that 
 works the grinding mills. 
 
 The whole manufactory is remarkably free from smell and dust. 
 Every room and workshop is swept twice a day, while the men are 
 absent from work. All the men appeared in perfect health, and 
 quite free from all the symptoms of inhalation of lead. There 
 was no blueness of the gums or any of the signs of lead poisoning 
 to be seen. They assured me that none of them had suffered since 
 they had worked in M. Besancon's factory, and M. Trebuchet, 
 the Chef du Conseil de Salubrite', at the Prefecture of Police, 
 who accompanied me in my inspection of this and the other 
 e'tablissemens industriels which I visited in Paris and its suburbs, 
 stated that he had never received any complaints from the work- 
 men of this factory since it had been carried on with its present 
 improvements. Nevertheless, 5,000 kilograms of white lead are 
 daily manufactured and ground therein. 
 
 The reason that painters and others who use white lead as 
 paint, mixed with oil, suffer so severely from painters' colic, is, that 
 they are not careful to remove from their hands and bodies the 
 white paint which adheres to the skin, and which soon becomes 
 absorbed. 
 
 Frequently they eat with their hands unwashed, and thus also 
 convey directly to the stomach this mineral poison. 
 
 This manufactory is all that such an establishment can be, 
 and is worthy of being made a 'model except in the following 
 respect: — 
 
 The process of removing the carbonate of lead from the plates of 
 metallic lead, now done by hand and sticks, could very easily be 
 accomplished by some very simple machinery, out of contact with 
 the atmosphere breathed by the workmen, or under water. 
 
 On the use of lead for water pipes, and for other 
 purposes of domestic economy. 
 
 It has been said by a very celebrated physician — Easori — 
 " The most common and the most remarkable cases of accidents 
 " caused by lead are generally clue to the substances of which we 
 " make the most frequent use, and which only contain very 
 " minute quantities of this metal." He might have added, that 
 these substances having no disagreeable taste, excite no suspicion ; 
 so that one may be attacked with lead disease, and attribute the 
 illness to any but the real cause. Many instances could be 
 brought forward which show that persons attacked in 1811, 1851, 
 and 1852 with painters' colic, were treated for other complaints 
 
86 
 
 and that it wa.^ not till later that positive data were obtained of 
 the causes which gave the disease. It is probable that a great 
 number of such cases occur without their real nature ever being 
 discovered. 
 
 On the action of water on lead. 
 
 Does water in contact with lead dissolve this metal, and can it 
 become injurious to health ? 
 
 Authors are not all agreed on the action of water on lead ; 
 indeed, there are authors who say that this liquid has no action 
 on the metal ; others have emitted an opposite opinion ; others 
 again assert that while certain waters have no action on lead, 
 others have a marked effect on this metal. Louis, in a memoir 
 that he has published on this subject, has made it known that 
 water is capable of holding in solution lead in the state of acid 
 carbonate, and that that which is not acidulated, and which is not 
 in contact with the atmosphere, is in no manner altered in leaden 
 vases. In support of this opinion, water which has passed through 
 leaden pipes for a long series of years, without giving rise to any 
 accident, has been instanced. M. Chevallier does not partake of 
 this opinion, but believes that there are waters which, in travers- 
 ing pipes, dissolve small quantities of lead, the dangers of which 
 are not appreciated, because their evil effects have not been im- 
 mediate. 
 
 Me'rat and Barruel have proved that when water is kept in 
 reservoirs of lead in contact with air, the carbonic acid combines 
 with the carbonate of lead, forms an acid carbonate, which dissolves 
 in the water. They made the following decisive experiment at 
 the Faculty of Medicine in Paris: — Six double pailfuls of water 
 were left for two months in a copper lined with lead ; after the 
 lapse of that time, analysis showed that the water contained 64 
 grammes (990 grains) of carbonate of lead. 
 
 Trouchin showed that painters' colic was very common at Am- 
 sterdam, and attributed the fact to the waters of that town being 
 received on leaden platforms, and then running into cisterns, being 
 used for drinking. 
 
 Wanstroostwyh remarked that at Haarlem the water caused the 
 same accidents, due to the same causes. 
 
 M. Chevallier ha* examined water kept in leaden reservoirs, 
 which at the floating line showed a greyish white discoloration, 
 indicating the alteration of the metal; he showed that at the 
 lower part of the cistern there was found a white precipitate of 
 carbonate of lead ; but, among the waters thus examined, there 
 were some which showed, by tests, the presence of lead in solu- 
 tion, whilst others showed no indication of the presence of this 
 metal. 
 
 In support of these experiments Dr. Christison, of Edinburgh, 
 has established: — 
 
 1st. That there is danger in using leaden pipes for conducting 
 water a considerable distance, without previously submitting the 
 water to analysis. 
 
87 
 
 2d. That the purest waters dissolve most lead. 
 
 3d. That the water which tarnishes shining load after a contact 
 of several hours, ought not to be conducted in pipes of this metal, 
 until after certain precautions have been taken; that it is pro- 
 bable, although this has not. been proved, that if the lead preserve- 
 its brilliancy after twenty-four hours of contact, leaden pipes may 
 be used to conduct water which has had no reaction on the metal, 
 and this without clanger of accidents. 
 
 4th. That water which contains a „'„ „ of its weight of salts in 
 solution cannot traverse pipes of lead without particular precau- 
 tions. 
 
 5th. That this proportion of salts will be even insufficient to 
 prevent alteration of the metal, unless carbonates and sulphates 
 form the greater proportion of them. 
 
 6 th. That the proportion of tV-o-d- an( i more even will be insuf- 
 ficient, if these salts are chlorides. 
 
 7th. That it is desirable, in all cases, the water offering even to 
 appearance all the guarantees of purity, to make a chemical 
 analysis thereof, after having left it some days in contact with 
 the pipes. 
 
 8th. That when the water is of a nature to change the pipes and 
 to attack this metal, it is proper to leave the pipes filled with water 
 for a joeriod of three or four months, mixing with this water a 
 solution of phosphate of soda, containing -^^ of this salt. 
 
 9th. That sulphate of lime in the proportion of y^-^r may be 
 made use of in the same manner ; in this case there takes place a 
 precipitation on the pipes of a salt which protects them from fur- 
 ther action. 
 
 The dangers which result from the use of water which has 
 sojourned or run in leaden pipes, are clearly pointed out in the 
 paper published by Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, called " Historkpu 
 de plusieurs cas d'empoisonnement qui ont eu lieu a Claremont par 
 le plomb." 
 
 M. Gueneau de Mussy states, that being sent for to Claremont 
 
 . at the commencement of October 1848, he had to see several 
 
 illustrious persons attacked with colic from an unknown cause ; 
 
 having studied the symptoms presented, he came to the conclusion 
 
 that they were the result of poisoning by lead. 
 
 Examination of the gums confirmed this diagnosis ; the analysis 
 of the water commonly used by the patients, made by Professor 
 Hoffman, showed that it contained a considerable amount of lead. 
 The water from the leaden pipes was then discontinued, and 
 various medicines ordered. Purgatives, with belladonna and 
 opium, were prescribed, but unsuccessfully, in those cases where 
 the poisoning had been of slow access, and the symptoms chronic. 
 The results following the administration of resinous and saline 
 purgatives, of castor oil, of calomel, of Croton oil, of sulphate of 
 magnesia, were not more satisfactory. M. Gue'neau then aban- 
 doned these medicines, to have recourse to sedatives, opium, bella- 
 donna, ice, weak infusion of rhubarb, which succeeded better in 
 calming the nervous system and removing the constipation. 
 
88 
 
 In the case of those patients who were experiencing the early 
 symptoms of the disease, the disturbing action of energetic pur- 
 gatives stopped the spasmodic accidents, which quickly disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The three patients who had more particularly attracted the 
 attention of M. Gueneau by the severity of their symptoms, had 
 been relieved by antispasmodics ; but success was not complete, 
 and these patients, whose system was still saturated with the poison, 
 showed symptoms of cachexia. Dr. Gue'neau then determined to 
 make use of a chemical treatment ; he prescribed a syrup of 
 hydrated sulphuret of iron and sulphurous baths; the patients 
 took a sulphurous bath every other day, and every alternate day a 
 soap bath. 
 
 With two of the patients who were thus treated, chemical re- 
 action showed itself in a most decided manner; in fact, the nails of 
 the hands and feet contracted a black colour, and stains of the 
 same colour showed themselves in different parts of the body. 
 These last stains were removed by baths and friction with soap, 
 but the discoloration of the nails did not take place by the same 
 means. 
 
 Dr. Gueneau in this manner succeeded in curing his patients; 
 and he says, that while some physicians and chemists have looked 
 upon sulphur as the only remedy for poisoning by lead, others 
 have considered it to be quite useless ; that he is of the opinion of 
 the former, since the success that he obtained by sulphur much 
 surpassed his expectations. 
 
 Dr. Gueneau states that the lead did not act with the same 
 intensity or the same rapidity on all the patients at Claremont. 
 This fact explains itself, and one constantly sees in factories, 
 patients who arc not affected by the white lead, whilst others are 
 attacked with frightful rapidity. 
 
 Dr. Gueneau then proceeds to give statistical details of much 
 interest; out of 38 persons inhabiting Claremont, 13 were at- 
 tacked with lead colic, 11 being men and 2 women. 
 
 The stream which supplies the palace at Claremont with water 
 is derived from a spring which rises in a bed of sand about two 
 miles from the palace ; this stream had been selected from among 
 several others on account of its great purity, and it had been 
 brought, about five years before, to Claremont through leaden 
 pipes. From what lias been said above, it will be seen that the 
 purity of the water had been the cause of the danger. 
 
 M. Gueneau shows also, that in various parts of England, acci- 
 dents, due to the action of water on lead, had been previously 
 observed, especially at Weybridye, in Surrey, at Windsor, &c. ; 
 and lie a4^, how is it that the water used at the Palace of Clare- 
 mont had been used for so long a time without any accidents 
 having been observed before ? To this he replies : — The leaden 
 pipes conducted the water into a large natural cistern, situated at 
 a short distance from the spring ; when the persons who have 
 been the subjects of the numerous observations which precede, 
 came to occupy the palace, they desired that the natural cistern 
 
89 
 
 should be preserved from the animal and vegetable detritus which 
 fell into it. For this purpose, a cylinder of iron, two yards in 
 diameter, and six and a half in height, was constructed ; it was 
 sunk in the soil to a depth of five yards; the water ran into the 
 cylinder, and a leaden pipe was fitted into it with a sort of mouth 
 in the shape of a funnel, which jutted out some inches over the 
 wall of the cylinder. This cylinder was closed at the top with an 
 iron cover pierced with holes, which permitted the atmosphere to 
 exert its pressure on the surface of water. 
 
 M. Gueneau is of opinion that all the mischief arose from thus 
 altering the apparatus. According to him, the fact is certain; 
 but, he says, at the same time, that he has only suspicions concern- 
 ing the chemical reaction which caused the alteration of this 
 water. 
 
 M. le Dr. Guerard, however, in a work full of interesting ob- 
 servations, has given an explanation of these facts, which de-erve 
 consideration. Nothing is easier, he says, than to explain what 
 took place in this affair. 
 
 It is known, in accordance with the observations of M. Pouillet, 
 that lead is positive with regard to iron, and especially cast iron. 
 The substitution of the cylinder of iron for a leaden cistern, would 
 have for result the effect of favouring the oxidation of the lead, 
 which once transformed into the hydrated oxide, would be changed 
 into carbonate, and dissolved in the excess of carbonic acid con- 
 tained in the water. As the proportion of the poisonous agent 
 was but small, the effects to which it gave rise only began to diow 
 themselves after a prolonged use of the poisoned water. 
 
 We deduce from this interesting fact a precept which we must 
 not lose sight of ; it is, that in reservoirs intended to contain water 
 for household use, we must avoid establishing even an intermediate 
 contact between lead and another metal, and especially iron. 
 
 We must not pass over in silence an observation which is in- 
 teresting, in the highest degree, to the health of sailors, and to 
 which recent facts have given great importance. Water distilled 
 at sea by means of the " distilling kitchens," furnished with worms 
 of lead, becomes charged with this metal, and it is to the employ- 
 ment of this water that have been attributed, in some cases, the 
 attacks of colic experienced by a great number of the crews. 
 Leaden worms should not be used in this apparatus, they should be 
 iron. 
 
 We are perfectly convinced, says M. Chevallier, that the em- 
 ployment of lead to preserve or conduct water intended for alimen- 
 tary purposes, may be followed by dangers more or less serious, 
 and that it is indispensable to proscribe this metal for such purposes ; 
 by so doing, all danger will be avoided, and accidents prevented. 
 
 On the employment of the vases and utensils for the kitchen. 
 
 As to utensils and vases for kitchen use, for the table, or for the 
 preservation of condiments, it is difficult to calculate what might 
 be the effect of the lead entering into the composition of objects 
 so universally employed. When it is considered that all the 
 
90 
 
 common pottery is covered with a leaden glaze, capable of being 
 acted on by the greater part of the condiments, greasy and acid 
 materials, one is invincibly led to ask the question whether the 
 incessant mixture of these small quantities of poisonous substances 
 does not, in the long run, exercise an influence more or less deep on 
 public health. This idea, that we should not, perhaps, have ad- 
 vanced without hesitation, we have frequently heard emitted and 
 sustained by one of the most eminent members of the Council of 
 Public Health ; and we do not hesitate to say that it is worthy of 
 the consideration and meditation of all hygienists. In some cases, 
 direct observation shows how well this fear is founded. M. Che- 
 vallier reports the example of a farmer of the Gironde, who was 
 attacked with painters' colic, brought on by gherkins which had 
 been kept in a glazed earthern vase. The glaze was everywhere 
 decomposed by the acetic acid; the vinegar in which the gherkins 
 macerated was muddy, thick, and milky; it contained acetate, 
 carbonate, sulphate, and chloride of lead. 
 
 Sometimes leaden salt cellars are employed. This is a dangerous 
 custom. 
 
 The use of apparatus for making gaseous liquids, if containing 
 leaden or pewter pipes that come into contact with the liquid, is 
 to be avoided. 
 
 .Sheet lead should not be employed for enveloping certain airmen 
 tary substances, especially preserves, or for tobacco. 
 
 Action of beer on leaden pipes. 
 
 Several eases of poisoning by lead having occurred in Lille and 
 its vicinity, and these being traced to beershops, the subject Avas 
 brought under the notice of the central Council of Salubrity of 
 the Department du Nord, by M. le Dr. Gosselet ; the following 
 were the conclusions come to, which, with the report itself, received 
 the sanction of the consulting committee, and subsequently of the 
 superior authority. 
 
 1st. Beer, after remaining twelve hours in a leaden pipe, which 
 has served to convey the liquid, carries with it lead both in a 
 soluble and in an insoluble state. 
 
 2d. That this action takes place daily in the conducting pipes ; 
 that it is augmented by the acidity of the beer ; that the longer 
 the beer is kept in the tubes the greater is the action ; that this 
 action is exerted particularly during the night, so that then the 
 beer may contain, on the average, half a millegramme of lead per 
 quart. 
 
 However weak this amount may appear, it is very clear that it 
 may prove noxious, as it is impossible to measure the toleration of 
 each idiosyncracy, and it may happen, for instance, that this beer- 
 may be supplied every morning to one or two individuals who 
 come to drink it before their breakfast. 
 
 It will, therefore, be prudent to prohibit absolutely the use of 
 such pipes; and also to recommend practicable and inoffensive 
 substitutes for them. 
 
 These substitutes must communicate neither odour nor taste to 
 
87 
 
 the beer, and they must possess a certain flexibility to adapt 
 themselves to the various positions of the barrels in the cellar. 
 
 M. Chevallicr, who has consecrated great part of his life to the 
 pursuit of this dangerous poison (lead), through so many of the 
 common every-day substances, into whose composition it insinuates 
 itself, guided by his great interest in the well-being of his fellow- 
 creatures, has also experimented on the action of wine and cider 
 on vessels of lead. He has proved that after forty minutes of 
 contact, these liquids show the presence of lead, and that while 
 cider attacks the metal with the greatest energy, all three, cider, 
 beer, and wine, present, after a lapse of twenty -four hours, when 
 treated with sulphuretted hydrogen, a considerable quantity of 
 lead. 
 
 In many parts of France, wine and cider have been clarified 
 with white lead and carbonate of potass, and a large number of 
 attacks of painters' colic, and several deaths have resulted from this 
 most reprehensible practice. 
 
 On the regulations in force in France regarding 
 brichnaking. 
 
 Bricks, which are nothing but clayey earth baked, are made 
 sometimes in ovens heated with wood, sometimes in the open air. 
 
 The first method causes abundant development of smoke at the 
 commencement of the firing, and the establishments of this sort 
 are, therefore, arranged in the second class of insalubrious esta- 
 blishments. 
 
 The second process is the most common in the north. The 
 bricks are burnt in the open air, in heaps of several hundreds of 
 thousands. Coals are there made use of, and, by preference, those 
 which give the least smoke. 
 
 The greatest inconvenience of these heaps of bricks is, that they 
 give off great heat by radiation, and that they throw in great 
 abundance into the atmosphere air heated strongly and charged 
 with the products of the combustion of coal. The crops and the 
 leaves of the trees are sometimes scorched by it at a distance of 
 50 or 60 metres. These establishments, under the title of 
 briqueteries, making up only one single furnace in the open air, 
 are classed in the third category. No year passes that the Boards 
 of Public Health and Salubrity of the Department du Nord are 
 not consulted on 10, 15, or 20 demands for authority to establish 
 works of this nature. 
 
 The constant jurisprudence of these Councils consists in imposing 
 the following conditions : — 
 
 1st. Not to burn the bricks at a less distance than 50 metres 
 from a public way, in conformity with a Police Law of the 
 22d June 1812. 
 
 2d. To surround the furnaces during the burning with canv:is 
 or mattresses stuffed with straw, intended to protect the neigh- 
 bouring properties from the inconveniences of the smoke. 
 
92 
 
 In certain cases permission to burn bricks in the open air lias 
 been refused, on account of the neighbourhood of a nursery- 
 ground ; and a close furnace has been exacted. 
 
 It is always arranged that in all cases of injury accruing from 
 the smoke, the injured parties have a claim for redress. This is 
 why many brickmakers subscribe to an engagement not to burn 
 bricks until after harvest. 
 
 The Council of Salubrity of the Department of the Bouches du 
 Rhone have always ordered that brick -burning furnaces shall only 
 be lighted at the commencement of night. This plan greatly 
 diminishes the inconveniences resulting from the smoke. 
 
 On the insalubrity caused by the process of gilding metals 
 by means of mercury . 
 
 The art of the gilder by mercury has many kinds of inconve- 
 niences, which ensue from the operations necessitated. 
 
 These operations consist in the preparation of the gold amalgam, 
 the '• derochage," the gilding, the volatilisation of the amalgam, 
 the burnishing, the deadening, the treatment of the waste metal, 
 and the cleaning of the flues. 
 
 These various operations are insalubrious from the following- 
 causes : — 
 
 1st. The volatilisation of the mercury. 
 
 2d. The disengagement of hyponitric acid. 
 
 3d. The contact of nitric, sulphuric, and hydrocyanic acids with 
 the workmen's hands. 
 
 4th. The contact of the mercury and the acid nitrate of mercury 
 under the same circumstances. 
 
 5th. The possible respiration of mercurial vapours, of acid 
 fumes, and of soot or small particles of coal containing compounds 
 of mercury. 
 
 6th. All these mercurial or acid fumes may spread into neigh- 
 bouring habitations. 
 
 7th. The escape of the waters over the public ways may occa- 
 sion the destruction of the paving or draining materials. 
 
 The following are the hygienic prescriptions of the Council of 
 Salubrity of Paris, which indeed are due for the most part to the 
 inexhaustible genius of D'Arcet. 
 
 A furnace constructed on the system of this chemist, that is to 
 say, provided with particular melting places for each of the 
 operations where vapours are disengaged, prevents all the dangers 
 arising from the volatilisation ; great care must also be taken in 
 making openings as small as the execution of the operations of the 
 workman will permit, and to supply the furnace room with the 
 largest possible amount of air that the furnace requires. 
 
 D'Arcet has directed attention to the descending currents that 
 may take place in a chimney, and to the causes that may give rise 
 to these. One can easily conceive the dangers which may result 
 from such currents, established in the chimnies of gilders, when 
 
93 
 
 these are lined with a mercurial soot, or still filled with acid or 
 mercurial fumes, after operations but recently terminated. 
 
 The workmen are recommended, M'ith the view of preventing 
 the contact of the mercury and the amalgam of gold and of the 
 acids with their hands, to wear while at work gloves of bladder, of 
 varnished silk or leather. 
 
 Colonel Paulin has proposed the use of particular gloves for the 
 workmen who use the scratch-brush. The workmen are also 
 strongly advised, with the same view, to wash their hands frequently 
 in soap and water, in order to saturate the acids with which the 
 hands are frequently impregnated. 
 
 There are other precautions to prescribe in respect to sweeping 
 the chimnies. The sweeper should be clothed in such a manner 
 that every part of his body, the face excepted, should be out of 
 contact with the dust, and a moist sponge should be placed before 
 the nose and mouth, so that during the act of respiration no parti- 
 cles of soot be introduced into the mouth or lungs. Before 
 ascending the chimney, also, a considerable quantity of steam 
 should be sent up the chimney, the object of this precaution being 
 to prevent the formation of dust, and to condense the existing 
 vapours. 
 
 The following are the precautions recommended by the Council 
 of Salubrity to preserve the neighbours from the injurious con- 
 ditions in which they might otherwise be placed. 
 
 The chimney of the gilder is, in fact, the channel of escape for 
 all the insalubrious emanations. 
 
 These emanations are carried to a distance, so much the greater 
 as there exists a stronger draft and more fire in the furnace ; their 
 quantity is in proportion to the importance of the establishment. 
 It follows, therefore, as a general ride, that a gilder by mercury 
 is an unwholesome and sometimes even a dangerous neighbour. 
 From thence results the necessity of an extreme elevation of his 
 chimnies, whatever may be the combustible employed, and this 
 elevation should be larger as the quarter is more populous. 
 Ordinarily the Council of Health demands two or three metres 
 above the roofs of any of the neighbouring habitations within a 
 radius of 25 metres. 
 
 The escape of the washing waters through the public ways is a 
 source of mischief to the soil by the quantity of acids they contain. 
 The Council of Health prescribes the saturation of these acid 
 waters with chalk before they leave the establishment. 
 
 The establishments of metal gilders are placed in the third class 
 of insalubrious establishments. 
 
 On the Regulations contained in the Royal Ordonnance of 
 27th January 1846, regulating the manufacture 
 of gas. 
 
 The manufacture of gas, which has now assumed not only in 
 large towns but even in small cities, an extraordinary develop- 
 
94 
 
 ment, demands on the part of the administration strict surveillance 
 and minute regulations. 
 
 The immense furnaces indispensable for the manufacture of a 
 product essentially inflammable itself, necessarily incur danger of 
 fire, at the same time that they produce considerable smoke and 
 odorous gas, very noxious to the neighbours. 
 
 Therefore the administration has imposed special conditions 
 on the factories where gas is made, on the works for condensing 
 and purifying, and on the gasometers and piortable vessels into 
 which the gas is compressed. 
 
 The danger of the gasometer bursting has been much exag- 
 gerated. In order that the gas of a gasometer should explode, it 
 must contain at least seven times its volume of atmospheric air, 
 which, according to Messrs. Monfalcon and de Poliniere, is im- 
 possible under any circumstances. It is known that the quantity of 
 oxygen necessary to make carburetted hydrogen explode, depends 
 upon the proportion of the elements of this gas. To be completely 
 burnt, the biearburet of hydrogen requires three times its volume 
 of oxygen; but oxygen only enters for one-fifth into the composi- 
 tion of atmospheric air. 
 
 The circumstances are changed when the gas, escaping by 
 some fissure or through some badly closed cock, accumulates in a 
 well closed apartment ; the mixture which results from its union 
 with the atmospheric air may cause an explosion on contact with 
 a light, and this it is which so often takes place. 
 
 The necessity results from such accidents to find a speedy 
 remedy for escapes of gas, and to close the cocks perfectly. 
 
 When gas escaped from a fissure or an open tap accumulates in 
 a closed room, much more severe accidents may result. Persons 
 asleep have been asphyxiated and have perished. 
 
 The more sulphuretted hydrogen the gas contains, the more 
 deleterious is its action on the respiratory organs. 
 
 One of the greatest embarrassments which have weighed upon 
 this industry (gas making,) is the residues furnished by the 
 products of condensation and purifying, of which it has been for a 
 long time very difficult to find the means of riddance, or for em- 
 ploying usefully. 
 
 The tar, a very considerable product of the distillation of coal, 
 has a very disagreeable odour, which communicates itself to the 
 washing waters and to the water of the gasometer, where it unites 
 with another product of the distillation, the sulphuretted hydrogen. 
 These waters, which they did not know what to do with in Lon- 
 don, were formerly conducted to the Thames, where during several 
 years they infected the river for a considerable distance and 
 destroyed the fish. 
 
 This took place in Paris, thirty years ago ; an enormous basin of 
 the gas factory of the Luxembourg having burst, all the mate- 
 rials contained in this basin found their way into the river, not 
 without having infected several quarters of the town, and caused 
 a vast number of fish to perish. 
 
 These products are now utilised. 
 
95 
 
 Royal Okdonnance concerning Ga,s Work 27th January, 
 
 1846. 
 
 1st. The works where hydrogen gas is produced, and the 
 gasometers belonging to them, remain arranged in the second 
 class of establishments dangerous, unwholesome or inconvenient, 
 except in two following cases. 
 
 2d. Are ranged in the third class those small apparatuses for 
 making gas, that are only able to produce, at most, 10 cubic 
 metres in 12 hours. 
 
 3d. Are equally ranged in the third class, the gasometers not 
 belonging to apparatus whose capacity exceeds 10 cubic metres. 
 Those of a less capacity may be established after declaration to 
 the municipal authority. 
 
 4th. The workshops for the distillation, all the buildings be- 
 longing thereto, and the magazines for coals belonging to still- 
 rooms, even when they are not attached to these rooms, shall be 
 built and covered with incombustible materials. 
 
 5th. There shall be established on the highest part of the roof of 
 the workshops, for the exit of the vapours, one or several openings 
 surmounted with pipes or chimneys, the height and diameter of 
 which shall be fixed by the act of authorization. 
 
 6th. No animal matter shall be employed for the manufacture 
 of gas. 
 
 7th. The coke shall be extinguished on its being withdrawn 
 from the retorts. 
 
 8th. The condensing apparatus shall be constructed in the open 
 air, or in buildings ventilated at the upper part, unless the con- 
 densation be carried on in pipes sunk in the soil. 
 
 9th. The apparatus for purifying must be erected in buildings 
 ventilated by a special chimney, established at the upper part of 
 the roof, the height and diameter of which are to be determined by 
 the act of authorization. 
 
 The gas shall never pass from the retorts into the gasometer 
 without previous purification. 
 
 10th. All other mode of lighting other than that of safety 
 lamps is formally interdicted in the condensing and purifying 
 places, as well as in the interior and environs of the buildings 
 enclosing gasometers. 
 
 11th. The ammoniacal waters and the tar produced by the 
 distillation that are not immediately removed, shall be deposited in 
 pits hermetically closed and water-tight, the capacity of which 
 which must not exceed 4 metres cube. 
 
 These receptacles must be constructed of stone or bricks and 
 hydraulic mortar, and covered with cement equally hydraulic; 
 they must be placed under covered buildings. 
 
 12th. The tar, the ammoniacal waters, and the milk of lime, as 
 well as the solid lime from the purifying apparatus, shall be imme- 
 diately removed in vases or barrels hermetically closed. 
 
 13th. The aqueous residue must not be evaporated, nor the tar 
 burnt in the cinders or in the furnaces, if any smoke or odour 
 shall result from so doing. 
 
96 
 
 14th. The number and size of the gasometer of each manufac- 
 tory shall be such as, in case of accident happening to one of them, 
 the others may suffice for the requirements of the supply. 
 
 Each factory shall have at least two gasometers. 
 
 15th. The basins into which the gasometers plunge shall be com- 
 pletely air-tight; they shall be constructed of stone or bricks and 
 hydraulic mortar, or of wood; if the basins are of wood, they shall 
 be placed in a receptacle of masonry. 
 
 If the walls rise above the surface of the ground, they must 
 have a thickness equal to half their height. 
 
 The basins at the level of the ground shall be surrounded by a 
 balustrade. 
 
 16th. The bell of each gasometer shall be supported by fixed 
 chains, so as never to swerve from its vertical position. 
 
 It shall, moreover, be so placed that the elastic force of the gas 
 in the interior of the gasometer shall be greater than the pressure 
 of the atmosphere. The internal pressure of the gas shall be 
 indicated by a pressure gauge. 
 
 17th. The gasometers of a capacity greater than 10 metres cube 
 shall be entirely isolated, not only from the buildings of the works, 
 but aiso from the neighbouring habitations, and shall be protected 
 by lightning conductors, the stems of which shall have an elevation 
 equal to not less than half the diameter of the gasometer. 
 
 18th. Every building containing a gasometer, of whatever size, 
 shall be ventilated by means of openings made in its upper part, so 
 as to avoid an accumulation of gas in case of escape. 
 
 There shall be made, moreover, in its sides several openings, 
 which should be protected by open blinds. 
 
 19th. A safety tube, intended for conveying the gas above the 
 roof, shall be adapted to every gasometer established in a building, 
 
 If the gasometer is in the open air, the tube may be replaced 
 by four openings of 1 or 2 centimetres in diameter, placed at 
 8 or 10 centimetres from its lower border, and at equal distances 
 from each other. 
 
 20th. Only gasometers not exceeding in size 10 metres cube at 
 most, may be placed in cellars, such cellars to be only used for the 
 gasometers. They shall be properly ventilated by means of two 
 openings, placed one near the floor of the cellar, the other in the 
 highest part of the arch. This latter opening shall be surmounted 
 by a tube for escape, more elevated than the roof of the house. 
 
 21st. The first rilling of a gasometer can only take place after a 
 verification of its construction, and in presence of an agent 
 delegated by the municipal authority. 
 
 22d. The portable recipients of condensed gas shall be made of 
 copper or sheet iron ; they shall be proved by a pressure double 
 that which they will be subjected to in daily use, and which shall 
 be determined by the act of authorization. 
 
 23d. The gas furnished to consumers shall be completely puri- 
 fied. The purity shall be certified by means prescribed by the 
 administration. 
 ,; 24th. The works and apparatus above-mentioned may, besides, 
 
97 
 
 be subjected to measures of precaution which may be recognized as 
 useful in the interest of safety or of public health. 
 
 25th. The Royal Ordonnances of 18"24 and 1838 concerning gas 
 establishments are repealed. 
 
 On a new method of purifying gas, to which was 
 awarded the Montyon Prize by the Academy of 
 Sciences of Paris in 1 850. 
 
 (Extracted from the " Comptes Kcndus " of the Imperial Academy of 
 Sciences of France.) 
 
 Since the year 1841 M. Dumas has given to the Academy 
 of Sciences a favourable account of the process invented by 
 M. Mallet ; since that period the committees for adjudging the 
 Montyon prizes have frequently been occupied with examining 
 this process. 
 
 The different reports all gave similar testimony; but it was judged 
 expedient to wait until the realization of the principal advantages 
 of this new application had acquired, by being tried in several gas 
 manufactories, such a degree of certitude as rendered sure the 
 service performed. 
 
 The Commission thinks that this time is now arrived ; for a 
 great number of manufactories have now adopted this method of 
 purification. It is now established in the manufactories of gas 
 at Eoubaix, Turcoing, St. Quentin, St. Denis, and Douai. 
 
 In Belgium the same apparatus acts with success in three 
 factories — Brussels, Bruges, and Courtrai. 
 
 The process of M. Mallet consists in the employment of metallic 
 solutions, particularly of chloride of manganese-— the residue of 
 the preparation of chlorine. This solution, saturated with some 
 of the ammoniacal liquid from the gas works, is placed in the 
 apparatus or purifiers disposed in three stages in such a manner 
 that the solution passes from one into the other, whilst the gas 
 passes through the liquid in the opposite direction. 
 
 This sort of methodical washing arrests in its passage the car- 
 bonic acid, the sulphuretted hydrogen, and the ammonia ; also, 
 the hydrochlorate of ammonia in solution. Mechanical agitators 
 keep the precipitate in suspension in the three vases ; it is from 
 the last of these vases that the thick solution charged with the 
 products of the purification is withdrawn. This liquid is allowed to 
 deposit in proper recipients, the clear liquid which contains the 
 hydrochlorate is decanted off, and the sal ammoniac obtained in 
 the solid state by evaporation and crystallisation. 
 
 As to the gas which has undergone this first purification, it 
 still contains a little sulphuretted hydrogen ; this is very easily 
 got rid of by passing it through pulverulent hydrate of lime, in 
 the usual purifiers. 
 
 The process of M. Mallet, in eliminating the sulphuretted hydro- 
 gen, disposes of one of the principal causes of the infectious odour 
 of gas, and prevents the formation of the sulphurous acid gas ; 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 it therefore renders the air "breathed more salubrious, and diminishes 
 or destroys the inconveniences of the mixtures of sulphuretted 
 hydrogen or sulphurous acid gas which darkened silver plate and 
 paintings with white lead, or oxydised objects made of iron, steel, 
 and copper. 
 
 The purification of gas by this process allows the collection of 
 the salts of ammonia which were lost formerly. Every ton (1000 
 kilogrammes) of coals distilled furnishes at least 6 kilogrammes of 
 hydrochlorate of ammonia ; the gas works of Roubaix and Tur- 
 coing, St. Quentin, St. Denis, and Douai collect annually 66,000 
 kilogrammes of this substance ; and proportional quantities are 
 collected in Belgium. 
 
 The Commission, considering that M. Mallet has actually 
 realized an application useful for salubrity and industry, has 
 judged him worthy of receiving a reward of 500 francs on the 
 Montyon foundation. 
 
 On a new method of purifying gas, to which was 
 awarded the Montyon Prize by the Academy of 
 Sciences of Paris, in the Year 1850. 
 
 (Extracted from the " Comptes Kendus " of the Imperial Academy of 
 Sciences of France.) 
 
 After numerous trials, M. de Cavaillon has determined the 
 conditions favourable to the economical action of sulphate of lime on 
 the carbonate of ammonia contained in coal gas. He has even 
 contrived to unite those conditions by means so simple and, never- 
 theless, so efficient, that from that time he has been able to carry 
 out the purifying process without requiring any change in the 
 apparatus used in the manufactories of lighting gas, without even 
 increasing sensibly the pressure on the tubes, joints, and distilling 
 vases. 
 
 These remarkable dispositions have permitted him to introduce 
 without difficulty his means of purification in the large gas works 
 of Paris and the suburbs. He procures the chemical agent that 
 he employs at but slight cost, by collecting in towns the old 
 plaster work of pulled down walls and houses that is thrown away 
 as useless ; then with the help of a grooved mill he reduces it to 
 powder, which, after being properly moistened, he transforms into 
 sulphate of lime by treating it with dilute sulphuric acid. This 
 material is rendered more permeable to the gas by adding to it 
 broken debris of coke. 
 
 The sulphate of lime, thus prepared, is placed on the screens or 
 strainers of wood or metal of the ordinary purifiers. The gas, in 
 passing over this matter, abandons the carbonate of ammonia, 
 which, in decomposing the sulphate of lime, causes a double trans- 
 formation, producing carbonate of lime and sulphate of ammonia. 
 
 On leaving this apparatus, the gas passes into the usual puri- 
 fiers of hydrate of lime, when the hydrosulphuric acid (sulphu- 
 
99 
 
 retted hydrogen) is much more easily fixed than it could be when 
 the carbonate of ammonia accompanied the gases. 
 
 The gas works of the Faubourg Poissoniere and of Vaugirard 
 have adopted the process of M. de Cavaillon. The skilful en- 
 gineer of the Compagnie Francaise, M. Meymel, declares that the 
 purification, almost perfect by this process, leaves nothing to 
 desire ; that the pressure on the retorts is not augmented ; in a 
 word, that no inconvenience whatever results from the process of 
 M. de Cavaillon. 
 
 We have ourselves proved the exactness of these assertions in 
 examining the system of purification at the gas works. It has been 
 easy to make sure, also, that M. de Cavaillon extracts by means 
 of simple cold lixiviation the sulphate of ammonia dissolved, and 
 that evaporation permits this salt to crystallise. This process is 
 also employed for purification in the great works of Messrs. Du- 
 bochet, Pawels, and Co., Barriere of Fontainebleau. 
 
 The quantity of sulphate of ammonia that M. de Cavaillon 
 obtains from the three establishments exceeds 200,000 kilograms. 
 
 The ingenious processes, simple and efficacious, by the aid of 
 which the author has realised the economical application of sulphate 
 of lime to the purification of gas for lighting, are worthy of the 
 attention of the Academy ; and the Commission is of opinion that 
 M. de Cavaillon well deserves to receive a recompense of five 
 hundred francs on the Montyon foundation for making more 
 healthy insalubrious arts. 
 
 On the measures ordered by the Council of Salubrity of 
 Paris, to be taken by metal gilders by the moist 
 process, to preserve the public health. 
 
 The following are the measures of security ordered by the 
 Council of Salubrity to be taken by metal gilders by the steeping 
 method : — 
 
 1st. To restrict as much as possible the opening of every fur- 
 nace, without impeding the work. 
 
 2d. To raise the chimney at least two metres above the roofs 
 of any of the neighbouring hovises. 
 
 3d. To establish a good draft furnace in each forge. 
 
 4th. Not to carry on the operations without there being a strong 
 draft to the furnace. 
 
 5 th. To keep constantly at the disposal of the workmen a 
 bottle of ammonia, so that they can inhale the gas in case of any 
 accidents caused by the nitrous vapours. 
 
 6th. To keep in the workrooms a certain amount of chalk, so 
 as to saturate immediately the acid waters which might escape 
 over the soil, &c. 
 
 G 2 
 
100 
 
 On the alterations produced on the hands of burnishers 
 
 of brass. 
 
 The burnisher holds himself by the right hand which id open. 
 The left hand serves to fix the work, which, placed between 
 the thumb and index finger, is strongly bent against the table. 
 
 The palmar surface of the right hand becomes callous, horny, 
 and darkened, except at the bendings of the joints. The smallest 
 phalanx of the little finger constantly remains in a state of flexion. 
 
 On the left hand, the skin covering the dorsal surface and the 
 radial border of the index finger, and especially the head of the 
 second metacarpal bone, is very hard and callous. The extremity 
 of the palmar surface of the thumb is in the same state. 
 
 On the precautions and police regulations to be observed by 
 percussion cap and Ji 'rework makers. 
 
 Fulminating powder is composed of fulminate of mercury and 
 nitre, mixed together by rubbing. Jt is indispensable for this 
 operation to take precautions not less minute than those for making 
 chemical matches. The moist paste resulting from the rubbing 
 must be carried without delay to the drying house, where it is 
 divided, and placed upon stages. 
 
 When the fulminating powder has been sufficiently re-dried, it 
 is granulated upon a hair sieve placed on a wooden table, pressing- 
 it lightly with the hand. This operation is not less perilous than 
 the drying, and demands as many precautions. Rubbing it too 
 hard, more especially if there happen to be in the mass parts too 
 dried, would cause an explosion, and M. Gaultier de Claubry states 
 that an accident, which caused the destruction of a factory and the 
 deaths of two operatives, was produced by that cause. 
 
 In spite of every care, as the mass to be granulated easily 
 arrives at a state of desiccation that renders it dangerous, it is 
 highly important only to place on the sieve a very inconsiderable 
 quantity of powder, and to pass the sieve itself through water 
 after each operation, and also htfore the granulation, when a 
 certain time has elapsed between the two operations. M. Gaultier 
 de Claubry advises that the lower border of the sieve should be 
 covered with a plate of lead, in order to avoid detonations that 
 would be liable to be produced if the strainer happened to fall 
 out of the hands of the operator, and fell on the granulated 
 material. 
 
 The granulation takes place on a wooden table ; however, 
 M. Gaultier de Claubry is of opinion that it is better to cover this 
 table with black varnished leather or linen, well stretched, which 
 allows the smallest particles of powder to be more easily seen, and 
 to be removed with a damp sponge. The operation will be 
 rendered still less dangerous by underlaying the black cloth cover 
 with two or three layers of thick flannel or green baize. The 
 granulated powder, mixed with priming powder, is poured into a 
 
101 
 
 box of tin plate lined with tin foil. To dry the granulated powder, 
 it is placed on sheets of grey paper in deal boxes, and these are 
 carried to the drying-room. 
 
 "When the powder is sufficiently dry, it is brought back to the 
 granulating room, where it is poured upon a hair sieve, so as to 
 separate the priming powder from it. 
 
 When this separation is completed, the powder is introduced by 
 means of a pasteboard funnel into bottles, which ought not to 
 contain more than 5 kilograms (1 1 lbs.) 
 
 These bottles should be surrounded with reed and covered with 
 a skin. 
 
 When it is desired to use the powder to charge the percussion 
 caps, it must first be placed in smaller bottles. It is poured, by 
 means of a pasteboard funnel, into small bottles, made of varnished 
 leather. These are then carried into the charging-room in a box 
 lined with leather, and placed beside each woman, who uses them 
 as her work demands. 
 
 The powder, perfectly dry, is brought from the powder-room 
 into the charging-room, where the priming caps are made. 
 
 They begin by transferring the powder from the large to the 
 small leathern bottles, and it is of the highest importance never to 
 do this in the powder-room, but only in the open air, the door of the 
 powder-room being shut. The powder is poured into the leathern 
 bottles, which should never contain more than the quantity of 
 powder necessary for a portion of a day's woi'k. This transference 
 ought to be performed on a wooden table, covered with a black 
 glazed cloth well stretched, itself placed on two or three thick- 
 nesses of woollen material. 
 
 The caps are of thin copper, made hollow by machinery. They 
 are delivered to the workwomen, who arrange and dispose them 
 in an instrument called a hand, which serves to charge them with 
 fulminating powder. 
 
 "When the hand, which contains 100 caps, has been properly 
 charged, it is passed to a workman, who places it under a press. 
 
 It is easy to understand that this latter operation is one of those 
 which gives rise to the greater number of the accidents, or, 
 at any rate, to the most frequent detonations, at the moment when 
 the press is at work. 
 
 Numerous accidents have taught us how important it is that the 
 press under which the hands charged are passed, should be dis- 
 posed in such a manner that the workman should not be in front 
 of it when he makes the lever act, in order that if an explosion 
 does take place, he may, at any rate, avoid the shock of the pro- 
 jected hand. 
 
 The charging terminated, the caps are placed in boxes of paste- 
 board, of 250 and 500, and these boxes are packed 20 or 40 
 together. These packets should then be arranged with care in 
 solid cases containing 100 or 200 packets, the interior of the case 
 beino- lined with a square skin of larger dimensions than the case 
 itself, so that it may envelop the entire contents. 
 
 This precaution is to dimmish, as much as possible, all chances 
 
102 
 
 of accidents which might take place during the transport of tho 
 caps from the manufactory to the magazine. 
 
 Such are the clangers that the fabrication of fulminating powder 
 and percussion caps gives rise to, and such are the best means for 
 preventing them. They consist, in the first place, in a good 
 arrangement of the workrooms, which should be completely 
 isolated, constructed of very slight materials, such as boards and 
 canvas, so as to avoid, in case of explosion, the projection of 
 heavy masses; and, lastly, that the rooms should be heated by the 
 circulation of hot-water instead of by stoves. 
 
 It is right that the room where the fulminate of mercury is 
 made, should be separated from all the other workshops ; but the 
 powder should not be carried after its desiccation any great dis- 
 tance, at any rate, without taking very great precautions. 
 
 In the last operation, namely, that of charging the caps, it is 
 very important that the women who fill the hands should be pro- 
 tected by a buckler of sheet iron against the explosions. It is by 
 such precautions as are above described, and by ingenious modi- 
 fications introduced into the mechanical part of the different 
 operations, that the inconveniences of one of the most dangerous 
 employments which exist can be diminished. 
 
 The following are the measures of salubrity prescribed by the 
 Council of the Seine. 
 
 Okdonnance for the Manufacture of Fulminating Powder 
 and the Charging of Percussion Cats. 
 
 1st. Every factory for the fabrication of fulminating powders 
 and percussion caps shall be completely isolated from every 
 dwelling-house, and be distant from roads and public paths ; it shall 
 be surrounded on all sides by walls. 
 
 2d. The room where the fulminate of mercury is made, shall be 
 distant from all the other workrooms, and particularly from the 
 powder depot and the stores of alcohol necessary for the works. 
 
 3d. The other workrooms shall be isolated from each other, 
 and constructed in lath and plaster without rubble ; the ground 
 shall be covered with sheet-lead. 
 
 4th. No fire shall be made in the workrooms, and no work shall 
 be carried on by artificial light. 
 
 5th. The walls of the drying-house shall be furnished with 
 shelves of deal, the highest of which shall receive nothing ; these 
 shelves shall be fastened at such a height that the objects placed 
 on them caii be reached without being obliged to mount either on 
 a chair or bench. 
 
 6th. No sieve, the strainer of which is made with metallic wires, 
 can be employed, and the sieves must be furnished with lead 
 round their lower borders. 
 
 7th. The granulated and dried powder shall be enclosed in 
 bottles covered with reeds ; and these bottles kept in the powder 
 store. 
 
 8th. The powder store shall be absolutely isolated ; it shall be 
 
103 
 
 provided with a lightning conductor. The only row of shelves 
 which shall be placed there shall he placed at such a height that, 
 in order to reach the bottles placed on the shelves, no mounting 
 is necessary : the floor of this powder-room shall be covered with 
 a sheet of lead* 
 
 9th. No transference of powder must be made in the powder 
 depot, under any pretext whatever. 
 
 10th. The boxes in which the workmen enclose the bottles of 
 powder shall be lined with leather, stuffed with wool or hair. 
 
 11th. Not more than a tenth, at the most, of the powder to be 
 used in one day, shall be transported at a time into the charging 
 room. 
 
 12th. The director of the establishment, and the superinten- 
 dent of the workshops, shall alone have the key of the powder- 
 room. 
 
 13th. The foreman should possess chemical knowledge, and 
 present some moral responsibility. 
 
 14th. No workman younger than 18 years of age shall be 
 employed ; no workman shall be allowed to smoke in the manu- 
 factory or workrooms. 
 
 15th. No manufactory of detonating powder or caps shall have 
 permission to be established without sending in before-hand an 
 exact plan of all the internal arrangements, which, after their 
 approval, shall not be changed, under any pretext, without a new 
 authority. 
 
 On the substitution of a new material for the charcoal 
 powder now in use in casting bronze and other 
 figures, fyc. 
 
 In manufactories of bronze and other ornaments, of which there 
 are many in Paris, and which cause the employment of a very 
 considerable number of artisans of a high class, and who earn very 
 considerable wages, there have been constant complaints made to 
 the Conseil de Salubrite of Paris, of the serious attacks on the 
 constitution, and the frequent diseases caused by the inspiration, in 
 large quantities, of powdered charcoal. 
 
 This substance is employed, in very considerable quantities, for 
 dusting over the inside of the moulds used in casting the bronze 
 or brass objects, and to prevent the adhesion of the sand or clay 
 to the fluid metal. When dusted out of a coarse canvas bag 
 upon the mould, the atmosphere surrounding the workmen 
 becomes perfectly black with charcoal, and as this substance is 
 always used in the finest possible powder, it is taken into the 
 nose, mouth, throat, and lungs with every inspiration. The com- 
 plaints of the workmen of the ill effects of this on their health are 
 ioud and universal. 
 
 * The Council has proved that it is very difficult to cause fulminate of mercury to 
 detonate when placed on sheet- lead. 
 
104 
 
 I questioned several of the artists employed in this work, as 
 well as some of the foremen, and from their evidence it appears 
 that the following are among the principal effects. 
 
 The first symptom is a constant cough, evidently an effort of 
 nature to rid herself of a foreign and irritating substance. This 
 is followed by spitting blood, and being awoke during the 
 night with cough, accompanied with considerable pain in the 
 chest. After a night attack of this sort the patient has no 
 appetite, and resumes his work the next day without having been 
 able to eat his breakfast. 
 
 They soon begin to find that the excretions from the nose and 
 lungs become perfectly black, being evidently coloured by the 
 carbon. 
 
 The men whom I saw employed in this work, especially those 
 at Messieurs Eck and Durand's factory, in the Rue des Trois 
 Borgnes, in Paris, looked ill and consumptive. They were wan, 
 sallow, and very thin. 
 
 A very efficient substitute for the powdered charcoal has lately 
 been discovered, which has been tried and found to answer the 
 purpose as well, in every respect, as the charcoal, while it is free 
 from the evil consequences of the latter. This is the finely 
 powdered fecula or starch of potatoes. The workmen, as well as 
 the foremen who had employed it, all assured me that it prevented 
 the adhesion of the substance of which the mould was formed to 
 the hot metal ; that it made the surface of the casting equally as 
 fine and smooth, and that it did not cause the great irritation of 
 the lungs and mucous membranes induced by the present process. 
 The Academy of Sciences has judged this to be so great an im- 
 provement as to be worthy of reward from the Monty on fund for 
 rendering more healthy noxious trades and occupations. 
 
 I am of opinion that this knowledge should be disseminated 
 among persons engaged in similar employments in this country. 
 
 On the hygienic conditions of nail makers and iron 
 founders. 
 
 Doctor F. X. Masson has made a most valuable series of ob- 
 servations, confined, however, to French Ardenne, which bear par- 
 ticularly on a population employed in working iron, and especially 
 nailery and iron foundry, the two great industrial employments 
 of the Canton of Charleville. 
 
 These observations I now proceed to condense in this paper. 
 
 Although the workmen of these two industries have many 
 points in common with each other, they nevertheless present in 
 the conditions of their existence some curious peculiarities. 
 
 Nailc 
 
 rs. 
 
 The nailers of Ardenne, united generally in groups of six or 
 seven, associate together to work in the same workshop, at the 
 
105 
 
 fire of the same forge, the bellows of which is set in movement by 
 a dog. In these shops the nails are made with a hammer by hand, 
 and the head of the nail by means of moulds or matrices in steel, 
 called clouieres. The iron made use of has been previously drawn 
 out in long stems, the thickness of which is proportioned to the 
 species of nail required to be made. A block of hard wood is 
 fixed in the earth, close to the forge and in front of the workman ; 
 on this block arc placed, in a fixed and invariable manner, 
 1st. What is called the place — a small anvil for drawing out the 
 nails ; 2d. Another little anvil to dress the nails ; 3d. Scissors for 
 cutting them ; 4th. the clouicre for forming the head, and for 
 finishing it. The other instruments of the nailer consist of two 
 pinchers and the hammer already spoken of. 
 
 Children are placed at the forge a long time before their 
 physical development is fully operated, sometimes as early as 
 seven or eight years of age; and, in certain communes, young- 
 girls themselves make nails long before the age of puberty ; and 
 one sees men, women, and children, all mingled together, working 
 from morning to night. Placed in half circles round these forges, 
 the fire of which warms them in the winter, lights them in the 
 long evenings, and which often cooks their food, the nailers strike 
 uninterruptedly and with repeated blows on the iron from which 
 they manufacture millions of nails of a hundred different kinds. 
 In a state of complete immovability of the legs, in a continual 
 movement of the arms, with a perpetual balancing of the body, 
 they thus pass their lives in the midst of the sulphurous vapour of 
 coke, and of an atmosphere heated by the forge, and vitiated by 
 the emanations of human beings and the dejections of dogs. Under 
 such influences, the physical constitution of the nailers deteriorates, 
 and there results from these circumstances certain special defor- 
 mities that it is of great importance to point out, with a view to 
 their correction and prevention. 
 
 The nailer has raised shoulders, and the left is higher than the 
 right. The trunk is inclined to the same side, and the weight of 
 the body, inclining in this sense, bows the corresponding lee, 
 which causes the nailer to be uncertain in his walk, and to limp 
 often in a marked manner. 
 
 The hands are deformed, especially the right; it has this con- 
 stant character, that the fingers are curved inwards, so as to form 
 an angle with the metacarpus, and so as not to permit the index 
 finger to oppose itself to the thumb ; thence the impossibility of 
 raising a piece of money from a table in the ordinary manner, and 
 the necessity of bringing it by the edge of one hand into the other, 
 as is usually done for small seeds or pulverulent substances. This 
 peculiarity will make a nailer be recognised anywhere, as also will 
 the odour of dogs impregnating his clothing. A very common 
 infirmity with those who make nails, is a contraction of the fingers, 
 and even of the hand, which does not permit of their extension or 
 opening ; this obliges them in certain cases to take the hammer in 
 
106 
 
 the left hand to insert it in their right hand when about to use it. 
 If, besides, it is considered that the manufacture of nails is inju- 
 rious to the growth of the individual who gives himself up to this 
 industry too young, it will be easily understood why there are in 
 the Canton of Charleville so great a number of nailers, mean in 
 appearance, undersized, slender, and out of condition by their size, 
 their infirmities, the feebleness of their constitution, to furnish 
 soldiers for their country. 
 
 The vices of construction and the bad arrangement of the work- 
 shops exercise likewise an unfavourable influence on the constitu- 
 tion and the health of the workmen. They are almost always too 
 small, and not sufficiently lighted or ventilated, and the extreme 
 carelessness of the nailer augments still more the inconveniences 
 which result from their faults of construction. They are but 
 rarely cleansed, and the excrements of the dogs are allowed to 
 remain there much too long. Hence arise disagreeable emana- 
 tions, that peculiar odour which impregnates the very garments of 
 the workman, and cause him to be easily recognised as a nailer by 
 those who are accustomed to them. 
 
 Potatoes form the basis of the ordinary food of the inhabitants 
 of the Ardenne ; they constitute, together with coffee, bread, 
 a few vegetables, a little butter or grease, all the nourishment of 
 the nailer during the entire year. Coffee is in general use, it is 
 the breakfast of every one, of the poor as well as of the well-to-do 
 workman, and of the rich man, and in certain families it forms, so 
 to speak, the whole day's nourishment. There are even women 
 who have so strong a passion for this liquid that they drink it from 
 morning to night. However, the coffee of the Ardenne is a liquid 
 scarcely coloured with chicory, or but slightly flavoured with true 
 coffee, without sugar, or scarcely sweetened with treacle or brown 
 sugar. The nailers say that their coffee appeases their thirst well, 
 that it prevents their being dry, and that without it they would 
 be unable to support the heat of the forge during the heats of 
 summer. 
 
 To terminate what is to be remarked about the hygienic habits 
 of the nailers, I will add that the working garments of the men 
 and women are not sufficient to protect them from the sudden 
 changes of temperature to which they are exposed. 
 
 Iron Founders. 
 
 These artizans are employed in making objects of iron, as 
 shovels and pinchers, window fasteners, screw-bolts, screws, screw- 
 nuts, bolts, and spring-plate bolts. 
 
 The iron-workers are distinguished from the nailers by their 
 physical powers being less changed, less vitiated, and by possess- 
 ing more force and vigour of constitution. They owe this happy 
 distinction to the very nature of their work, which is less painful 
 and more varied. The workman in iron is not constrained 
 like the nailer, to preserve constantly and necessarily the same 
 
107 
 
 position. Whether he forges, or files, or worms, or turns, 
 or polishes the thousand and one objects that he manufactures, ho 
 has moments of inaction, instants of repose, which allow his limbs 
 the momentary liberty they require, and the changes of posture 
 so necessary to them. The workshop that he occupies is abo 
 always much larger and better aerated than that of the nailer, 
 and consequently much healthier. 
 
 If we add, lastly, that the blacksmith earns higher wages, that 
 he enjoys more comfort, and is better fed, it will be easy to under- 
 stand the differences remarked in the constitution and the health 
 of the two classes of workmen. 
 
 The maladies to which these two classes of whom we have 
 spoken are subject, present some interesting peculiarities, which it 
 is desirable to indicate. 
 
 Ophthalmia is very common among iron founders, and especially 
 among milers, whose sight is fatigued by the vacillating fire of the 
 forge, by the brightness and heat of the fire, by the fineness of the 
 objects they manufacture, and by the fixity of their looks on these 
 objects. It is in a great measure to repeated inflammation of the 
 eyes that many of these workmen owe, towards the end of their 
 days, this feebleness of vision that puts them out of condition to 
 work. 
 
 Coryza, which is usually so simple a complaint, assumes some- 
 times with iron founders an extraordinary intensity, and produces 
 most distressing symptoms. The inflammation prolonged into the 
 frontal sinuses, and continually exasperated by the concussions of 
 the hammer, gives rise to intolerable pains in the head, to fever, 
 even to delirium, and sometimes endangers the life of the patient. 
 
 The continual acts of imprudence that the workman commits in 
 leaving his workshop in a state of great perspiration, and in ex- 
 posing himself, in an inconsiderate manner, with his arms naked, 
 and in his shirt, to the cold and humidity of the atmosphere, fre- 
 quently bring on catarrhs, pleurisy, and rheumatic affections. 
 
 M. le Docteur Masson describes also chronic inflammations of 
 the liver, which he attributes " to the repeated concussions which 
 the liver receives from the action of the hammer on the anvil, to 
 the different compressions that this organ undergoes during the 
 work, and still more to the excessive quantity of beer consumed, 
 which disturbs the functions of the stomach, and influence, in a 
 special manner, the biliary organ." 
 
 Lastly, two surgical affections are constantly met with in the 
 iron founder, namely, inflammation of the axilla, and whitlow, 
 caused by a blow, a spark of iron introduced in the flesh, a burn, or 
 fatigue caused by using the hammer. 
 
 Certain other infirmities attack nailers and blacksmiths, espe- 
 cially the former; we will mention amaurosis, arising from the fact 
 that the evening's work only takes place by the vacillating light, 
 of the forge, and by the lively and fugacious brilliancy of the red- 
 hot iron withdrawn every minute from the furnace. Also difficulty 
 of hearing and deafness itself, which are explained by the fatigue 
 
108 
 
 undergone by the organ of hearing ; the result of the continuous 
 and monotonous noise of the hammer ; dyspnoea and asthma, de- 
 pending on the maladies already described, and varices produced 
 by the continual vertical position. 
 
 But Dr. Masson does not confine himself to this sad enumera- 
 tion of inconvenience?, of dangers, of diseases and infirmities to 
 which the Ardenne nailers and forgers are exposed ; he endeavours 
 to make known remedies for them. A first observation, full of 
 interest, and which deserves particular attention, is that the bad 
 manufacture of the tools and the very faulty manner of using 
 them have a direct and very active influence on the alterations 
 and deformities with which the nailers are afflicted. On this 
 subject it is extremely interesting to attend to the useful reforms 
 proposed by M. Vitasse, a former journeyman nailer, whose 
 intelligence and energy has raised him among the ranks of the 
 most distinguished masters. 
 
 According to SI. Vitasse, " the apprentice becomes deformed, 
 bent forward or to one side, because the working instruments 
 which he uses are out of proportion to his strength and his size, and 
 that for the most part they differ in no manner from wliat an adult 
 would employ. The block of wood on which are fixed the anvils 
 i&rc, should be neither too high nor too low ; the "place '" and the 
 " pied dY'tape " inserted in the block should be on a level with the 
 hip of the workman, and these two tools should only be separated 
 from each other by a distance of eight hundreds of a metre. 
 
 "The hammers which the nailers use are generally too large and 
 too heavy, and they are badly made. For a child ten years old, 
 the hammer ought not to be more than 625 grammes= 1 lb. 
 6 oz. ; for a child twelve years of age, 703 grammes = 1 1- lbs.; 
 of eighteen years, 1 lb. 9i ounces, or 750 grammes. It is 
 necessary that the hammer should be curved on itself towards the 
 handle, and that it should end in a head broader than the body of 
 the instrument. The actual form of the hammers is such, that 
 the spangles of red-hot iron in a state of incandescence are thrown 
 on to the hand of the workman, who, fearing lest he should be 
 burnt, especially on commencing the business, works with less 
 assurance and more hesitation ; and when he feels the pain of the 
 spark, he stops, disturbs his work, and does it with less celerity 
 and precision. 
 
 " The handles of these hammers are too short and too thick ; 
 which, joined to their weight, requires too great a contraction of 
 the hand, and explains the infirmities of this organ, and the con- 
 traction of the fingers that have been described. 
 
 " The nailer should stand on a level floor, in order that the body 
 may have a solid basis, and a regular point of support. 
 
 " The points of the feet should be slightly distant from each 
 other, and a little sloped forward. This is just the contrary of 
 what generally exists in workshops, where the heels finish at 
 length by forming for themselves a hole in the soil, wdiich keeps 
 thc;n beneath the level of the fore part of the feet." 
 
109 
 
 If these precepts were followed, the nailers would no longer be 
 exposed, as Ihey now are, to the incurable deformities, and to 
 precocious infirmities, which arise from their badly-conducted 
 work. Dr. Masson adds to these practical propositions very wise 
 suggestions touching the necessity of not admitting to apprentice- 
 ship children under twelve years of age at, the least ; to render the 
 workshops of the nailers more healthy by cleanliness and better 
 ventilation ; to make their food more substantial, their clothing 
 warmer, and lastly, to combat excesses of all kinds, and the pre- 
 judices which contribute to ruin their health, and to perpetuate 
 their daily habits. 
 
 In our opinion, this remarkable essay should be widely known, 
 as we are persuaded that it should serve as a model of such an 
 important study as professional hygiene, and because it demon- 
 strates in the most striking manner, even in a limited question, 
 how the exactness and the novelty of the recommendations, the 
 spirit of observation, the sagacity of the precepts, may serve with 
 great utility both science and humanity. 
 
 On the diseases of the workmen employed in the manu- 
 facture of chemical matches, and the hues regard- 
 ing them. 
 
 "i? 
 
 The study of the diseases to which the workmen employed in 
 the manufacture of chemical matches are exposed, has given rise 
 to very curious observations, although still surrounded with some 
 obscurity. 
 
 Doctor Hyfelder, Messrs. Theophile Roussel, Strohl of 
 Strasbourg, Sedillot, &c., have described examples of a very 
 peculiar affection, due to the action of phosphoric vapours, an 
 opinion, however, which has been contested by M. Dupasquier of 
 Lyons. 
 
 In examining the accidents which arise to the health of these 
 artisans, in endeavouring to ascertain what are, in the manufac- 
 ture of matches, the peculiar conditions capable of exercising on 
 the living economy a disastrous influence, one cannot but attach 
 the greatest importance to the emanations of the phosphoric 
 vapours which are continually being given off in variable quanti- 
 ties in all the manufactories where either the mastic of the 
 matches, or the matches already charged with the mastic, are 
 handled. 
 
 The careful study of the different parts of the work carried on 
 in the factories, permits it even to be affirmed that the emanations 
 of the phosphoric vapours is the only one that causes the acci- 
 dents and diseases which afflict so great a number of the work- 
 people. 
 
110 
 
 That is why it is necessary first to examine the two following 
 questions, viz: — 
 
 1 st. What are the parts of the manufacture of these matches, 
 which cause necessarily exposure to the phosphoric emanations ? 
 
 2d. What are the nature and the chemical composition of these 
 emanations? 
 
 All the wood work and the manufacture of the boxes generally 
 take place outside the factory ; these operations are cos sequently 
 not concerned in the questions of hygiene and pathology which 
 now occupy us ; and as they occupy about half the total number 
 of workpeople employed, it follows that half the number of these 
 operatives are beyond the sphere of action of the causes of insalu- 
 brity inherent in the factories. 
 
 In the interior of the factories, in admitting that there is a 
 particular locality set apart for each operation, five-sixths of the 
 workpeople may therefore escape the influence of the phosphoric 
 vapours. Thus all the work of filling the presses, which absorbs 
 the four-fifths of the women, may go on in rooms free from the 
 emanations, since dry wood is the only substance they arc con- 
 cerned with. 
 
 There remains to examine the workshop where the mastic is 
 made; that where the matches are dipped; the stove-re >m ; and 
 lastly that where the presses are emptied and the boxes filled. 
 
 The atmosphere of these various rooms is charged in a more or 
 less intense degree, by the vapours which rise either from the 
 paste into which the matches are dipped, or from the heaps of 
 matches already charged with the phosphoric paste. 
 
 The pounding of the materials, and the preparation of the 
 mastic, do not require continuous working : a single workman 
 suffices for those operations ; besides, these are frequently carried 
 on in the open air, so that they are not of very great importance 
 in a hygienic point of view. One might almost say as much of 
 the stove work, where the workmen do not work continuously. 
 
 But it is not at all the same with regard to the "steepers," and 
 above all, with the work-rooms occupied by the emptiers of the 
 presses, and the work-women wln> put the matches into packets and 
 boxes. The stranger who enters this part of the manufactories, is 
 struck with the emanations which enhale from them; the trans- 
 parency of the air there is frequently troubled, particularly in the 
 room where the presses are emptied, and if one remains there 
 some time, a slight cough and burning in the throat is generally 
 experienced. One gets accustomed, however, after a time, to this 
 atmosphere, and the greater portion of the women, as we have 
 been able to assure ourselves, only cough in moist weather, and 
 particularly when the air is not often renewed, and the phos- 
 phoric vapours accumulate and become too thick. 
 
 These remarks, however, arc only exact for those factories in 
 which the work is well divided into distinct workshops. 
 
 As to the small establishments, where all is necessarily confounded 
 together, and some large factories where we have all the opera- 
 
Ill 
 
 fives working together, it is evident that nil the operations are 
 nearly equally unwholesome, and that the distinctions established 
 above cannot apply to them. 
 
 The composition of the vapours which trouble the purity of the 
 atmosphere in the workshops which we are treating of, has been 
 indicated by Dr. Dupasquier. 
 
 He has found that they consist principally of hypophosphoric 
 acid, probably mixed with small quantities of phosphuretted 
 hydrogen. He has als > no doubt that phosphorus itself is present 
 in the state of vapour. This it is which shows this fact, pointed 
 out by a manufacturer of matches, viz., that when the workmen 
 who have passed the day in the midst of the vapours of phos- 
 phorus, are in the dark at night, the gases which they expel from 
 the stomach become luminous, so much as to cause it to appear as 
 if they breathed flames from the mouth. 
 
 The effects of these phosphoric emanations upon the health of 
 the workpeople are : — 
 
 1st. Bronchitis more or less severe. 
 
 2d. Destruction of the teeth, and necrosis of the jaw bones. &c. 
 
 The cough is the pathological phenomenon, the most common and 
 the most easy to point out in the factories of chemical matches ; it 
 is also the one that it is the most easy to connect directly with the 
 action of the phosphoric vapours. 
 
 In the establishments where the work is better divided, one may 
 assure oneself that the individuals most subject to the cough are 
 the steepers and the women who empty the presses, make up the 
 packets, and fill the boxes. Moreover, as they themselves remark, 
 these women cough most when the weather is damp, and when the 
 air of the workshops is not renewed sufficiently frequently. 
 
 We have just said that the cough is a symptom very common 
 among the workmen in matches ; we must add, that it is not ob- 
 served in all. Many say that they rarely or never cough; others 
 that they had coughed during the early period of their entering the 
 factory, but that they had finished by becoming habituated to the 
 atmosphere of the workrooms ; the greater part coughed, but only 
 at intervals, and under the circumstances above stated. Many 
 among them attached no importance to this cough, which gave 
 them but slight inconvenience, and was accompanied neither with 
 pain or expectoration. Although we must allow a great deal for 
 the incurable carelessness of this class of men, it appears certain 
 that the irritating action of the phosphoric emanations on the re- 
 spiratory ducts only reaches great severity in a limited number of 
 cases. 
 
 But these cases undoubtedly do exist; they have been observed 
 in an incontestable manner in the hospitals of Paris. 
 
 Evidence obtained at Strasbourg by Dr. Strohl, confirms the ac- 
 counts of the severe attacks of bronchitis above spoken of. This 
 physician reports that the work -women have declared to him " that 
 the phosphoric emanations were very irritating." " A great number 
 of them are seized with a cough, which is sometimes troublesome 
 and continuous enough to oblige them to cease their work." 
 
112 
 
 Dr. Charles Lepine, who has furnished much interesting intelli- 
 gence concerning the manufactory of chemical matches at Chalons- 
 sur-Saone, in which ten workmen are employed, has remarked that 
 almost all those who work in the large workshop, where the filling 
 and the emptying of the presses take place, as well as the making 
 up the packets, are attacked with a cough more or less intense, 
 but which has not yet caused the cessation of work in any 
 instance. 
 
 M. Roussel says, " I have not yet met, in the manufactories of 
 Paris, any cases of real seventy ; but this ought not to surprise us, 
 and we must not conclude from that that the effects of the phos- 
 phoric vapours have not the serious effects that M, Gendrin 
 accuses them of. Patients, as seriously attacked as those of whom 
 the physician to the hospital of " La Pitie" " speaks, have necessarily 
 quitted the factories, and are only to be seen in the hospital. 
 
 " It is necessary then to ascertain if the number of those whom 
 cough drives from the factories is considerable. From the investi- 
 gations we have made, we should be disposed to answer in the 
 negative ; we believe, at any rate, in the well-arranged establish- 
 ments, that these cases are not very common. 
 
 " Nevertheless, in questioning the work-women, we have ascer- 
 tained from a certain number of them, that several of their com- 
 panions had been obliged, in consequence of neglected colds, to 
 leave the factoiy ; and in general, they added that these had 
 become consumptive." 
 
 Dr. Roussel has particularly remarked a circumstance regarding 
 the health of individuals affected with disease of the jaw bones, 
 which appears to play an important part in the production of these 
 disease^. It is, that in whatever state this disease is observed, the 
 individuals had always several decayed teeth, and that all of them 
 assured him they had had the teeth spoiled a longer or shorter 
 time before the breaking out of the evil, and even in some cases 
 before their entering the factories of matches. It suffices to notice 
 the fact at this moment ; the deductions therefrom will be seen 
 further on. 
 
 It is w r orthy of remark, that all the individuals affected, had 
 passed rather a long time in the factories before they were attacked 
 with the disease. The patients of M. Lorinser had sojourned from 
 four to nine years there. Those of Nuremberg had also remained 
 there a long time, and the)' had worked fifteen hours a day. Those 
 of M. Strohl and Svdillot, and those we have seen, had been at 
 least two years at work. 
 
 We have found that the steeping and the other parts of the 
 work which most predispose to cough, are also those which most 
 predispose to diseases of the jaws. 
 
 It does not appear that any other organs or functions are 
 interfered with in this kind of work. 
 
 Neither the digestive functions, nor the general nutrition, nor 
 the organs of generation appear at all affected. 
 
 M. Dupasquier doubts the influence of the phosphoric emana- 
 tions. He appears to attribute to arsenical vapours the diseases 
 
113 
 
 observed in match factories ; but there is nothing to authorize this 
 conjecture, and it is most perfectly certain that the influence of 
 the manufacture of chemical matches is essentially injurious to 
 health. 
 
 Hygienic Rules. 
 
 The following regulations with regard to the manufacture, 
 transport, and sale of chemical matches have been made by the 
 Council of Health of the Department of La Seine. 
 
 Sites of factories. 
 
 The buildings intended for these manufactures shall be detached. 
 The magazines and workshops to be on the ground floor. 
 The drying and cutting of the wood can only take place in a 
 building separate from all the other work-rooms. 
 
 Magazines of raw materials. 
 
 The following store-rooms must be separated from each other by 
 a brick wall. 
 
 1st. Phosphorus store. The phosphorus must be kept in tin 
 boxes plunged in a reservoir filled with water, and of a size fifty 
 times at least larger than the boxes of phosphorus. 
 
 2d. Stores of chlorate, solid gum, glue, prussian blue, and 
 cinnabar. These substances must be enclosed in bottles, barrels, 
 or boxes. 
 
 3d. The sulphur must be in rolls, if the sulphurisation of the 
 matches takes place in the same factory. 
 
 Isolated distinct worh-rooms. 
 
 1st. Room for mixing the phosphoric paste. Only enough of 
 the materials of the paste for a single operation must be kept 
 here. 
 
 On the floor of this work-room a reservoir, containing at least 
 250 quarts of water, must be kept, to be ready in case of accident 
 of fire. 
 
 2d. Room for powdering the chlorate of potass and the colour- 
 ing materials. This room must be in the neighbourhood of the 
 last-mentioned one. 
 
 3d. Room for sulphuring and dipping the matches. This room 
 must be separate, ventilated, and properly constructed of bricks. 
 
 4th. Stoves for drying the inflammable paste. They must be 
 built or lined and arched with bricks ; they must communicate at 
 the upper part with a solid chimney, rising above the neighbouring 
 roofs. 
 
 The doors of the stoves to be of strong sheet iron in framework 
 of iron, and to open outwards. 
 
 The bottom of the stoves to be constantly covered with a layer 
 of fine sand, 4 or 5 centimetres thick. 
 
 5th. Room where the presses are emptied. The matches with- 
 drawn from the presses to be immediately packed. This room 
 to have two doors at the disposal of the workmen ; the doors to 
 open within. 
 
 6 th. Room for packing. 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 Preparation of the Emulsion called Phosphoric 
 
 Paste. 
 
 The addition of flowers of sulphur in the emulsion of the 
 phosphorus is strictly forbidden. 
 
 The emulsion is to be prepared in this manner : the solution of 
 gum is to be brought, having been warmed in a neighbouring 
 room to 75° or 80° cent. ; this solution is to be poured into a 
 copper matrass, solidly fixed in the circular opening of a table or 
 dresser. 
 
 The melting and dilution of the phosphorus to take place in 
 small quantities, added successively in the matrass, till the gummy 
 solution fills the vessel two-thirds. 
 
 The beating is not to be commenced until after the cessation of 
 the sparks produced by the phosphorus, that is to say, when the 
 temperature of the mixture has descended to 60° cent. 
 
 Powdering the raw materials. 
 
 The chlorate, if employed, should be steeped in a solution of 
 gum before being submitted to powdering. 
 
 The colours, resins, &c, shall likewise be powdered separately 
 with the same precautions. 
 
 Sulphuring and dipping. 
 
 The furnace for melting the sulphur, and for heating the ends 
 of the matches, must be isolated ; the heat to be transmitted by 
 means of a water bath containing a solution of chloride of zinc, or 
 of a sand bath. 
 
 The temperature of the liquified sulphur must not be carried 
 beyond 140° centesimaux. 
 
 A cover, easy to put on, which will allow of the closing of the 
 boiler, and to stifle instantly the fire which would seize on the 
 sulphur, in case of the accidental contact of a burning substance, 
 must be used. 
 
 Drying the inflammable paste. 
 
 The presses for holding the matches must be of iron or sheet- 
 iron. 
 
 The cushions separating each row of matches may be of card- 
 board and wool joined by glue. 
 
 The door of the drying hou^c to be kept open all the time of 
 work. 
 
 The warming of the drying-room to take place by means of hot 
 water. The fireplace to be external 
 
 General Measures. 
 
 Every evening the debris of the matches to be burnt in small 
 portions. The fireplace for these burnings to be placed in an 
 angle of the wall of the courtyard ; and if this is impossible, the 
 debris to be transported in covered vases to a locality where these 
 precautions are practicable. 
 
115 
 
 After the workmen have left, all the parts of the fabric shall be 
 visited ; the floors to be swept clean. 
 
 The fires shall be extinguished, and all the hearths and stoves 
 shut, either with sheet-iron doors or with bricks. 
 
 No stores of wood, paper, cardboard, sulphur, or other com- 
 bustible matters can be kept in the workshops or drying rooms. 
 
 Packing and Sale. 
 
 Matches, inflammable by friction, shall be delivered in closed 
 envelopes of wood, pasteboard, or tin. 
 
 All manufacturers and dealers are prohibited from fastening up 
 the said matches in packets packed in boxes containing above 
 400 each. 
 
 On the diseases of shoemakers. 
 
 The occupation of a shoemaker is one of the most painful and 
 laborious among those carried on by sedentary artizans. It is 
 exercised frequently in unhealthy workrooms, and exacts a position 
 and movements which leave on different parts of the body inde- 
 lible traces. 
 
 Perched from morning to night upon a stool, the body bent in 
 two, they exert great force in laboriously sewing leather. Conse- 
 quently the right hand, the thumb and index finger of which draw 
 out the thread in order to cover it witli wax, have the pulp flat- 
 tened ; the pulp of the thumb is rather pushed on one side. The 
 fold which separates the second from the third phalanx is cut 
 by the thread, and presents a deep crack, the borders of which are 
 hard and callous. 
 
 On the left hand, the pulp of the thumb, also pushed aside 
 tovrards the index finger, has the form of a very broad spatula, 
 and the nail is considerably thickened and hard ; its free edge is 
 toothed, frayed, scratched, and sometimes deeply grooved by 
 injuries of the awl. 
 
 Moreover, the pressure of the last on the chest causes, in spite 
 of the interposition of a plastron of leather, a sinking in of the 
 chest at the level of the chondro-sternal articulation of the sixth, 
 seventh, and eighth ribs, immediately below the ensiform cartilage. 
 The sternum shows at this spot a hollow, deep, regular, circular, 
 clearly described, and which is not accompanied with a general 
 malformation of the entire thoracic cavity. Lastly, one of the 
 thighs upon which is fixed a plug of leather presents a flattening 
 of the skin, and particularly of the hairy bulbs, which become 
 obliterated, so that this part often appears quite smooth. 
 
 The sedentary position, and the unwholesomeness of the work- 
 shops or rooms where the journeymen shoemakers work, add to 
 the causes of physical deformity we have just enumerated, to 
 produce in these artizans certain constitutional affections, which 
 are aggravated by their hereditary tendency. Rickets and scro- 
 fula are strong instances of this. 
 
 H 2 
 
116 
 
 Corvisart and Herat look upon shoemakers as liable not only to 
 chronic inflammation, but also to cancer of the stomach. Stoll 
 adds hemorrhage of the lungs. Turner Thackrah attributes to 
 their fatiguing position a troublesome compression of the bowels, 
 and especially of the stomach and liver, and as a consequence, 
 constant disorders of the digestion and circulation, and a marked 
 impoverishment of the blood. He lays it down as a fact that few 
 artizans of this class live long. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that few occupations have been the 
 object of less improvements, and that those improvements even 
 that have been proposed have been received with the most deplor- 
 able indifference by the artizans to whom they were addressed. 
 Thus there has been invented in England a kind of bench, which, 
 by permitting the workman to work upright, delivers him almost 
 completely from the inconveniences of the position and the 
 motions which now so greatly incommode him : but this invention 
 has borne no fruit. A more radical modification would have con- 
 sisted in the application of machines for the manufacture of boots 
 and shoes, as proposed and put in work by M. Brunei. There is, 
 be.-ides, much progress to be made in giving to the shoes actually 
 worn the qualities in which they are so deficient, and especially a 
 form better appropriated to the structure and mechanism of the 
 human foot. 
 
 On certain deformities to lohieh tailors are 
 peculiar?// liable. 
 
 There are few occupations in which, in addition to the acci 
 dents produced by the sedentary nature of their employment, 
 physical deformities so decided and well marked are met with as in 
 tailors. 
 
 In consequence of the particular attitude in which they work, 
 constantly sitting, the legs crossed, and the body bent forward, 
 there arises on both sides : 
 
 1. A red swelling, more or less voluminous, sometimes as large 
 as a walnut, and very soft, on the outer ancles ; 
 
 2. A second tumor, resembling, but smaller than the former, on 
 the outer border of the foot, at the level of the tarsial extremity of 
 the fifth metatarsal bone ; 
 
 3. Lastly, a reddish-coloured hardness on the small toe. 
 
 In young workmen, who have not been very long in the trade, 
 instead of tumors, we find simply a bright redness, very circum- 
 scribed, accompanied with slight swelling. 
 
 Besides these characteristic deformities of the lower extremities, 
 tailors present at the lower portion of the chest a considerable de- 
 pression, caused by the curving in of the chest. 
 
 This depression, which may be compared with that seen in 
 shoemakers, is, however, very distinct therefrom. 
 
 Placed lower down, beneath the ensiform appendage, it is not 
 limited to one point of the sternum, but results from a deformity 
 of ths whole of the thorax. 
 
117 
 
 On the diseases of carders of flax, hemp, wool, silk, Sfc. 
 
 The carder is the workman employed in carding, the operation 
 certain filamentous matters are made to undergo, in order to 
 render them fit to be spun, or even simply to extract foreign bodies 
 from them, and to give them elasticity. It is on flax, hemp, 
 wool, and silk that this industry has to work. 
 
 Carding may be done either by hand, by means of two cards 
 with handles, or by means of sticks with which they strike the 
 wool, spread out on screens ; or lastly, by means of mechanical 
 apparatus. 
 
 The inconveniences arising from cardage have been thus summed 
 up by Dr. Boileau de Castelnau, in a report addressed to the Minis- 
 ter of the Interior, on the influence of the cardage of silk on the 
 health in the prisoners of Nismes. 
 
 "Position, constantly sitting or standing for the pressors; forced 
 and continuous exercise of the upper extremities ; continual in- 
 halation of vapours and particles of animal matter ; obligation to 
 keep the hands at the elevation of the head. 
 
 " To these must be added other ordinary causes of insalubrity, as 
 damp and inadequately ventilated workrooms, temperature hot 
 and stifling, the transition from an atmosphere of this kind into a 
 sharp and cold air." 
 
 Fourcroy and Sarthe class the profession of wool-carder among 
 those which injure health by the excessive exercise of certain 
 parts, (the upper extremities,) and by deficient exercise of other 
 parts, (the lower extremities), by the particles of soap which the 
 workmen inhale, and by the animal molecules which enter the 
 aerial passages. 
 
 It is especially the noxious substances which pollute the atmo- 
 sphere breathed by the workmen in carding, which have fixed the 
 attention of observers. Morgagni, Fourcroy, Ramazzini, have 
 reported numerous examples of severe or mortal affections 
 developed under such an influence. 
 
 Cruel maladies, say the authors of the " Topographic de 
 Nismes " afflict the " bourretaires " or carders of floss silk. All 
 are exposed to weakening and to oedema of the lower parts of the 
 body, to chronic pains of the arms, the shoulders, and the chest ; 
 many are subject to the most painful affections of the eyes, such 
 as acute inflammations, obstinate ophthalmia, tkc. ; the greater 
 number are threatened with long and fatiguing coughs, with 
 asthma, spitting of blood, and pulmonary consumption, &c. To 
 these must be added cutaneous diseases, due to the irritating and 
 contact of dirty substances which fill the atmosphere of the 
 carding rooms, and which attach themselves to the skin and the 
 clothes of the workmen. 
 
 Many physicians, practising in localities where the industry of 
 carding occupies many arms, give the following as the portrait of 
 the journeyman carder. 
 
 One recognizes the carder by his countenance, pale, etiolated, 
 wan, rather bloated than fat ; by his red eyes, and his almost 
 
118 
 
 constant cough. The maladies to which he is subject are, chronic 
 ophthalmia, hypertrophy of the heart and its consequences, con- 
 sumption, varices, atonic ulcers. The most skilful and intrepid 
 artizan is forced to discontinue his trade at the age of 48 or 50. 
 Carding, besides, in many localities, is only carried on during 
 three or four months of the year, from November to the com- 
 mencement of March, and alternates with field labour. 
 
 The above observations apply more or less directly to the 
 different kinds of carding. We should add to the circumstances 
 we have alluded to, that in certain cases the molecules which 
 spread in the air get accompanied with certain substances which 
 add to their injurious effects. Thus Foutv.oy has seen, in the 
 case of a woman employed in carding a mattress belong to a brazier, 
 particles of copper that the wool of the mattress contained, intro- 
 duce themselves into the bronchial tubes and give rise to serious 
 symptoms of poisoning by copper. 
 
 M. Boileau de Castelnau, who has studied with care the influ- 
 ence of silk-carding on the health of the prisoners of Xismes, has 
 certified, that the carders have contributed more entries to the 
 infirmary ihan all other professions united ; that if this profession 
 has given fewer deaths, it is, that before dying the carder has 
 changed his occupation, because he had no longer strength to 
 continue it ; that half the men who entered the infirmary were or 
 had been carders ;. that consequently this occupation was more 
 injurious to health than the others. 
 
 The industry of carding reclaims, therefore, imperiously the 
 employment of machinery, in order to remove the operatives from 
 a fatal influence. Nevertheless, it is possible to diminish these 
 dangers by certain precautions. 
 
 Remedies. 
 
 In some parts of the Cevennes the carders cover the mouth 
 with a handkerchief. In the work-rooms of Piedmont screens of 
 canvas arc suspended horizontally at a certain height, between the 
 ceiling and the heads of the workmen, to catch the dust disen- 
 gaged by the carding. These screens must be removed every 
 night and carefully cleaned. It is of importance that the work- 
 rooms should lie lofty, large, ventilated by means of broad 
 windows, close to each other, and placed opposite to each other. 
 These windows must be opened on the side opposite to the direc- 
 tion of the wind. Fourcroy advises the workmen to place them- 
 selves with their backs to the wind, so as not to swallow the 
 murderous dust. Great cleanliness of face and hands, and the 
 use of a blouse and hat of Hum or canvas, which should be 
 removed when the day's work is finished, would tend to prevent 
 the diseases of the skin that the contact of animal dust as well as 
 vegetable so frequently determine. 
 
119 
 
 On disinfecting and the action of disinfectants. 
 
 Disinfection. 
 
 The air is said to be infected when it contains odorous and 
 unwholesome principles, such as sulphuretted hydrogen, ammonia, 
 or carbonate of ammonia; or when the proportion of its normal 
 constituents other than oxygen, as nitrogen or carbonic acid, is 
 augmented ; or again, when it contains substances almost unknown 
 in their nature, but whose existence is not the less certain, and 
 which are known by the name of miasm, emanations, or effluvia. 
 The term " disinfection " is given to the operation by the help of 
 which one endeavours to destroy the noxious qualities of the air ; 
 and the substances made use of for this end are called " disin- 
 fectants/' This name, however, must not be given to substances 
 which only act by masking the bad odours of the air, and which 
 belong to the class of " fumigations." 
 
 The substances which truly deserve the name of disinfectants 
 are, according to M. Fermond, those which, by some chemical 
 action, destroy or neutralize the foreign materials which injure the 
 wholesome properties of the atmosphere. 
 
 It may be established generally : 
 
 1st. That the acids (nitric, hydrochloric, &c.) act frequently 
 with much efficacy in neutralizing ammoniacal animalized matters, 
 or even in chemically modifying these matters. They have been 
 frequently employed with success in purifying large inhabited 
 buildings. 
 
 2d. That chlorine and the alkaline hypochlorites, the best dis- 
 infectants known, decompose all organic matter by seizing their- 
 hydrogen. 
 
 3d. That the alkalies (ammonia, quicklime, potass, soda, &c. ) 
 act particularly by neutralizing acids, as carbonic, hvdrosulphuric, 
 and especially the organic acids whose nature is as yet but little 
 known. 
 
 4th. That nitrous and sulphurous acids produce, in many cases, 
 excellent effects in disoxygenizing organic substances. 
 
 5th. That, in all cases, ventilation is an indispensable complement 
 of all disinfection. 
 
 It is usually to chlorine that recourse is had to disinfect hospitals, 
 although either nitrous acid or nitrous gas may be employed. 
 
 Earthen saucers, in which has been placed previously a mixture 
 of four parts of sea salt and one part of peroxide of manganese, on 
 which is poured every now and then two parts of sulphuric acid 
 diluted with an equal weight of water, are placed here and there. 
 
 The saucers are placed on hot cinders, so as to keep up the 
 disengagement of the gas during several hours. 
 
 When it is time to wash the bed frames and the walls, chloru- 
 retted water, formed by mixing one part of dry chloride of lime 
 with twelve of water, allowing time to deposit, and then straining 
 it, must be used for that purpose. 
 
 The process for obtaining chlorine above given cannot be made 
 use of where invalids are present, on account of the irritating 
 
120 
 
 action of the chlorine on the respiratory ducts. When it is 
 desired to disinfect wards filled with patients, we must be satisfied 
 with placing at small distances from each other open vases contain- 
 ing a concentrated solution of chloride of lime, so as to obtain a 
 feebler disengagement of chlorine. 
 
 The disinfection of drains consists, properly speaking, in a good 
 use of ventilation and irrigation. The chlorides or the disinfecting 
 fluid of M. Panlet, may also be usefully employed. 
 
 It happens sometimes that depots of putrid matter, as manures 
 and cesspool matter, disengage, especially when they come to be 
 stirred, a fetid odour very difficult to be borne. It is sufficient 
 then to water them with chloride of lime suspended in water, to 
 cause all odour to disappear. The same substance may be 
 employed in dissecting theatres, and in rooms of exhumation. 
 
 Charcoal is also employed in analogous circumstances ; but it 
 acts then more as an absorbent than as a chemical agent. In 
 Mayenne, the agriculturists understand well how to utilize fa;cal 
 matter to manure their fields, and with this object, they dry a 
 quantity of earth, generally peat, reduce it to powder, throw it into 
 the privies, stir it, and thus obtain a pulverulent matter completely 
 disinfected. 
 
 Clothing, counterpanes, mattresses, impregnated with infected 
 odours, or which are supposed to be contaminated by noxious 
 miasmata, should be, according to the process recommended by 
 M. Chevallier. suspended in a wardrobe where plates containing 
 dry chloride of lime are placed. 
 
 Or they may be left with a solution of chloride of lime, or 
 better still, if they are woollen materials, with an aqueous solution 
 of chlorine, alkalies having (he property of attracting and even of 
 dissolving wool. 
 
 As to the disinfection of air vitiated by principles whose nature 
 is unknown, means purely empirical must be resorted to, whose 
 efficacy is at lea>t doubtful: as a 'id or alkaline fumigations, chlorine 
 or alkaline hypochlorites, aromatic or resinous fumigations, fires 
 lighted in open air, gunpowder exploded. 
 
 We have spoken above of the use of charcoal for disinfecting 
 fsecal matter. In fact, placed in a condition of suitable sub- 
 division, charcoal completely destroys the odour of putrescent 
 organic substance?. Animal black or charcoal is particularly 
 extolled for this use ; but it is not only in this form that charcoal 
 is employed as a disinfectant 
 
 When charcoal at the ordinary temperature is placed in contact 
 with water, some organic substances in a state of decomposition 
 which give it an infected odour, it can so completely d".-tmy this 
 odour, that if the water contain -d no saline substance to give it 
 a particular taste, it would become perfectly drinkable ; hut after 
 a certain time, it might take on again a repulsive smell, if the 
 organic matter contained in it underwent a fresh change which 
 would give rise to the formation of gases of the same nature as 
 the first, and that the charcoal was not in sufficiently large propor- 
 tion to remove entirely. 
 
121 
 
 It is on this property that is founded the use of charcoal for 
 purifying the water meant to serve as drink, or to preserve it 
 during sea voyages. 
 
 On the dwellings of the labouring classes in manufac- 
 turing toivns, as regards their sanitary conditions. 
 
 No one can be ignorant how great are the sacrifices that the 
 labouring man and the poor man must make for their dwellings. 
 Whilst all other articles necessary for their preservation have 
 greatly diminished in cost, whilst food and clothing have under- 
 gone a great fall in price, the expense of lodging in our industrial 
 towns has risen enormously, and threatens to rise still more ; and 
 although wages have much increased, it is only with very great 
 difficulty that the workman can support so heavy a charge. 
 
 The problem that the workman has to resolve is, how to provide 
 for the necessities of habitation with the least possible sacrifice. 
 
 If the care of his health and that of his family occupies him but 
 little, because, robust and healthy up to that time, he believes 
 they will remain so ; if he is ignorant of the causes of sickness and 
 infirmity, that a narrow, damp, confined dwelling conceals; if, a 
 stranger to large towns, he enters one with numerous and healthy, 
 strong children, that the mephitic atmosphere of a manufacturing 
 town has not yet emaciated, he will bury this fine family at the 
 bottom of a narrow court that the sun never brightens, and on 
 which weighs incessantly a fetid and stagnant atmosphere ; lucky 
 if, to save a few pence per month, he does not descend into a 
 hideous cellar — a living tomb. 
 
 But if the poor man and the artizan show but little care for the 
 preservation of their health and that of their family, it is the 
 duty of those in authority to look to the future generations of the 
 people. The interest of governments as of industry requires it. 
 
 Causes of insalubrity in the dtcellhtys of the poor. 
 
 There are two distinct divisions to make in lives of artizans: 
 1st. External life, or that which a man passes out of his habita- 
 tion ; 2d. Internal life, that is to say, that of his family — his home. 
 This latter is the object of our present study. 
 
 The time passed at home varies for different members of the 
 family. The infant, up to a certain age, scarcely ever quits the 
 house. Arrived at youth, his time is divided between the school 
 or the workshop and home. The mother of the family is almost 
 always at home, and therefore the influences resulting from the 
 insalubrity of the house act upon her with great energy ; and 
 whilst the father and the grown-up children experience the good 
 effect of fresh atmosphere in their entrance to and their leaving 
 the workshop, the mother, constantly subjected to the action of a 
 concentrated and impure air, becomes emaciated, vegetates miser- 
 ably, and often bears the stamp of premature old age. 
 
 As to the aged poor man, a being worthy of the greatest solici- 
 tude and compassion, his latter years, which are often but a slow 
 
122 
 
 agony, are passed in the house. He lives almost without air and 
 without light, hidden in a dark corner, waiting, in company with 
 his numerous infirmities, for an epidemic disease or an acute affec- 
 tion to carry him off in a few days, incapable as he is of resisting 
 the attacks of the one or the other. 
 
 For all classes and ages, there is the long sojourn of the night, 
 the time of sleep occupying nearly half the existence of man. 
 
 There are three principal cause? of the vitiation of the atmos- 
 phere of our dwellings. They are — 
 
 1st. Respiration. 
 
 2d. The exhalation which takes place from the surface of the 
 skin by insensible perspiration. 
 
 3d. The excretions. 
 
 The two former have been long studied, but the effects of the 
 latter have not been so minutely inquired into as the great 
 importance of the subject demands. 
 
 We propose to give it some consideration in this place. 
 
 The greater part of the habitations occupied by the poor have 
 privies common to all the inhabitants of the house. 
 
 Some are kept cleanly enough ; there is a sort of surveillance 
 over them, and they are pretty frequently washed ; but these are 
 but a small proportion, and the others, situated ordinarily at the 
 bottom of narrow and dirty yards, add materially to the other 
 causes of a poisoned atmosphere. They are but rarely washed ; 
 remains of animal and vegetable matter are thrown there daily by 
 the numerous inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and these different 
 matters thrown in give rise to a disengagement of gaseous 
 products more deleterious and more infectious than those produced 
 naturally. 
 
 The gases furnished by the secretions of man are of several 
 kinds ; and as the effects that these produce are various, it is 
 necessary to determine their nature, and to characterise their action 
 separately. 
 
 1st. The peculiar odour that the excretions of man exhale, 
 shortly after their emission, is produced by the presence of sulphu- 
 retted hydrogen gas. 
 
 2d. After these matters have been evacuated some time, and 
 when they are mixed with a certain quantity of urine, this liquid, 
 by its decomposition, gives rise to a disengagement of ammoniacal 
 gas ; and the mixture of these two products gives rise to a new 
 combination, — hydrosulphuret of ammonia, the effects of which 
 upon man, when this gas is introduced into the respiratory 
 passages, are much more serious than the inspiration of the two 
 former separately. 
 
 The former gas may be perceived in apartments where the 
 excrementitious matters have sojourned some time; but the hydro- 
 sulphuret of ammonia requires for its production a longer time, 
 and it is only met with in dirty privies, the cesspools of which are 
 badly constructed, and which, too small for the population they are 
 intended to serve, are filled too full and emptied too rarely. 
 
 Several other mephitic substances, pernicious to mankind, are 
 
123 
 
 met with in these places, when the air is not properly renewed ; 
 but only two kinds of mephitism have been distinguished. The 
 first is produced by the hydrosulphuret of ammonia. This is the 
 most common and the most terrible. It is in the inside of the 
 privies, and by the agitation caused by their evacuation, that the 
 most serious and sudden accidents are produced ; and then also the 
 perfidious effects of this gas may make themselves felt beyond a 
 certain distance. In some cases, an instantaneous death has 
 followed the respiration of this gas ; an extreme irritation has 
 seized the eyes and the throat, and has brought on suffocation. 
 
 The second species of mephitism is produced by the presence of 
 too great a quantity of nitrogen. This gas is unfit for respiration. 
 The chest is oppressed by it, its movements become progressively 
 slower and more difficult, and death takes place by asphyxia. In 
 the neighbourhood of privies and cesspools this gas scarcely ever 
 produces effect rapidly fatal, because, whatever may be the amount 
 of the concentration of the air of the neighbouring places, it will 
 be always in sufficient quantity to allow respiration to take place. 
 However, in all places where nitrogen exists in excess, it always 
 produces a certain difficulty of breathing. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose, as is generally done, that if a candle 
 will burn in an atmosphere in or surrounding a privy, that it is 
 therefore fit for human respiration. This gas, sulphuret of am- 
 monia, will permit bodies in ignition to continue burning almost as 
 freely as in common air, and still be mortal to man. 
 
 The only gaseous substances for which a lighted candle is a test 
 are carbonic acid and nitrogen. The latter is more frequently met 
 with in privies than the former, and it is also the gas which more 
 often vitiates in the abode of man the concentrated air breathed 
 there. 
 
 Vitiation of the air by the domestic animals which live near rutin. 
 
 It is not rare to find, in the habitations of the pour, animals 
 brought up close to him, sometimes in considerable number. This 
 is more particularly the case in the houses of the poor that sur- 
 round towns. Sometimes they are birds, whose cages cover all 
 the walls of the narrow dwelling, sometimes dogs or guinea pigs, 
 but the animals we generally meet with are rabbits. Generally, 
 a very considerable profit is derived from these animals. It is un- 
 fortunately generally the very poorest and most insalubrious homes 
 where they are found in the greatest number. 
 
 It is important that the labourer should be informed of the 
 dangers to which he exposes his family in preserving such guests 
 in his house. 
 
 The respiration of animals enclosed in a limited space changes 
 the air in the ratio of the oxygen they absorb. This amount is 
 not equal for all, and observation has proved that birds consumed 
 a much greater proportional amount of oxygen than other animals 
 larger in size. 
 
124 
 
 The exhalations from the surface of the body of animals, their 
 insensible transpiration, their excrementitious matters, frequently 
 left to accumulate in a corner on a damp soil, these are additional 
 causes of the vitiation of the atmosphere. 
 
 Serious consequences frequently arise to the health of the poor 
 and their families from this state of things. 
 
 Influence of light and warmth. 
 
 Another condition absolutely essential to the preservation of 
 the health of man, is the influence of light. 
 
 The action of light on man is incontestable. The continual en- 
 joyment of its beneficent influence renders us, in some measure, 
 indifferent and insensible. To appreciate its effects, however, it is 
 enough to consider what effects are produced by obscurity on all 
 beings endowed with life. Vegetables withdrawn during a suffi- 
 ciently long time from the action of light grow with slowness, and 
 are weak ; their softer tissue becomes impregnated with a larger 
 quantity of water, and has a tendency to become dropsical. All 
 animals, as well as man, suffer from privation of light. Every one 
 knows the miserable and wretched life of miners, the smallness of 
 their size, the deformities of children occupied in mines, the ex- 
 treme pallor of their countenance, the meagre appearance, and their 
 frequent early-developed dropsy. 
 
 Those inhabitants of manufacturing towns that live in cellars 
 participate, to a certain degree, in these results. 
 
 Heat is necessary to life. Man possesses within himself the 
 faculty of developing the amount of caloric necessary for his pre- 
 servation ; but as he is unceasingly exposed to exterior causes 
 which tend to modify that amount, he also possesses the force of 
 reacting against the influences which tend to lower the tempera- 
 ture, in the same manner as, when exposed to the action of a high 
 temperature, he can diminish the effect that it exercises on him by 
 producing on the surface of his body a transudation which is con- 
 tinually evaporating, and thus moderate the enervating influence 
 of this cause. 
 
 But this faculty of reaction has its limits, and man is provided 
 with artificial means for satisfying this want. Besides, he does not 
 possess at all ages this force of reaction in an equal degree ; if it 
 is powerful in the adult, it shows itself, in the extreme ages of 
 mankind, in the infant and the old person, enervated, insufficient, 
 and the action of artificial heat is then necessary. 
 
 In the narrow and confined habitations of the poor, heat and 
 cold often make themselves felt in extreme degrees. 
 
 The subterranean and slightly elevated habitations generally 
 suffer the influence of cold, increased still further by humidity. 
 If we rise higher, we seethe influence of the cold in winter become 
 less sensible, but there is this result ordinarily, a greater and 
 more fatal concentration of the air in the habitations ; whilst, 
 during summer, an excessive heat forces the inmates to seek for a 
 renewing of the concentrated air by opening every issue to it. 
 
125 
 
 Effects of unwholesome habitations. 
 
 The causes of insalubrity which are met with in the homes of 
 the poor do not act with equal force on all ages. 
 
 One cause of this inequality of influence is the length of time 
 passed in the abode ; but there is another quite as important, it is 
 the inequality in the force of resistance in individuals of different 
 ages. 
 
 Infancy and old age are the ages the most exposed to feel the 
 evil effects of insalubrious habitations, on account of the longer time 
 passed in them ; and it is also at these two epochs of life that we 
 find an equal impotence to resist the enervating influence of the 
 preceding causes, on account of the weakness of organization on 
 the one part, and of the exhaustion of our organs on the other. 
 
 The adult resists better the influence of these causes, because 
 his absences for his work allows him to feel their attacks less, and 
 the energy of action with which his organs arc endowed permit 
 him to struggle against them with advantnge. But the adult 
 female, who possesses also this force of resistance, often struggles 
 successfully against the influence of insalubrious habitations ; how- 
 ever, as this cause acts more on her than on the adult man, she 
 succumbs less often than the child and the aged, but more fre- 
 quently than the adult male. 
 
 We will now consider the effects of the respiration of an impure 
 air on the inhabitants of the dwellings of the poor. 
 
 The different causes of the vitiation of air above described act 
 always either by decomposing the respirable air, so as to leave only 
 products unfit for the support of life, or by adding to the air gases 
 which mix with it, and which, introduced into the respiratory 
 ducts, become noxious to life there. Sometimes, in consequence 
 of the unequal weight of the gases mixed with the air, a displace- 
 ment ensues ; a gaseous product, unfit for respiration, takes the 
 place of the air, and gives rise, in those who absorb it, to pheno- 
 mena analogous to those which produce a commencement of 
 asphyxia. Such is the action of carbonic acid gas when found in 
 any notable quantity. 
 
 Lastly, at other times, the gases mixed with the atmosphere 
 exercise a double action on it ; one portion of these gases is em- 
 ployed in decomposing the atmosphere, while the other portion 
 remains mixed with it, and determines, in those who breathe it, a 
 violent irritation. 
 
 Thus, we have an insufficient quantity of respirable air, and 
 a mixture of gases unfit for respiration. 
 
 Such are the two conditions which give rise to the mischievous 
 consequences described. 
 
 The most severe, although happily rare, accident that arises 
 from the state of things above described is asphyxia. 
 
 Another, much less rare, is to find in the dwellings of the poor, 
 patients affected with diseases of the chest, and whose difficulty of 
 breathing is still more considerably increased by the concentration 
 and vitiation of the air that surrounds them, and I have no hesi- 
 
126 
 
 mation in asserting that the death of these unfortunates is much 
 more rapid, and takes place also by a kind of asphyxia. 
 
 There is another disease also very frequent amongst our artizans, 
 and which renders them, before old age comes on, infirm and inca- 
 pable of work; I mean asthma. Certain sorts of work bring on 
 this very painful and troublesome complaint more rapidly than 
 others. Persons engaged in the earlier preparations of cotton are 
 peculiarly liable thereto. 
 
 Many asthmatic patients die of asphyxia when seized with a 
 a paroxysm in their dwellings, at a moment when the air that 
 surrounds them is more than usually vitiated or rarefied. 
 
 Diseases of all kinds attack the poor man the more rapidly that 
 his dwelling presents more numerous conditions of insalubrity and 
 infection ; as to the epidemic affections which visit us from time to 
 time, it is now well-known that the parts of a town the most 
 populous, the poorest and the most unwholesome, are those where 
 these diseases find the greatest number of victims, where they, as 
 it were, more specially take up their abode. 
 
 Man does not live wholly on bread, he lives also on air ; these 
 are two aliments equally indispensable, and without which he 
 cannot long sustain life. If the first can sometimes be waited for 
 a short time, the other is incessantly and absolutely necessary, 
 and if its absolute privation gives instantaneous death, dispensed 
 with parsimony it produces effects so much the more pernicious as 
 its quantity is less. 
 
 The habitual obscurity of the habitations of the poor is, besides, 
 the cause of a great number of the maladies which so frequently 
 attack infancy. It is to this cause particularly that is owing among 
 poor children the predominance of the lymphatic temperament, 
 the susceptibility of the mucous membranes to catarrhal affections, 
 poverty of the blood, extreme flaccidity of the tissues, swellings, 
 deviations of the osseous system, and as consequences of these 
 different causes, the frequency of scrofulous diseases, scurvy and 
 rickets. 
 
 All who are much in contact with the poor of our populous 
 cities well know how frequent are these different diseases among 
 the children. 
 
 Among all the maladies which attack the poorer classes in our 
 large towns, consumption partakes with scrofula the sad privilege 
 of seizing on a great number of victims. 
 
 Remedial Measures. 
 
 Cella 
 
 rs. 
 
 All cellars situated in euls-de-sne, or in very narrow and infected 
 streets or courts, should be discountenanced by authority. 
 
 Wherever possible, two openings should be made in opposite 
 walls in every cellar, one of which may be the door, and this 
 should be as large as possible. 
 
 Every cellar should be provided with a window to open as 
 widely as possible. 
 
127 
 
 The establishment of a chimney in all inhabited cellars should 
 be rigorously prescribed. 
 
 The internal walls of all cellars should undergo frequent lime- 
 washing. 
 
 Courts. 
 
 Whenever an opportunity presents these should be widened. 
 
 The open channels which so frequently traverse their centres 
 should be abolished, and the drainage accomplished by means of 
 subterranean pipes. 
 
 No accumulation of dung or ordure should be permitted. 
 
 Frequently washing with lai-ge quantities of water, the channels 
 and surfaces of the courts, and the privies, imposing on the pro- 
 prietors the necessary repairs of the house property from which 
 they draw rent ; and making proper regulations that houses in 
 narrow courts shall not be built of too great a height : such are 
 the most important points which more especially call for the direc- 
 tions of the authorities anxious for the health of the inhabitants of 
 towns. 
 
LONDON. 
 
 Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spoiiis woods. 
 
 Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty. 
 
 For Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 
 
LAWS AND ORDO.NNANCE! 
 IN FRANCE 
 
 FORC 
 
 REGULATION OF NOXIOUS TRAD] 
 AND OCCUPATIONS; 
 
 Dz, WALLER LEWIS, 
 
 MEIHi iEBAL 
 
 LONDON: 
 FEINTED BY GEORGE E. EYEE AND WILLIAM SPOTTISWOOI 
 
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