The official record of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts : together with a phonographic report of the evidence and arguments at the hearing / by George C. Burpee and W.O. Robson.

Tyler, John M.

Date:: 1874

Credit: The official record of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts : together with a phonographic report of the evidence and arguments at the hearing / by George C. Burpee and W.O. Robson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$Q. The trouble which your daughter had, of headache in the morning, has not made its appeai'ance again 1 That was a year ago last summer. A. Well, she has not been troubled any, as far as I know, this summer. That was a year ago. Q. You say that the night smells are not so bad as they formerly were. When did you first notice any improvement in that respect 1 A. I say that I have not noticed them so much this year as I did last year ; thnt is, I refer to this summer last past, and the summer and fall before. I have not smelt them badly ; but I have smelt them this year. Q. In the winter, when the basin is frozen over, the people of East Cambridge get along pretty comfortably, don't they 1 A. When it ia very cold weather they keep their windows shut, and they get along pretty comfortably ; but as soon as they open the windows in the sum- mer they get their houses filled with an odor not very agreeable. When the tide is out I have smelt the water itself. Q. Is not the smell worse when the tide is outi A. I should think it was somewhat. Q. When the basin is covered, the smell is not so bad as when the dock is exposed? A. It depends upon whether the sun is lying on it.' I get the same smell by standing on Milk Street from that basin when it is half full, — precisely the same smell I would get if I were standing over his scalding-tank where he is scalding the hogs. There is so much of that runs in that it taints the whole water. Q. How do you tell whether the gases you experience proceed from the basins or from the slaughtering of hogs ] — How do you know what it is that blackens the houses and tarnishes the silver, when you only know this, that you get up in the moi'ning and find that the effect has been produced during the night 1 A. I know that the smell which I perceive at my house, when I have been out and traced it, is not the smell of the basin, because when I go there at the same hour in the daytime I never get it. It is when something is let off from these establishments that we get it. I liave no doubt about it. M}\ Lerhy. Is it a matter of knowledge or observation % ^. It is pretty near knowledge. Mr. Derby. We don't want that; we want the fact. Mr. Siocnmh. When these tanks are blown off, or when the water is run off from the scalding-tanks, it creates a great deal more smell than at other times, and then is the time that the sulphur has colored the silver-wave. Q. {by Mr. Muzzey). In what direction from Mr. Squire's establish- ment is your house ] A. Northerly or northwesterly. Q. At what time on the night of the 31st of July did you perceive the offensive odor? A. I cannot tell you. I was woke up that night, and it was the only night that I have been woke up on that account this year. I got up and closed my windows. I did not notice what time it was. Q. You had been asleep, had you 1 A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you remember at what time you retired ] A. Nine o'clock or half past. Q. Then you went to sleep and were awakened by the smelH A. Yes, sir.$