effect is felt on the first. From the digestors all odor goes into the pipes, and the same may be said of the dryers. The Outlay for the Operation.-There are thirty wagons, each with a driver and a helper, and each with two horses. The driver gets $1.66 2-3 a day, and the helper gets $1.50. About the works on Second avenue the forty-five men employed at various salaries are from office boy to superintendent. It is not unfair to place the wagonmen at $30,000 and the others at $20,000. There is the sum of $30,000 still to be used in the garbage furnace alone. Of the $30,000 that remains, the horses must be kept, the factory must be kept up and incidental expenses must be borne. Incidentals cover a multitude of sins. But whatever else can be said of the garbage plant its efficiency cannot be denied. It is visited by officials of other cities, and is called perfect. To summarize the Utilization method is to receive the garbage in a pit, separate tin cans and other solid material from it, convey the garbage proper to the digestors, where it is treated by a cooking process by steam alone in the one case and in the other by steam and naphtha to extract the grease, the pressing out of the liquid, drying of the solid portion and grinding for fertilization, and the distillation of the naphtha to reclaim it. The burning method of disposing of garbage is accomplished by two methods; the one utilizes the carbon in the garbage as fuel and the other does not. These furnaces are of the horizontal type; when the garbage is dumped through openings upon a grate a fire at the end furnishes the heat to dry and burn the garbage. A second fire in or near the stack destroys the odors from the burning garbage. The Engle and the Dixon are representatives of this class of furnace. The other is the upright furnace, of which there are only two, the Davis and Warren, an English invention. In this furnace we utilize all the carbon in the garbage as fuel, convert the water into steam without special appliances. Let us consider the cost to the different cities using utilization or burning. Milwaukee pays $1.48 per ton to have its garbage disposed of, St. Louis $1.32 per ton, New York $89,000 per year, Pittsburg $80,000 per year; this does not embrace collection except at Pittsburgh. That the destruction of garbage is desirable by suitably built furnaces in the vast majority of cities is unquestionable. The horizontal furnaces, as the Engle and Dixon, have burned of late, at Wilmington, 500 tons of garbage with 90 tons of coal, or 39.9 cents' worth of fuel to destroy a ton of garbage. The Engle and Ryden furnaces will do about the same. The Davis furnace has burnt 40 tons of garbage with one ton of coal, or a record of 6 cents' worth of coal for each ton of garbage; including the fireman's wages, would only amount to, for a day's burning of 10 tons, $1.50 fireman, and $2.15 one ton of coal, or $3.65 besides the interest of the plant Whilst the reduction plant want for the same work $52.80, besides the process of reduction is not only more expensive, but the separation of the offensive material is repugnant. Before illustrating the different systems we would call your attention to the subject of the domestic disposal of garbage. There are many towns too small to use a garbage plant, but when the disposal of garbage is an important item, we will show how this can be done in the ordinary stove or range. CONFERENCES WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PENN SYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF GENERAL BAGGAGE Benjamin Lee, M. D., Secretary. By invitation of W. H. Gummere, general baggage agent, Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, your Secretary attended a conference of representatives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio. Railroad, the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, and the Lehigh Valley Railroad in the office of Mr. F. J. McWade, general baggage agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, at Philadelphia, Monday, January 17. At this conference was presented the report of the American Association of General Baggage Agents on the transportation of dead bodies adopted at the annual meeting of the body, held at Denver, Col., October 13, 1897. This report will be found appended. After careful consideration and discussion of the subject, your Secretary proposed that the subject be referred to the Board at its next meeting, and that a subsequent conference be called to take up the question again after the Board had had an opportunity to consider. In pursuance of this resolution, which was adopted, a second conference took place at Glen Summit, Pa., July 8, 1898. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Pennsylvania, Lehigh, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad companies, by the Health Officer of the District of Columbia, the Secretary of the State Board of Health of Maryland, and your Secretary. At a regular meeting of the State Board, a minute had been adopted referring to the Secretary, with discretion, the determining of the question whether the modification of the rules for transportation of the dead, which had been submitted and adopted at the annual meeting of baggage agents held in Denver, Colorado, October 13, 1897, should be adopted by this Board. The principal feature in the proposed modification was that it removed diphtheria from the class of diseases, bodies dead from which could not be transported, and allowed them to be transported under certain stringent regulations. The rules had been accepted by the National Conference of Boards of Health of North America and by the American Public Health Association. While these bodies are not in any sense administrative, and their action carries no weight beyond the fact that all the members are sanitarians, many of them engaged in administrative work, the expression of opinion should be entitled to consideration. According to the rules adopted by the Association of Baggage Agents, the person who performs the operation of embalming must hold a certificate from the State Board of Health or other state health authority. In the original draft the expression "licensed embalmers" had been used. This was objected to by physicians. Your Secretary suggested that an embalmer should hold a certificate which ema. nated from a health authority and not from any other board. This was fully acquiesced in. Objection was made by your Secretary to the proposed form of transit permit, as being cumbersome, larger than usual, and requir ing that the signature of the physician should appear on the permit. This would impose a large amount of unnecessary work on the physician, and, inasmuch as a physician signs the death certificate, the health authority should simply be required to introduce the physician's name in the permit. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF GENERAL BAGGAGE AGENTS. Report of Committee on Transportation of Dead Bodies, as Submitted and Adopted at the Annual Meeting Held at Denver, Col., October 13, 1897. Mr. President: Your committee appointed at the Richmond meeting to confer with health officers and funeral directors with a view to ascertaining if any changes or modifications of the present rules for transporting dead bodies were desirable, would respectfully report that after corresponding with many representative state health officers and funeral directors, a joint conference was arranged and a meeting finally held at the Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio, June 9th, where the whole subject of disinfecting the dead and preparing dead bodies for shipment by railways and steamboat lines was discussed in all its peculiar phases, addresses being delivered by prominent health officers and representative funeral directors, it being the policy of your committee to invite a full and free discussion of this vexatious question in all its bearings, simply holding for the railways that our position was stated in the single proposition—that the rules must be safe; that where a question of doubt is involved, we should hold to the safe side, but when the transportation of a dead body could be made absolutely safe, we were ready and willing to handle it in the baggage car; that we depended upon the health officers to determine what progress had been made in sanitary science, and the practice of disinfecting the dead, and how far the present rules could be safely modified in the interest of the general public, and without jeopardy to railway employes and the public. It appeared to be the concensus of opinion that certain modifications were desirable, and that the additions and modifications to the rules in certain states had caused more or less confusion, and again it was agreed that there had been sufficient progress in sanitary science and scientific method of disinfecting and preparing dead bodies for shipment as to warrant certain modifications of the rules under proper safe guards, and it was finally decided to refer the whole matter to the National Conference of State Boards of Health, which was to convene at Nashville, Tenn., August 18 and 19, and a sub-committee, consisting of Dr. C. O. Probst, Secretary State Board of Health, of Ohio; Dr. J. N. Hurty, Secretary State Board of Health, of Indiana, and H. P. Deering for the railways, was ap pointed to go over the whole matter and submit to the National Conference a report of the Cleveland meeting and rules based upon the suggestions and arguments there presented. That report, and the recommendations accompanying it, is submitted as a part of our report, and is as follows: "To the National Conference State Boards of Health: Gentlemen: At a joint conference of representatives of state and provincial boards of health, funeral directors and general baggage agents, convened at Cleveland, Ohio, Wednesday, June 9, 1897, the undersigned were appointed a committee to recommend for your consideration certain modifications in the present rules for the transportation of dead bodies. The conference was suggested by a committee of the American Association of General Baggage Agents appointed for that purpose, and the meeting was attended by the following named gentlemen: For Boards of Health— Dr. H. B. Baker, Secretary State Board of Health of Michigan. Dr. M. Myerovitz, member State Board of Health of Illinois. Dr. J. N. Hurty, Secretary State Board of Health of Indiana. Dr. C. O. Probst, Secretary State Board of Health of Ohio. Dr. P. H. Bryce, Secretary Provincial Board of Health of Ontario. For the National Funeral Directors' Association J. H. Sharer, President, Aliance, Ohio. Chas. A. Miller, Treasurer, Cincinnati, Ohio. W. P. Hohenschuh, Iowa City, Iowa. L. T. Christian, Richmond, Virginia. Geo. Billow, Akron, Ohio. J. S. Pearce, Philadelphia, Pa. F. W. Flanner, Indianapolis, Indiana. For the General Baggage Agents' Association— G. E. Byram, Fitchburg R. R., Boston, Mass. E. A. Sadd, C., B. & Q. R'y, Chicago, Ill. P. Walsh, A. T. & S. F. R. R., Topeka, Kansas. W. H. Gummere, L. V. R. R., South Bethlehem, Pa. H. P. Deering, Michigan Central R. R., Chicago, Ill. In the discussion of the subject at Cleveland it was conceded that while the General Baggage Agents' Association rules, adopted July, 1889, were in the line of progress and an improvement upon the methods that generally obtained, previous to their adoption, certain additions and modifications thereof in several states had resulted in confusion and a lack of uniformity It was granted that in the absence of any regulations grading and licensing embalmers, such modifications were not made without reason. It was agreed further, |