for the enforcement and inspection of, a code of sanitary plumbing and sewering which shall govern all plumbing and sewering done in the village.

(4) That the local board of health, acting on their own inspections or at the advice of an experienced sanitary engineer, shall determine what premises may safely be allowed the option of connecting with the public sewer system, or of reconstructing or improving their present privies or cesspools, and shall determine and enact rules and regulations for the proper and sanitary operation, maintenance and inspection of the privies or cesspools of all such premises as do not connect with the sewers, and shall enforce the same.

(5) That the local board of health order and enforce the immediate cleaning out of all privies at all premises where typhoid has occurred during 1899 or 1900, and the placing of the contents so removed in shallow layers not exceeding four inches in thickness, in trenches not less than one, nor more than two feet in depth, the trenches to be immediately refilled with the earth removed therefrom or with other fresh earth or sand. Also that the privy vaults so emptied be filled up level with the surface. of the ground with fresh, clean earth or sand, and new locations for the privies be made. This work should be done at once and during the freezing weather.

(6) That the local board of health provide a system of drain age by open ditches, or preferably covered tile drains, for the entire low district in which numerous cases of typhoid fever occurred during 1900, including the lowering of the railroad culvert, and if necessary to effect the complete drainage and lowering of the ground-water in the district, then the lowering and straightening of the stream after it passes through the railroad. culvert.

(7) That the local board of health make, or have made by an experienced sanitary engineer, a critical sanitary examination. of the surroundings of all wells at premises where typhoid fever has occurred during either 1899 or 1900, and of all wells near privies or places where the excreta from typhoid patients has

been placed during 1899 or 1900, and that such local board order and enforce the permanent or the temporary closing from use of all such wells as such sanitary examination may indicate as likely to be infected from such privies or places as above indicated. The evidence of chemical or biological analyses should be secured in the sanitary examination whenever the other evidence leaves the matter in doubt.

Very respectfully submitted.

OLIN H. LANDRETH
Consulting engineer

SCHENECTADY, N. Y., February 28, 1901

BAXTER T. SMELZER, Secretary State Board of Health, Albany, N. Y.:

Dear Sir-In the matter of the sanitary improvements in the village of East Hampton, N. Y., as recommended in my report of January 21, 1901, I beg to report that I was requested by the board of health of the town of East Hampton to come there on the 15th instant to further advise the board as to certain points in the execution of the improvements which they had already commenced to carry out. Accordingly I visited the place at the time mentioned, spending parts of the 15th and 16th instants in examining the work already accomplished and in considering with the local board and the village engineer the further prosecution of needed improvements. My report of January 21st, you will recall, recommended to the State Board of Health that the local authorities be directed to carry out improvements under seven heads:

The first four related to the procuring of plans for an improved system of sewerage and sewage disposal to be installed at once and before the coming cottage season which begins on June 1st, and to steps to be taken in conjunction with the installation of such system. The fifth related to the thorough cleaning of all privies at premises where typhoid fever had prevailed during either 1899 or 1900; the burying of the matter removed, and the

realling with fresh earth, and new locations for such privies be chosen. The sixth related to the needed provision of surface drainage for the low district in the vicinity of Main street and Cullom road where several cases of typhoid fever had prevailed and where the surface was very low, the soil impervious and the drainage defective. The seventh related to the critical examination of all the wells in the village adjacent to premises where typhoid had occurred during the past two seasons, and the closing of such as should be found to be probably infected.

On my visit on the 15th instant I found that surveys for a system of sewers had been made, a feasible location for a system of disposal by filtration had been found, and the main features of the system blocked out by the village engineer, William H. Barnes. At the time of my visit, I found the authorities and leading business men of the place were considering the feasibility of securing the needed legislative authority and installing a sewer system by a private corporation to be formed among the residents, and to maintain the system by annual charges made on the premises connecting with the system. As the system will require pumping of the sewage to the disposal beds owing to the very flat grades at which the streets are laid out, and owing to the fact that the only apparently feasible location for the disposal system is on land lying at a higher level than the village, and as considerable annual expense will be necessary to maintain and operate the system, I was of the opinion that for the above and other reasons the system of private ownership was not one to be recommended even if at all feasible, and so advised against it, but instead recommended that if incorporation of the village was not now feasible, the construction of the system under the state law providing for sewers in unincorporated villages by the formation of sewer districts should be adopted. At the latest information the question was still being debated, and very prompt and active measures will need to be taken by the local authorities if the system, or even the pipe system, is to be completed before the cottage season fully opens, which is extremely desir

able in order that the benefit of the sewerage therefrom may be realized later in the season when typhoid is most likely to occur. The later parts of the system can be constructed without harm to the residents, but the pipe-work should be completed and the back-filling and regrading should be out of the way as early in the season as possible, as disturbance of the soil in the public streets later in the season is to be avoided.

I also found that the local board of health were carrying out fully my recommendations regarding the cleaning of privies, and were even going back to premises where typhoid had occurred during 1898, a year farther back than I had thought necesary. It is proper to state in this connection, that many of these privies had been cleaned before, but refilling with fresh soil and removal to new sites had not been generally done. The local board of health were also arranging to have the systematic examination of the wells made. The survey for the drainage work needed in the low district above mentioned has also been made, and I understand that the improvements called for in this connection are to be made without delay.

Very truly yours

OLIN H. LANDRETH

Consulting engineer

ALBANY, N. Y., March 5, 1901

Prof. OLIN H. LANDRETH, Consulting engineer, State Board of Health, Schenectady, N. Y.:

Dear Sir-We are in receipt of your communication of the 28th ultimo, reporting upon a recent investigation at East Hampton as to certain points in the execution of the improvements which they had already commenced to carry out.

Very respectfully

T. A. STUART

Assistant secretary

ORIENT

Typhoid fever

SOUTHOLD, N. Y., September 28, 1900

To the State Board of Health:

By the authority and direction of the board of health of the town of Southold, Suffolk county, and as the health officer of that town, I have to present for your consideration the following statement:

For the past two years at the village of Orient, in said town, there have occurred more typhoid fever cases than has been usual anywhere else in this section.

Our local board of health has given its careful attention to these cases and so far fail to determine on any specific cause for them other than their being of endemic origin. At present there are five or six cases in that village and the people there have entered a complaint to us as to the drain of sewerage from a summer hotel, but we are doubtful whether that has any connection with the sickness, and as to our jurisdiction over it and what, if any, steps we should take regarding it. Our board concludes that it would be advisable in the interest of the public health as well as to pacify the citizens there, who are becoming a little panicky, and satisfy our own minds as to our duty and course in this situation, for you to send down a representative from your office at once to investigate and try to settle on some means of prevention.

If this suggestion meets your approval, whoever comes had better go at once to Greenport, advising me beforehand of the time of his arrival there, and I will meet him and afford him all the assistance and information in my reach.