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The manly and brilliant style in which it is written, its fascinating eloquence, and the special talent which the author displays in rendering marvelously clear—without at the same time robbing them of any of their accuracy—the most obscure topics, make this book of Zimmermann’s a veritable chef-d’oeuvre.... The importance of genuine experience, its difference from false or blind routine, the advantages which real erudition confers and the necessity of combining it with experience, the nature of the obstacles which an observing spirit must overcome, the absolute need of good observations and the useful qualities which they should possess, the effects of genius, and the manner in which conclusions are to be drawn by analogy and by induction—these are the questions with which the author of this classical treatise deals.

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THE EARLIEST PUBLICATION IN EUROPE OF A SYSTEMATIC TREATISE ON HYGIENE, PUBLIC HEALTH AND MEDICO-LEGAL SCIENCE

In the early part of the eighteenth century municipal and private-house sanitation existed in comparatively few cities of Europe, and then only in the wealthier quarters. Such a thing as sanitary police was practically unknown, and public health was considered only when the inhabitants were threatened with a serious epidemic like that of cholera, the plague, or leprosy. This indifference to public sanitation persisted down to the end of the nineteenth century. On arriving in Paris in the spring of 1857, at a time when the city was overcrowded with travelers, my friend and I were glad to secure a room on the fourth story of a modest hotel situated in the central part of the city, quite near the Palais Royal. We found no good reason to complain of the room itself; it was clean and adequately well ventilated. But the toilet facilities were such as one might expect to find in a hotel of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. On the roof of our building a lean-to had been constructed alongside a broad brick chimney, and this shack, which was distant at least forty feet from the doorway that led by a short stair-case to the fourth story of the hotel, could be reached only over a narrow plank walk that was wholly unprotected by a railing. Then again, on a bicycling trip which I made in 1896, through the central part of France, my friend and I experienced more than one surprise of a similar nature. For example, in several of the smaller towns we found that the ancient practice of throwing the slops out of the second-story windows into the middle of the narrow street, still persisted. But, in a matter of this kind, nothing is to be gained by entering into many details; “enough is as good as a feast.” I merely wish to emphasize the fact that even France, where civilization was so far advanced in many respects, was fearfully slow in adopting the first principles of house and municipal sanitation. It was only toward the end of the nineteenth century that London, the birthplace of the finest types of house and municipal sanitation, began to give serious attention to this subject. During the early part of the eighteenth century, however, even this great metropolis was very backward in manifesting any marked desire to improve the sanitary condition of its dwellings; for, was it not the Earl of Chesterfield who, at this very period of time (about 1750) made the statement, in a letter to his natural son, that “the lanes or narrow passage-ways in Holland are cleaner than the houses are in London?”