THE DANGERS OF CLOSE PLANTING ABOUT LIVING PLACES - FEARS OF ARBOR-DAY PLANTINGS - THE

TESTIMONY OF A PHYSICIAN.

NO ONE raises a word against our Arbor Days, and few protest against dense shade about dwellings. Arbor-day planting is generally confounded with forestry, with which, in fact, it has no relation. The following remarks by W. Thornton Parker, M. D., in the Sanitarian, are timely and needful.

For many years our people have given considerable attention to the subject of forest culture, but instead of exercising their influence in the direction of forest protection and increase where it is most needed, many seem to content themselves with planning "arbor days" and employing our school children in planting trees and shrubs in parks and school grounds and streets of our cities and towns. To witness the faithful efforts of our children as they plant the trees where sunlight is most needed, one cannot help feeling that oftentimes these efforts are sadly misdirected and the theory taught is not the true one. This love for the beauty of foliage is right and natural, and properly guided is to be encouraged, but it has undoubtedly been only too often extravagantly bestowed, and the societies formed for this, purpose are not always under the direction of the wisest. The planting from a sanitary point of view has not yet received much attention. To set out as many trees as possible seems to be the object, and this is limited only by the means and the amount of land at their disposal.

The poem of "Woodman, Spare that Tree" has won a strong place in the hearts of the people, and while whole forests disappear as if by magic, in ruthless waste and in serious menace of health and life, the tree in the town, whose roots are bathed in poisonous soil, and whose branches are filled with deadly vapors, and whose leaves repel God's glorious sunshine, stands triumphantly, a delusive ornament and a dangerous menace. So much has this natural love for the beauty of foliage been misdirected that many sicken and die from overshading - even as many must also suffer from the wanton destruction of our forests.

The past nine months of this eventful year of 1889 have been remarkable in the lessons they have furnished sanitarians and hygienists. As might well have been expected, the past ten or twelve weeks have furnished a large death-rate from causes preventable, which must act as a warning for all who are interested in the welfare of the country. I do not hesitate to affirm that this death-rate is owing to the overshading of our homes in very many instances. Each community has its proportionate share of value in health and homes. Whatever diminishes this value is a direct injury to that community. Overshading is a serious fault, and directly lessens the value of real estate, and noticeably increases disease and shortens life. These facts should receive careful and positive attention from thoughtful people.

Vegetation produces a great effect upon the movement of the air. Its velocity is checked, and sometimes in thick clusters of trees or underwood the air is almost stagnant. If moist and decaying vegetation be a coincident condition of such stagnation, the most fatal forms of malarious diseases are produced. A moist soil is cold, and is generally believed to predispose to rheumatism, catarrh and neuralgia. It is a matter of general experience that most persons feel healthier on a dry soil. In some way, which is not clear, a moist soil produces an unfavorable effect upon the Jungs. A moist soil influences greatly the development of the agent, whatever it may be, which causes the paroxysmal fevers. In ground which has been rendered dryer by drainage, Buchanon has shown that there has been a diminution in deaths from phthisis (consumption).

Houses overshaded are not healthful, no matter bow commodious or well built they may be. Too many trees near sleeping and living-rooms exercise a very injurious influence and induce various diseases, notably rheumatism, heart disease, consumption, general debility and anaemia. It would seem as if these truths must be too well known to need any statement. But it has seemed to me, in view of the increasing foliage of our towns, necessary to call them again to your remembrance and to ask you to consider the whole subject as one well worthy the attention of those interested in American public health. A journey through many of our towns during the past nine months, and an experience covering twenty years of professional investigation, have convinced me that this most undesirable condition of over-shading is only too common, and has become a positive injury in almost every direction. The results are, in point of fact, much more serious than most people seem to be aware of; indeed, the ignorance or indifference generally noticeable whenever sanitarians make a move in the interests of public health is deplorable.

A soil loaded with roots and densely shaded is unfit for man to live upon constantly, and is certainly no place for a permanent home. The air entering the bedrooms and living-rooms from such surroundings is chilly and dead, and is not at all suitable for respiration. Such an atmosphere cannot bring health to invalids, and is dangerous to the well. It is invariably productive of sickness and even death, especially among children and those of feeble constitution.

As man pales, sickens and dies without the blessing of the sunshine, so, too, the earth deteriorates and becomes unfit as a safe resting-place for man if it is deprived of the requirements of nature. It frequently happens that physicians are called to prescribe for ailing people who seem to possess every comfort and luxury, and yet who are really perishing because their houses and grounds are overshaded. These people who live in such houses are always cold and miserable, needing extra clothing and expending great quantities of fuel in order to obtain the needed warmth and to dispel the deadly chill. Artificial heat can never be compared reasonably with the pure life-giving sunshine, and human science can never discover a substitute for the divine light of health and life. Where houses are overshaded the nervous system also suffers, as well as the general bodily health ; mental disturbance, melancholy and madness are to be apprehended from such dreary surroundings. No one will pretend that the sanitary condition of the majority of our summer resorts are at all equal to what they should be, or to what the public has a right to demand.

As a local board of health has a right and duty to close a house injurious or dangerous to health and life, and to forbid its occupancy until reasonable sanitary requirements have been observed and causes of danger removed, so it would almost seem to be a reasonable inference that a national board of health should have power to discipline summer resorts and other localities, and prevent the seekers for health and pleasure from risking their own and their children's lives in places desperately neglected, unhealthful and dangerous.

Many such places exist, where overshading is the greatest obstacle to needed sanitary reforms, and where, indeed, little can be accomplished for the future sanitary improvement of the place until the axe has been given full sway and sunlight admitted to disinfect the foul earth.

"Oh, that one ray of golden light Could pierce this never-ending night !" cries the prisoner in his dark and dreary dungeon. Can we not as physicians feel the warmest pity for those who are deprived of the blessed sunlight ? Do not the stories of the captives and victims of Russian cruelty appeal to us more strongly when we think of their dark and sunless existence ? Light and life are the divine gifts; death and darkness the portion of those who hate the light.