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Greater city are also assigned to do general sanitary inspection. 1 It is the duty of these men to inspect as well as investigate all citizens' complaints relating to the general sanitary conditions in their respective districts, such as house drainage, plumbing, light, and ventilation ; stables and manure vaults ; cellars and base- ments ; public and private closets and cesspools ; sewers, streets, and sidewalks; ash and garbage receptacles; and especially all shops of any kind where milk is sold.
If now we should follow some of these inspectors throughout their daily rounds, as did the writer on many occasions, we might be led to investigate almost every kind of sanitary problem. First, it might be to answer the complaint about a defective water-closet in a church or sweat-shop and to order a new outfit. Next, our route might take us to the cellar of a meat-shop where the owner is manufacturing sausages amidst the foulest of sani- tary conditions, and where it is necessary to order a general cleaning up and disinfecting, etc.; then to order a builder to stop obstructing the gutter of a public street with loose brick and building material ; or to a restaurant complained of by a down- town banker because of the cooking smells which issue forth from the kitchen into his office and create a public nuisance ; or into a small grocery store on the East Side where the owner is selling milk, contrary to the requirements of the Sanitary Code, in a room opening into his living quarters at the rear, thus mak- ing a double risk of contamination ; or, finally, perhaps, into a petty Jewish meat-shop where poultry is killed on the premises instead of at the licensed slaughter-houses, as provided for by the code. Again, our duties might require us to investigate the complaints of a poor sick woman in a crowded tenement who is actually unable to sleep because of the vibrations in the walls of her apartment made by the machinery in a printing or manufac- turing establishment next door. Such cases of noisy machinery which are actually deleterious to health are not infrequent, and often give the inspectors much trouble. The writer well remem- bers an apartment which he visited one day with a health inspec-
1 There are forty-eight sanitary inspectors at the present time in the borough of Manhattan alone, fifteen of whom are assigned to do general sanitary work.
