troduction of new methods of manufacture. There are no indications at present that warrant any expectation that any material change is imminent in the character of the crude oil. The change must, therefore, come from the introduction of different methods of manufacture. These methods need be neither novel nor unreasonably expensive. Cracked oils of good quality are nothing new, but I have never seen them made by one distillation and one treatment. Cracked oils should be finished by distillation, not treatment. A second distillation would enable the refiner to first remove the two volatile products of cracking and the heavy, uncracked portion of the paraffine-oil, besides destroying the sulphur compounds. But such a technology would so far increase the cost of the oil that those employing it could not compete in the market with those who did not, except by virtue of the superior quality of their oil.
It is in respect to this difficulty that the public weal could be well served by judicious legislation that in its broadest sense might well be considered sanitary legislation. It is a proper subject for physicians to determine, what the precise effects upon the general health may be resulting from the combustion in lamps and stoves of the vast quantities of inferior oils that are daily consumed throughout the country. That the effect must be bad, determining a tendency to certain forms of disease and aggravating others, can not fail to be apparent to the most unreflecting person, especially when it is considered in how few instances any means are employed to remove from the apartment in which these oils are burned the products of combustion. When under such circumstances a pure oil is burned into pure water and carbonic acid, the atmosphere receives a sufficient burden; but when to these are added vapors of burned sulphur and a variety of irritating vapors with smoke, the eyes, lungs, and nostrils pay a heavy tribute. Added to this is the new source of danger from fire resulting from explosions arising from imperfect combustion—a source of danger not hitherto recognized in legislation, but of not infrequent occurrence.
For the reasons stated, it appears that the health and safety of the public, and the protection of those manufacturers who would make a radical change in the methods of manufacture now employed, alike demand legislation that will exclude from the market not only oils that are unsafe from excess of naphtha, but those which in their general character are unhealthful to use and unsafe from other causes. Such legislation should be based upon an exhaustive scientific examination of the subject, with a view to placing the fewest restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of these oils consistent with the demands of public health and safety. Such an investigation can best be undertaken by the General Government, to be followed by such amendments to the national legislation now in force as the results might justify. Such national legislation, based upon a comprehensive knowledge of the subject, could not fail to be followed by a general revision
