SOME OF THE DANGERS TO HEALTH 
PERTAINING TO PIONEER LIFE. 
JBy A. W. NICHOLSON M. D., of Otisville. 
A PArER READ AT THE SANITARY CONVENTION AT FLINT, MICHIGAN, JAN. 2G, 1SS1. 
[Reprinted from the Ninth Annual Report of the Michigan State Board of Health, for the 
year 1881.] SOME OF THE DANGERS TO HEALTH PERTAIN- 
ING TO PIONEER LIFE. 
BY A. W. NICHOLSON, M. D., OF OTISVILLE. 
A PAPER READ AT THE SANITARY CONVENTION AT FLINT, 
MICHIGAN, JANUARY 26, 1881. 
[Reprinted from the Annual Report of the Michigan State Board of Health, for the 
year 1881.] 
Although the field is being repeatedly gone over, the material that goes to 
make up the subjects belonging to the science of sanitation certainly seems 
limitless. Concerning this science we can imagine no end to experimental 
inquiry—no end to the development of new facts and new philosophies, for it 
deals with the health and happiness of humanity. 
The city has its dangers to health, and the sanitarian for years has been 
directing his attention to the removal of these dangers; to defects in the con- 
struction of its dwellings; to its system of sewerage; to the removal of its 
multiple evils that make sickness and cause death among its inhabitants. 
Although the city may abound with “contrasts of splendid intentions, and mis- 
carried achievements” in reference to its sanitary regulations, successful 
indeed have been the labors of the sanitarian for the benefit of its inhabitants. 
The rural districts close about your cities have their dangers to health, 
and for the special weal of its residents, much is written by which they may 
obtain valuable knowledge that will enable them to improve their sanitary 
surroundings. In the urban and in the rural districts, the benevolence of some 
citizen, or some civic regulations, or the wealth of the individual owner usually 
serves to bring about a practical application of the suggestions science has made. CONVENTION AT FLINT,—DANGERS TO PIONEER LIFE. 
39 
But there is another class of people who naturally are subjected to some dangers 
to health different from those to which the classes just referred to are subjected, 
and that are often greater. We refer to the class of pioneers, they, who by the 
peculiarity of their situation are greatly debarred from profiting by scientific 
information of vital importance to them. They are, as a class, extremely poor. 
They enter the wilderness to build a home for themselves and their families, 
almost in total ignorance of any laws that govern health, or of the methods of 
scientific farming, and their whole environment is such, at present, that we 
cannot expect them to be well informed in regard to any such laws or methods. 
We can picture in our minds a colony of pioneers who, more than two centuries 
and a half ago, at New Plymouth, laid the corner-stone of prosperity to that 
State that was the first of this nation to make itself preeminent in the inter- 
ests of State medicine; their want of proper habitations; their lamentable 
sicknesses, and losses by death. Not twenty miles from this city are pioneers 
to-day, subject almost to the same hardships, almost to the same disasters, 
carving at the initial steps to the prosperity of Michigan. The stroke of the 
axe in the forest primeval is there, and the ill-constructed habitation, with too 
little light, and too much ventilation. 
To a great extent, many of the unpleasant conditions that surround the life 
of the pioneer, are not alterable by the measures that the literature of a sani- 
tary science has offered; and the first stroke of the axe is a premonition of 
dangers that seem sure to appear. 
Not often can a Utopia spring into existence in an uncultivated waste, 
without the painful labors and deprivations of a settler’s life, like the city that 
suddenly lifted itself to view upon the barrens of Hempstead Plains—the 
Garden City of Long Island, with its pure water, and perfect dwellings, “con- 
structed with an eye to artistic effect,” for the benefit of a coming citizen. 
If the new settler has any knowledge of a system of drainage it is pretty 
sure to relate to the improvement of the productive qualities of the soil and 
not to health matters. His house is hurriedly constructed on account of press- 
ing labors in other directions. In selecting his site he is apt to pay little atten- 
tion to the facilities for sub-soil drainage. He often builds over a natural 
excavation in the earth that may serve as a receptacle for fresh vegetables in 
the fall and for decaying vegetable debris in the spring. He, through an 
absence of the proper knowledge, or a proper appreciation of the importance 
of the subject, disregards the provision that the floor of the house should be 
“impermeable to wet and laid so as to exclude ascending moisture and earth 
exhalations.” The ill-constructed floor is one of the greatest dangers to which 
the new settler is commonly subjected. Too often may deaths and prolonged 
sicknesses be traced to this evil; and it is a common evil among them. The air 
of the room whenever artificially heated will, to an extent according with the 
degree of its temperature, become permeated with moisture, and the higher the 
temperature the greater will be the moisture, providing there exists a free 
communication to a humid atmosphere outside. If beneath the floor is a damp 
soil, or a pool of water, there certainly will be a dangerous degree of damp- 
ness in the room above. It is an exception to the general rule when sickness 
does not occur when these conditions are present. We have seen all the mem- 
bers of a large family stricken with serious sickness, one of whom died, where 
the circumstances just described existed. Their sickness was of such a nature 
as to preclude a theory of contagion in reference to the cause. The cause was 
more emphatically traced to the rising vapor, or to the poisonous germs trans- 40 
STATE BOARD OF HEATH—REPORT OF SECRETARY, 1881. 
ported by it. The majority of the houses are so rudely constructed as to have 
a constant free communication between the internal and external air, both 
containing an equal amount of moisture, or nearly so, when the air of the 
house is not artificially heated. When the temperature of the house is 
increased artificially, a circumstance that frequently obtains from necessity, 
the amount of moisture therein will exceed that of the external air, or the air 
of the room will even be saturated. What is saturated air? For the con- 
venience of estimating the relative amount of moisture the air may contain, 
air that is saturated is said to hold one hundred per cent of moisture. Air 
most conducive to comfort or to health will contain about sixty-five or seventy 
per cent of moisture. This fact can easily be demonstrated by any one pos- 
sessing a psychrometer, or any other instrument by which an estimate of the 
humidity of the atmosphere is made; and, such an instrument as this would 
be of value to any person. It will tell you, as we have stated, how much 
dampness there is in the air about you, and whether it is present to a danger- 
ous degree. It will point out to you, in the hot days of summer, when to 
guard against sun-stroke, for hot days with excess of moisture, are the har- 
bingers of that event. It will often tell you when to be merciful to the 
dumb brute as well as to yourself. 
The dangers to health surrounding the home of the pioneer do not bear so 
strong a relation to its immediate contiguity to forests as to other circum- 
stances. If too little sunshine at times seems to exist in the forest for the 
sustenance of health, this evil is often more than counterbalanced by its pro- 
tection of the individual from the effects of the torrid heat of the sun which 
might be serious to one exposed on open undrained lands. Wherever man may 
choose to reside, whether at the equator or at the poles, a certain degree of 
temperature of the body must be maintained. His judgment and ingenuity 
are exercised to maintain this equable temperature by the invention of proper 
apparel, and of various other ways to meet the vicissitudes of climate. Too 
great, or too little radiation of heat from the body will produce a physiologi- 
cal disturbance. The forest shields the pioneer from the fierce winds of winter, 
preventing a large loss of heat necessary for the body to retain, and, in sum- 
mer, while beyond the boundaries of the forest the air is still and burning, a 
gentle breeze within its borders greatly facilitates a healthy radiation of sur- 
plus heat from the body. 
The dangers from imperfect drainage about the habitation of those who 
may live among the forest trees are greatly mitigated by the drainage that the 
roots of the trees themselves perform, absorbing much of the impurities of 
the soil, with its excess of moisture. Perhaps the residue of impurities, not 
taken up by the trees, that may arise in the exhalations from the ground may 
be neutralized, or destroyed, by the abundance of that subtle element ozone, 
or active oxygen, large quantities of which often exist in the forests. 
But the time is sure to come when the destruction of the trees, opening the 
way to agricultural improvements, opens it to dangers not experienced in that 
locality before. The amount of moisture in the air over an open space fluctu- 
ates with its frequently varying temperature, depending greatly on the amount 
of dampness in the soil. The more porous the soil, as in an open sandy tract, 
the greater will be the evaporation. These frequent variations in the temper- 
ature and humidity of the air are deleterious to health. The amount of mois- 
ture in the atmosphere of the forest is subject to far less fluctuation. Its even, 
low temperature allows much of the moisture to be retained in the soil, a large CONVENTION AT FLINT,—DANGERS TO PIONEER LIFE. 
41 
portion of the excess being taken up by the trees themselves. Wells and 
springs often dry up because of the removal of a growth of timber that pre- 
vented a rapid evaporation from the soil. 
Prof. Ebermayer of Aschaffenburg, a few years ago, arrived at the follow- 
ing conclusions from his meteorological observations on forestry: “If from 
the soil of an open space one hundred parts of water evaporate, then from the 
soil of the forest, free from underwood, thirty-eight parts would evaporate, and 
from a soil covered with underwood only fifteen parts would evaporate.” 
One of the greatest dangers to health to which a pioneer is subjected is 
when he turns over the furrow of the new soil. It is difficult to tell what vol- 
umes of poisonous germs are concealed beneath its quiet surface, to be thrown 
into the air by the point of the plowshare. Also, the increased porosity of the 
soil, now crumbled and broken, has greatly increased its evaporating surface, 
unrelieved by any system of drainage, and what are the consequences? There 
is an excess of aqueous vapor in the air above it. The functions of the skin 
and lungs are interfered with because the natural exhalations from these 
organs are prevented. If the air contains as much aqueous vapor as it is able to 
contain, that is, is saturated, there is a suspension of evaporation from surround- 
ing objects, and man is no exception to this general rule. Sickness would be 
the consequence were any one exposed to such conditions for any length of 
time. It has even been doubted whether life can be prolonged in air saturated 
with moisture, with a temperature of 90° or 100° Fahrenheit. Many times 
have we known of instances where repeated exposures to conditions bordering 
on this extreme have resulted in the loss of a year’s labor and expectations, 
because of the sickness that followed. 
The pioneer is fortunate if he selects land with soils least calculated to be 
generators of sickness. Observations teach us that that soil which is most 
porous, beneath which may lie a sub-soil retaining great quantities of moisture 
within itself or upon its surface, is the most unsafe. Sandy soil above such a 
sub-soil therefore would absorb a great amount of moisture from beneath, 
which would be rapidly evaporated, perhaps loading the atmosphere with other 
elements of disease than that of dampness. In over one hundred cases of 
fever coming under our own observation during eight months of the year 1877, 
most of the cases of which were in families of those recently located upon 
new lands, about 90 per cent were where they were subjected to the continued 
influence of emanations from undrained sandy soil. 
In Michigan it is not uncommon for a pioneer to select a site in the forest 
contiguous to low swamp lands; perhaps such swamps are a part and parcel of 
his own territory. Not comprehending or appreciating the dangers resulting 
from such an action, he removes the belt of trees interposed between his 
dwelling and the low marshy tract. The sudden sickness that is apt to follow 
indicates some new danger. It cannot be doubted that this new danger is 
caused by the destruction of the trees intervening between the dwelling and 
the marsh. It may be that the trees serve as a screen, intercepting infectious 
germs that in the absence of the foliage would penetrate to the atmosphere of 
the dwelling. Certainly the removal of these vegetable growths would be a 
removal of a strong factor in the prevention of an excess of atmospheric 
moisture about the dwelling. 
As an illustration of the absorbing qualities exhibited in some trees, the 
eucalyptus, or gum tree, it is said, will eliminate from a swampy soil eight 
times its own weight in water in twenty-four hours. 
The Popular Science Monthly tells us: “The civic station of Futtehpoor is 42 
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH—REPORT OF SECRETARY, 1881. 
situated between Allahabad and Cawnpoor, in an arid plain, but near a pretty 
extensive marsh. This place was considered extremely unhealthy until the 
magistrate planted between the station and the swamp a belt of quick-growing 
babool trees. As the trees grew the place became much less unhealthy.” The 
writer of the article supposes these trees to have acted as a screen, preventing 
the diffusion of poisonous germs to the inhabited plain. 
Another danger to which the pioneer is apt to be subjected is from the 
absence of pure water as from deep wells or of wholesome spring-water. It 
is not uncommon for him to depend upon surface water from an excavation in 
the soil, and sickness from the use of it is a frequent consequence. His atten- 
tion is wholly directed to the clearing of his lands as of chief importance. He 
has no time to consider the advantages of drainage or of the construction of a 
well, or of any proper sanitary surroundings. The pollution of the water he 
often uses is sensible to the “sight, the taste, and the smell,” or perhaps he 
does not recognize any source of contamination until the “doctor comes.” 
The character of the drinking-water is a subject that is receiving, and should 
receive, widespread attention. Although many of the elements of contamina- 
tion that are discovered in the drinking-water in cultivated districts are not 
contained in the surface-water of the wild lands, the frequent mixture with the 
latter of the soil itself, together with much organic material, makes the use of 
it dangerous. In regard to the use of impure drinking-water, the following inci- 
dent is related : “Recently a clergyman actually preached to his parishioners 
that a devastating fever among them was a visitation from God upon them in 
punishment for their sins, while at the same time a gentleman, writing to the 
authorities to complain of the water-supply, dipped his pen in and wrote with 
the water from the river instead of ink.” However much we may honor the 
discernment of the gentleman mentioned, was not the clergyman right in this 
instance? Is it not a sin to disregard the laws of health instituted by the 
Divine Creator that are so plainly manifest; and are not devastating sick- 
nesses often plainly retributions in consequence of somebody’s disregard of 
natural laws that are easily discernible? To plead ignorance of the law, is no 
extenuation for the crime, as viewed in the statutes. 
The English commissioners a few years ago classified potable waters as fol- 
lows : As wholesome—1, spring-water; 2, deep well-water; 3, upland water. 
As suspicious—1, stored rain-water; 2, surface-water from cultivated lands. 
As dangerous—1, River-water to which sewage gets access; 2, shallow well- 
water. The latter is that commonly used by the new settler. 
Were a statistician to record the individual cases of sickness actually occur- 
ring in these new regions, and compare the number with the number of cases 
as existing in well-drained and well-cultivated districts, the result of the com- 
parison would, I am sure, be startling; and the loss to the State of the import- 
ant results of labor by the idleness of its members from avoidable sickness, 
would supply food for serious reflection to the political economist. In a lum- 
bering and pioneer community with a population estimated at 150, we have 
known more than one-fourth of the inhabitants to be under the care of phy- 
sicians at one time. 
If our pioneer were an alumnus of our Agricultural College he would be pre- 
pared to meet the dangers before him. He would utilize his knowledge in 
choosing a site for his dwelling in the wilderness. He would take into consid- 
eration the topography and the geology of the situation for the sake of drain- 
age. He would see that the soil upon which he would place his habitation was 
such as to admit of immediate drainage, and that this significant matter was CONVENTION AT FLINT,—DANGERS TO PIONEER LIFE. 
43 
accomplished before a sill was laid toward the construction of it. He would 
select a point, no doubt, where the water-line was deepest beneath the surface. 
Perhaps he would place his house upon a southern, in preference to a northern, 
slope of land, on account of the condensation of moisture being less upon the 
former than upon the latter, for some of the vapor of the warm south wind 
from the open country is pretty sure to become condensed when it reaches the 
cooler atmosphere upon the less sunny side of the northern slope. Who has 
not experienced the discomforts that exposures to chilly fogs give rise to? It 
is well known that a certain degree of constant moisture, especially in the soil, 
is essential to forest growth. In accordance with this fact a northern slope 
should be the location generally chosen for a range of this growth, on account 
of the precipitation of the moisture that is condensed by coming in contact 
with its cool air. In addition to other benefits, trees planted in this situation 
would act as a shelter from northern winter winds. Also for reasons previously 
stated, the pioneer should either plant or allow to remain standing a belt of 
trees intervening between his house and any low, marshy, undrainable parcel 
of land where the ground-water is subject to frequent rise and fall, saturating 
the soil with moisture as it rises, and as it descends leaving a large surface from 
which a speedy evaporation must ensue. 
Another source of danger accompanying pioneer life is the usually grave 
influence of his surroundings upon the course of contagious diseases. The 
liability to death, or even attack, from these diseases, is certainly greatly 
lessened by the presence of good sanitary surroundings. It is not a flight of 
the fancy that enables us to picture a habitation built of logs with wide inter- 
stices between each of them, where the dank air from a region of swamp upon 
which it is situated sweeps through it; and this where six of a family of seven 
are suffering from diphtheria. It is needless to say that the pale horse visits 
this dwelling as it does others similarly situated. 
But, alas! there is an absence of a consideration of matters relating to the 
general laws of health on the part of the pioneer because of his pecuniary cir- 
cumstances never having admitted of his obtaining such a preliminary educa- 
tion as would prepare him for the perils to which he must be subjected ; or 
because he has not had free access to the proper literature that would enlighten 
him upon these subjects. 
If our generous State, through principles of political economy, does not deem 
it expedient to institute measures for the increased diffusion of sanitary 
knowledge that will render less the unnecessary loss of life and labor in the 
ranks of its vanguard of citizens; or, if local boards of health, who are the 
legal protectors of the public health, cannot recognize the adoption of such 
measures as related to their guardianship, then there is a field left open for the 
labors of the philanthropist. 
When the pioneer enters into this field of unknown perils, well may he say, 
like the slaves in the desert who cried unto the Lord to look to them across the 
shining sands, Lord, look to us across this wilderness !— 
“Thro’ the furnace of the noon, 
Thro’ the white light of the moon, 
Thou, our morrow’s pathway knowing 
Thro’ this strange world round us growing, 
Speak! and tell us where we are going. 
We are weak, hut thou art strong, 
Short our lives, but thine is long; 
We are blind, but thou hast eyes, 
We are fools, but thou art wise ” 44 
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH—REPORT OF SECRETARY, 1881. 
I. N. Smith, M. D., health officer of Saginaw, spoke favorably of Dr. Nicholson’s paper, and added 
several points which he thought should be considered in such a connection—namely, the direction 
from which the prevailing winds come (which was southwest in this State) and the importance of 
so locating houses and outbuildings that the prevailing winds shall not bring to the house exhala- 
tions from swamps, barns, privies, etc. He mentioned the importance of placing privies distant 
from wells. 
In response to a question as to whether water from a well, or filtered cistern water was safest 
in cities and villages, Prof. Vaughan, stated some facts bearing upon the subject. Lithium was 
sown upon the surface and afterward found in water at a great distance. 
H. P. Seymour, M. D., of Byron, spoke on the subject of contamination of water, giving details of 
the outbreak of typhoid fever at Lausanne, Switzerland, and making the point that filters were not 
to be depended upon to take out really dangerous impurities in water. 
H. C. Fairbank, M. D., of Flint, gave some facts relative to four cases of typhoid fever connected 
with the use of spring-water of offensive odor and taste, about sixty feet below a “ water closet ” 
(privy?). The persons abandoned the use of the spring, dug a new well, and typhoid fever had 
not appeared there since. 
Rev. Mr. Tyndall, of Flint, spoke of the underground currents of water and the impossibility of 
learning the real source and quality of water except by testing of every well. 
Prof. Kedzie gave details of cases of sickness in two families occupying the same house, and the 
cessation of sickness when a new source of water-supply was procured. 
DISCUSSION.