REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 
OF THE 
jy^edical Society of the District 
of Columbia 
ON THE 
Ice Dealers' Combination. 
Adopted April Z2, 1/96^ 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
1893. Report of the Committee of the Medical Society of 
the District of Columbia on the Ice Dealers' 
Combination. 
The resolution of the Society, (hereto appended with the 
announcement of the combination,) sets forth the fact that 
the ice companies of the District of Columbia have united 
in an agreement to suspend the delivery of ice on the Sab- 
bath-day to retail consumers during the months of June, 
July, August, and September, and instructs the committee 
to inquire what, if any, action the Society should take in 
view of this combination. 
The limitation of the investigation to the months named 
confines the inquiry to considerations relating to health and 
sanitation during these months, and to the detrimental in- 
fluences, if any, of the suspension of continuous daily de- 
livery of ice to the retail consumers during this period. 
With the ordinary business and routine methods of ice 
dealers this Society cannot be concerned, but it is profoundly 
impressed with its duty to the community, and assumes the 
responsibility of giving expression to the collective and 
concrete opinion of its membership in regard to matters per- 
taining to sanitation and the preservation of the health of 
the people within its geographical limits, even though it 
may, in the discharge of this duty, antagonize the financial 
interests of trade and business combinations. 
The committee, without dissent, has reached the conclu- 
sion that such suspension of ice delivery on the Sabbath- 
day during the period ' named, without adequate arrange- 2 
ment for the convenient and speedy obtainment of supplies 
when and by whom needed, will occasion serious incon ven 
ience to very many housekeepers; be detrimental to the 
health of that large class of residents who are compelled to 
remain in the city during the summer months; will prolong 
the duration and intensify the suffering of many cases of 
sickness; and will increase the number and mortality of 
certain classes of disease. In support of this conclusion the 
committee presents the following argument : 
The months named comprise the period of the year dur- 
ing which the highest mean and maximum temperatures pre- 
vail in the District of Columbia, and especially in the 
adjacent cities of Washington and Georgetown, in which 
nine-tenths of the resident population reside and the float- 
ing population sojourn. They comprise also the period 
during which digestive and gastro-intestinal disturbances 
and diseases are most prevalent and fatal. July is the 
sickliest and hottest month of the year, with least rainfall 
and least movement of wind. It is also the month of greatest 
mortality among children under five years of age. During 
these four months there occurs annually, over the larger por- 
tion of the country, periods of continuous maximum tempera- 
ture, lasting from three to fourteen days, usually denomi 
nated " heated terms," in which the sweltering and 
exhausting heat continues without the usual diurnal abate- 
ment which affords some relief during sleeping hours. 
Whilst it is undoubtedly true that the average and maximum 
of day temperatures during these heated terms are no higher, 
and, in fact, not so high as in some of the cities of the 
North and Northwest, nevertheless, the remoteness of 
the two adjacent cities from the sea and mountains de- 
prives their populations of the refreshing and tonic effects 
of the sea and mountain air. To these disadvantages of an 
interior location must be added the additional and potent 3 
factor in the maintenance of high night temperatures,- 
radiation, during the greater part of the night, of the 
heat absorbed during the day by the immense area of 
asphalt and concrete pavement in the city of Washington. 
It would, then, be idle and untruthful to deny the insalu- 
brity of this locality during these periods of abnormally high 
temperatures and blazing sunshine as to these gastro-intes- 
tinal and digestive diseases. 
These months comprise, also, the period between the sum- 
mer solstice and the autumnal equinox, during which solar 
heat exhibits its deleterious influences in other and very im- 
portant relations. (It is one of the many conditions which 
in conjunction make up a season.) The change from winter 
to summer is characterized by increased solar heat; the 
successive stages of growth, maturity, and decay in the veg- 
etable kingdom ; the generation of spores; the reproduction 
of myriads of animalcnlar insects and parasites and the re- 
habilitation of animal life ; the setting up of putrefactive 
processes ; the generation of noxious effluvia and their dif- 
fusion in the air; the changed condition of animal life ; 
the more constant exposure of human beings to the air ; the 
altered habits and modes of life of all classes of people ; 
the introduction of new foods into the dietary, which 
undergo rapid change and decay ; and the greater careless- 
ness in personal protection and hygiene. All these co- 
operating elements must influence the organism, and are 
conducive to the production of the diseases incident to the 
season. 
Monopolies, combinations, or trusts may become formi- 
dable antagonists to popular will and necessity, and when, 
as in this case, either seeks to control and limit the daily 
supply, during the heated months and periods, when certain 
classes of disease are most prevalent and fatal, of one of the 
necessaries of life and a remedial agent in general use and of 4 
the highest value: the privation and suffering which may be 
inflicted upon that portion of a densely populated commu- 
nity which most need it and are least able to bear the 
deprivation, may be so far-reaching in its unfortunate and 
disastrous results as to appeal even to the humanity of 
those financially interested in such a combination. This 
suggestion is emphasized by the threatened invasion of the 
country by the Asiatic cholera during the coming summer. 
The District of Columbia may again, as it has since 1832, 
escape this most fatal of all epidemic diseases, yet it is 
within the knowledge of those who have practised medicine 
long enough to know, that during the prevalence of cholera 
in cities and localities not too remote, other and allied 
diseases have been more than usually prevalent and fatal 
here. 
It would, then, seem manifest to ordinary intelligence, 
that a limited, insufficient, and irregular daily supply of 
ice would unfavorably affect the healthfulness and sanitary 
conditions of any densely populated area in a locality subject, 
during the season of maximum and abnormal high tem- 
peratures, to frequently recurring acute exacerbations of 
intense solar heat. 
The customs, habits, and circumstances of life of this 
community have made ice, during the sultry months, a 
necessary of life. It is a food, beverage, and a remedy in 
universal use, and of pronounced value and most varied 
application in the treatment of diseased conditions. It is, 
moreover, equally valuable and necessary in the preparation 
and preservation of foods and drinks for the sick and well. 
It has, in fact, become an indispcnsible necessity in the 
sanitation of person, health, foods, drinks, and sickness. 
In its multitudinous utilities and ready and convenient 
application it has become so widely and familiarly known 
that even a partial deprivation might become a calamity. 5 
As yet, there has been no apparatus, procedure, or medica- 
ment devised as an available substitute. When-we hope 
in the near future-every dwelling may be supplied with a 
hygienic ice-producing appliance, we may bid defiance to 
ice company combinations, and throttle at the outset 
every arbitrary regulation and method to restrain and sus- 
pend this form of sanitation of foods, drinks, and sickness. 
Two deliveries or the delivery of two days' ordinary sup- 
ply on one day will not fulfil the requirements of the day 
following, because of the increased loss by meltage and the 
lack of arrangements in most dwellings for the keeping of 
a double quantity, which necessarily increases the expense to 
the retail consumer. If, as stated by Mr. E. M. Willis 
President of the American Ice Co., (see Washington Post 
April 8, '93), the loss in bulk is 40 per cent., how much 
more must it be in quantities of five to twenty-five pounds ? 
And as the double quantity or more delivered on Saturday 
must lose more by meltage and inadequate preparation for 
its keeping than the usual supply of daily delivery, the in- 
ference seems reasonable that the combination, by suspend- 
ing Sunday deliveries, is seeking to transfer a portion of 
their loss in bulk to the small consumers, so that, under the 
cover of humanity to an overworked class of employes, may 
lie concealed a saving to the companies which in the aggregate 
may be very considerable. How much the amount of saving 
from this source may be augmented by the Sunday rest and 
deduction of wages, if any, of the employes, this committee 
has no means of ascertaining. 
The rich and affluent will, as they usually do, buy them 
selves out of such domestic and housekeeping inconveniences, 
annoyances, and threatened deprivation of the Sunday sup- 
ply of ice. With them it is but the additional expenditure 
of a few dollars, but their submission to such a trifling 
money exaction aggravates the discomforts of those who 
cannot liquidate their privations with cash. 6 
If it was a fact that the suspension of Sunday deliveries of 
ice would directly and inevitably conduce to the develop- 
ment of disease-producing germs, thereby creating foci for 
the propagation and dissemination of disease in hundreds of 
private dwellings, the conduct of the combination would 
decimate these adjacent cities by pestilence. Though not 
proven, it is, however, a reasonable hypothesis that such 
suspension may directly in some, and indirectly in other in- 
stances, generate in some, and in other cases promote the 
multiplication of, toxigenic germs. In the many cases 
where the suspension will effect deprivation of ice during 
Sunday, the perishable foods not immediately cooked will 
undergo, slowly or rapidly, the processes of deterioration, 
decay, and putrefaction. Those removed on sale from cold 
storage will more certainly and rapidly do so. So much for 
the direct responsibility of the combination for the genera- 
tion of poisonous germs. Indirectly, the same result may 
ensue because of the insufficiency of the Saturday supply 
and omission of the usual cleansing and ventilation of the 
ice receptacle when replenished with the Sunday supply. 
Hence the probable decomposition of foods and the prolifer- 
ation of germs is increased. It has long been known that the 
emanations from certain foods will impregnate other foods in 
the same closed compartment, and it is readily conceivable that 
the noxious gases of commencing decomposition in a single 
article may render other foods kept in the same compart- 
ment equally unfit for dietetic purposes. If this thought was 
stated as fully and positively as the present advanced study 
of bacteriology would permit, there would be cause for 
wide-spread consternation and panic in this community. 
The danger is the more threatening in view of the preva- 
lence of dysentery in this city during the past season, when 
a partial suspension of Sunday delivery was in operation. 
Dysentery is essentially the product of the ingestion of im- 
proper, decomposing, and putrefying foods in periods of 7 
abnormally high temperatures. When to this is added the 
rigid and general enforcement of Sunday suspension by the 
arbitrary edict of a combination of all the ice companies, 
the portentous apprehension almost reaches the certainty of 
an approaching calamitous epidemic. 
The Sabbath-day presents no conditions which exempt 
human beings from sickness. Disease has no respect for 
days of the week. Neither fever, nor pain, nor suffer- 
ing of any kind, description, variety, or grade, ceases or 
intermits on Sunday to again renew itself on Monday. Babies 
are born, get sick and die, emergencies arise, accidents 
happen, and any and all the phenomena of disease may 
occur with equal intensity and suddenness on Sundays as on 
week-days. Foods, drinks, beverages, medicaments, medi- 
cines, physicians, and nurses are as much needed on this as 
on any other day. Physicians do not claim rest because of 
six days' continuous work and loss of many hours of sleep; 
nurses who have been imprisoned in the chambers of the 
victims of malignant diseases do not run away from their 
duty on Sunday ; the drug clerk is behind the counter all 
day Sunday ; the milkman continues his Sunday delivery • 
and the girl at the mineral-water fountain drags out 
her monotonous life through the long summer Sundays. 
Why, then, should this one article, so useful to the sick in 
such a variety of ways,-effective both as a preventive and 
as a remedy in disease; and so necessary in the proper 
preparation and preservation of other useful and needed 
articles, be denied to them on the Sabbath-day ? In view 
of the fact that the family is usually more continuously at 
home on Sundays than during week-days, it would seem that 
the Sunday delivery is even more important than those on 
week-days. 
Communications received by members of the committee 
invite attention to two additional considerations, to wit; 
that a second delivery on Saturday afternoon imposes as 8 
much or more additional labor upon the employes as a 
Sunday delivery, because of the lateness of the hour of the 
night at which it can be completed, sometimes not before 
one o'clock Sunday morning, and that very many of 
the poorer and working classes take ice only on Sunday, 
because it is the only day during which the family is together 
and at home, and in cases of sudden illness occurring in 
such families it is impossible to obtain ice. except from the 
Sunday-delivery wagons. 
The conduct of this combination is a painful illustration 
of the aphorism that " man's inhumanity to man makes 
countless thousands mourn ; " but there is another side to 
this melancholy picture. The benevolent impulses of the 
human heart has never yet failed of response to the neces- 
sities of the sick and suffering. Here and elsewhere, all 
over the civilized world, want, privation, sickness and suffer- 
ing will command the attention and arouse the noblest im- 
pulses of Christian charity and benevolence. In this case 
no alms are needed. The power and will of popular 
opinion will suffice, and our Society appeals to this commu- 
nity with the utmost confidence for that support and co- 
operation which will break down a combination which seeks 
to magnify, aggravate, and intensify the privations of that 
large class of its citizens who, by reason of their dependence 
and circumstances in life, cannot successfully contest the 
arbitrary methods of an unrelenting monopoly. 
The prevention of disease is the highest and noblest 
aspiration of scientific medicine. It can only be accom- 
plished by the education of the masses in the art and science 
of hygiene, to which our Society hopes this report may, in 
some measure, contribute. 
S. C. BUSEY, M. D. 
G. WYTHE COOK, M. D. 
G. L. MAGRUDER, M. D. 
SAMUEL S. ADAMS, M. D. 
LLEWELLYN ELIOT, M. D. 
Committee. 9 
This report and the following resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted by the Society at a regular meeting held 
April 12, 1893. 
SAMUEL S. ADAMS, M. D., 
Recording Secretary. 
Resolved, That the Medical Society of the District of 
Columbia, in this effort to secure the continuous daily de- 
livery of ice to the retail consumers during the heated 
months of the year, invites the support and co-operation of 
the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, the Health 
Officer, the Local Press, the Sanitary League, and all other 
organizations and persons interested in the matter. 
Resolved, That one thousand copies of the report be pub- 
lished in pamphlet form, and that the Corrresponding Sec- 
retary be directed to distribute copies to the Attorney- 
General of the United States, the District Attorney, the 
Commissioners of the District of Columbia, the Health Officer, 
the Local Press, the Officers of the Sanitary League, the Presi- 
dents of the several Ice Companies, and to the Members of 
the Society. APPENDIX. 
Whereas, The companies engaged in the business of sup- 
plying ice to citizens of the District of Columbia have an- 
nounced through the local press the formation of a combi- 
nation of the several companies, in which they have agreed 
to suspend the delivery of ice on the Sabbath-day to the 
retail consumers during the months of June, July, August, 
and September: 
Therefore be it resolved. That a committee of five, of 
which the president and recording secretary shall be mem- 
bers, be appointed to consider what action, if any, this society 
should take in relation thereto. 
{Evening Star, March 30, 1893. J 
The Ice Question. 
Mr Reardon, superintendent of the National Capital Ice 
Company, stated to a reporter for The Stab that there was 
no combine in ice. The prices would be the same this year 
as last. True, there had been immense crops of ice, but it 
had <tost just about as much to harvest a ton last winter as 
the winter before. There would be no Sunday delivery, 
because the men wanted and were entitled to that day for 
rest. This policy was inaugurated last July. 
To the Public: 
Rates foe Ice. 
After April 1, 1893, the price of ice will be as follows: 
At the wharves or works, 25 cents to 40 cents per 100 
pounds, according to quantity. 12 
Delivered to families, 50 pounds or more, at the rate of 
50 cents per 100 pounds; 25 to 50 pounds, at the rate of 60 
cents per 100 pounds; 15 pounds for 10 cents ; 7 pounds for 
5 cents. 
Delivered to restaurants and stores in quantities at the 
rate of 35 cents per 100 pounds. 
Independent Ice Company. 
Great Falls Ice Company. 
American Ice Company. 
National Capital Ice Company. 
Hygienic Ice Company. 
Transparent Ice Company.