I believe, and it shall be my endeavor to prove, that the increase of zymotic diseases in the city is due in a great measure to causes easily preventable. Man, it is true, is born to sorrow; but many of these sorrows are of his own creation, or are due to his neglect of established principles. Having determined upon a thorough investigation, we need only to visit the premises, where typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and diseases of this class prevail, to obtain facts enough to solve the problem. Wherever filth abounds, whether in the air, the ground, or the water, there will be a fruitful soil for the propagation of fermentative diseases. To be convinced of the present and past filthy condition of the city, one should take a walk through any of the alleys at noonday, and inhale the foul odors arising constantly from sewers, cess-pools, privies and decaying animal, vegetable, and excrementitious matters thrown out from kitchens and stables. An examination of the kitchen and back yard of a house is sufficient to prove one of two things, either that Biddy is “monarch of all she surveys,” or that the family need a few practical lessons on sanitary science. The latter are sure to follow in time. The increase of zymotic diseases in Indianapolis, is due largely to soil and water pollution. The conditions of the soil affect our health through the water we drink and the air we breathe. To effluvia from the soil, may be attributed, as stated by Parkes, paroxysmal fevers, typhoid fever, yellow fever, bilious remittent fever, cholera and dysentery. Waring accepts the theory of the dissemination of typhoid fever by fecal discharges of the sick, but gives as his opinion that the disease may be developed by exhalations of decomposing matters in dung-heaps, pig sties, privy vaults, cellars, cess-pools, drains and sewers, or it may be due to the presence of the poison deep in the ground, and its escape in an active condition in ground exhalations. A cold soil, and a misty, chilly condition of the atmosphere are caused by large amounts of water in the ground; and persons living on such soil are disposed to catarrhal complaints, rheumatism and neuralgia. Dampness of the soil produces malaria and consumption, and their activity varies with the degree of moisture. The lowering of the ground water in the malarious districts of Indiana, has greatly mitigated the paroxysmal fevers which were formerly so prevalent, and the general healthfulness of the state has been increased by drainage. The sandy soil underlying Indianapolis retains from 33 to 36 per cent. of water. A strong clay soil will not retain over 27 per cent. of water.