BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 101 



the school-rooms there were only sixty-eight cubic feet or less per 

 head. The fatality of the cholera attack thus carefully prepared 

 f or -was awful. Within forty-eight hours after the first attack, 

 nineteen deaths and forty-two seizures had taken place. In the 

 course of a week sixty, or twenty -two per cent of the whole num- 

 ber, died, almost all the others suffering badly. Fewer boys died 

 as compared with girls, because, as it was stated, having even less 

 air than the girls, they used to break the windows. In the jail 

 of the same town, where each prisoner had over 800, and in some 

 cases over 900 cubic feet, and where a system of ventilation kept 

 renewing the air, there was not " the slightest indication of the 

 epidemic influence." In August, 1849, the cholera raged severely 

 in London, the mortality having increased from nearly 1 per 1,000 

 in June and July to 4| in August and September. It happened 

 that at this moment a large number of male prisoners were trans- 

 ferred from Millbank Prison which was in one of the bad dis- 

 tricts to another part of the country, the numbers being thus 

 reduced from over 1,000 to close upon 400 ; while at the same time 

 the female prisoners were slightly increased in number in Mill- 

 bank Prison, from 120 to 131. The consequences were remarkable. 

 The mortality of the female prisoners went up from a little over 

 eight to a little over fifty-four per cent (which was considerably 

 above the rate of increase in the outside districts), while the mor- 

 tality of the men fell from slightly over 23 per 1,000 to nearly 10 

 (the June and July rate of mortality). Carpenter gives other in- 

 teresting examples, and also remarks upon the fact that the special 

 centers of cholera existed before the invasion of that disease as 

 fever nests ; and that cholera followed the footsteps of other dis- 

 eases, not only in the same district, but in the same streets and 

 houses, and even rooms.* 



As with cholera, so with other causes of death. At Secun- 

 derabad, in India, in old days, the barrack accommodation for the 

 line was unusally deficient, and the average annual mortality of 

 the men was nearly double the average of the presidency. At 

 the same station, both the officers, who were well quartered, and 

 the detachment of artillery, who had roomier barracks "at no 

 great distance," did not share in the heightened mortality (Car- 

 penter, page 363). Barrackpore furnished an even worse exam- 



* Of course it would be unfair to put all these cases simply and exclusively down to 

 the effects of vitiated air, as we might, perhaps, in the case of the prison quoted above ; 

 since overcrowding in towns occurs among the poorest part of the people, living on the 

 worst food, badly clothed, and therefore for these reasons exposed to attacks of disease ; 

 but with all such deductions the evidence is of a striking character. Dr. Richardson writes 

 to the same effect. Speaking of relapsing fever, he says, "The disease (1847) followed 

 where the habitation was most crowded " (Our Homes, p. V); and, again, " Certain it is 

 that homes which are charged with impure atmosphere are the places in which septic 

 diseases are most likely to be intensified and most likely to spread " (Our Homes, p. 21). 



