1859.] 



Dr. Druitlf on Houses in relation to Health. 



133 



Visitors. 



John Charles Burgoyne, Esq. 



Rev. Charles John Fynes Clinton, M.A. 



C. Wentworth Dilke, jun. Esq. 



John George Dodson, Esq. M.P. 



William Gaussen, Esq. 



Gordon Willoughby James Gyll, Esq. 



Alexander Henderson, M D. F.S A. 



Richard Jennings, Esq. M.A. 



Thomas Lee, Esq. 



John Lubbock, Esq. F.R.S. 



Charles Lyall, Esq. 



Edmund Macrory, Esq. M.A. 



Sir Edwin Pearson, M.A. F.R.S. 



Henry Pemberton, Esq. 



John Bell Sedgwick, Esq. 



WEEKLY EVENIKG MEETING, 



Friday, May 6, 1859. 



The Lord Wensleydaue, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Robert Druitt, Esq. 



MEMBER OP THE BOYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON. 



On Houses in Relation to Health, 



The speaker having alluded to the sickness, bereavement, and ruinous 

 expense which sometimes ensue from the wrong choice of houses by 

 private individuals, and to the disorders liable to be diffused amongst 

 all classes, from the unhealthy dwellings of the poor, proceeded to 

 consider the subject of houses and their influence on health, under 

 three heads. Under the first, he treated of deficiencies of air, light, 

 warmth, and dryness, and of the maladies of degeneration to which 

 they give rise, of which consumption and scrofula are types ; under 

 the second, he spoke of the common typhoid fever of this country, 

 and of choleraic disorders, and of their origin in defective house 

 drainage ; and under the third, he discussed the conditions which give 

 intensity and power of propagation to certain diseases, such as scarla- 

 tina and diphtherite. 



Amongst the details noticed under the first head, he observed that 

 the ground on which a house is built should have the qualities of porosity 

 and firmness ; porosity is required in order that all water charged with 

 organic debris, which happens to penetrate it, may pass onwards and 

 undergo that rapid oxydation which is so happily effected by the 

 London gravel. Wherever the soil is deficient in this quality, or 

 where beds of gravel or sand come in contact with beds of clay, a 

 thorough subsoil drainage is as essential for the health of man, as it 

 is for the growth of sweet herbage. Spots can be pointed out in which 

 the subsoil is swampy, and where fever has prevailed in consequence. 

 Moreover, the land on which houses are being built around London, 

 is sometimes raised artificially by what is called made-earth : that is to 

 say, on a low, wet spot, quite undrained, are heaped all sorts of 

 Vol. III. (No. 30.) l 



