140 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



tions of filth and overpopulation prevail — as in Chinese cities 

 —the penalty takes the form of such epidemics as typhus, 

 plague, and cholera. In more civilised communities, where at 

 least the grosser part of the filth is removed, there is still the 

 punishment to meet the crime in the shape of tuberculosis 

 and pneumonia. Even where science does its best to counter- 

 act the law, and we have the best artificial sanitary efforts — 

 good drainage, well-ventilated houses, and inoculation against 

 disease — the law still asserts itself, and unnatural methods 

 of life lead to nervous disorders, digestive troubles, and so 

 forth. 



It has often been said that the London " cockney " does 

 not survive beyond the third generation, and doubtless there 

 is some truth in this. The best text-book in which to study 

 the working of these laws is the Registrar-General's annual 

 report. Compare the death-rate for town and country and 

 we find a progressive rise as the population grows denser. 

 In 1895 the returns for Great Britain showed a death-rate of 

 12-7 per thousand of population, where there were 138 persons 

 to the square mile ; but it rose to 33 per thousand where the 

 density was 19,000 per square mile. New Zealand had, in 

 1901, but 7 - 4 persons per square mile, yet the death-rate was 

 9 - 8 per thousand— not so much behind the English rural 

 death-rate, and with only one-twentieth of the density. Here 

 is evidence of the working of the law against overcrowding 

 in spite of all our efforts. Why in a new country like this, 

 with the lessons learnt in older communities to benefit by, and 

 with ample room at our disposal, our legislators should have 

 seen fit to take the standard of overcrowded London and fix 

 a scanty 150 square feet as the minimum space to be allowed 

 per dwelling it is hard to say. Surely we could avoid the 

 evils of overcrowding at this early stage in our history. 



Dr. G. V. Poore, a most eminent sanitarian, in dealing 

 with overcrowding, remarks, " We have long been accustomed 

 to hear that our chief sanitary necessity is pure water. This 

 would be quite true if we were fish. But it is obvious that 

 the air we breathe is of greater importance than the water we 

 drink, seeing w 7 e take a draught of air about twenty times 

 a minute, while many of us do not take a draught of raw 

 water from week's end to week's end." Sunlight and fresh 

 air are our greatest sanitary assets, and we should not despise 

 them. 



The consideration of Nature's methods leads us to such 

 endless fields for study that I do not propose to-night to do 

 more than discuss two important branches of the subject : 

 Eirst, the disposal of organic waste in Nature ; secondly, the 

 laws by which our bodies are protected against the inroads of 

 infectious organisms. 



