307 



Society, whilst it possesses advantages, is likewise attended with 

 evils, the most prominent of which is, the generation of causes 

 detrimental to health, and destructive to life; and the more compact 

 society becomes, cceteris paribus, the more manifestly these causes 

 develop themselves; hence densely populated cities present the 

 greatest complication of these evils, and those most difficult of era- 

 dication. The main question, however, which presents itself to the 

 inquirer into the subject of human health, is not what state of 

 society is most favourable to its continuance, but what measures may 

 be resorted to for the purpose of mitigating the evils which its ex- 

 isting state induces. 



Many of these causes operating directly on the human body, in- 

 ducing disease and excessive mortality, are sufficiently obvious. No 

 one will pretend to deny that deficient ventilation, improper drain- 

 age, accumulation of filth, and a scanty supply of water, are all 

 in themselves powerful predisposing causes of disease, and that when 

 conjoined, they cannot fail to produce a high rate of mortality. This 

 is the theory; but is the practice in accordance with this theory? 

 The department would appeal to the experience of every member of 

 this association in justification of the position that it is not, and that 

 there is not a populous town in this country, placed under such sani- 

 tary regulations as to insure the inhabitants against the operation 

 of these causes. Dr. T. Southwood Smith, in his examination be- 

 fore the Committee of the House of Commons, declares, that "in 

 every district in which fever returns frequently, and prevails exten- 

 sively, there is uniformly bad sewerage, a bad supply of water, a bad 

 supply of scavengers, and a consequent accumulation of filth, and 

 I have observed this to be so uniformly and generally the case, that 

 I have been accustomed to express the fact in this way. If you 

 trace down the fever districts on a map, and then compare that map 

 with the map of the commissioner of sewers, you will find that 

 wherever the commissioners of sewers have not been, there fever is 

 prevalent; and, on the contrary, wherever they have been, there 

 fever is comparatively absent.* "And again," he adds, "every 

 day's experience convinces me that a very large proportion of these 

 evils is capable of being removed; that if proper attention were paid 

 to sanitary measures, the mortality of these districts" would be most 

 materially diminished; perhaps in some places one-third; in others, 

 one-half, "f 



* First Report of Com. on Large Towns, p. 69. t I bicl - 



