INTRODUCTION. 
3 
eases of infancy and childhood; and those whose native 
vigour of constitution enables them to struggle through these, 
become the victims, in later years, of diseases which cut short 
their term of life, or deprive them of a large part of that 
enjoyment which health alone can bring. 
Nor is the effect of these injurious causes confined to 
infancy, though most strikingly manifested at that period. 
“ The child is father to the man,” in body as well as in mind; 
but the vigorous health of the adult is too often wasted and 
destroyed by excesses, whether in sensual indulgence, in 
bodily labour, or in mental exertion, to which the very feeling 
of buoyancy and energy often acts as the incentive; and the 
strength which, carefully husbanded and sustained, might 
have kept the body and mind in activity and enjoyment to 
the full amount of its allotted period of “ threescore years 
and ten,” is too frequently dissipated in early manhood. Or, 
again, the want of the necessary conditions for the support of 
life,—the warmth, food, and air, on which the body depends 
for its continued sustenance, no less than for its early deve¬ 
lopment,—may cause its early dissolution, even where the 
individual is guiltless of having impaired its vigour by his 
own transgressions. 
These statements are not theoretical merely: they are based 
upon facts drawn from observations carried oil upon the most 
extensive scale. Wherever we find those conditions, which the 
Physiologist asserts to be most favourable to the preservation 
of the health of the body, most completely fulfilled, there do 
sickness and mortality least prevail. A few facts will place 
this subject in a striking light. “ The average mortality of 
infants among rich and poor in this country (and with little 
variation throughout Europe) is about one in every four and 
a-half before the end of the first year of existence. So directly, 
however, is infant life influenced by good or bad management, 
that, about a century ago, the workhouses of London presented 
the astounding result of twenty-three deaths in every twenty- 
four infants under the age of one year. Eor a long time this 
frightful devastation was allowed to go on, ns beyond the reach 
of human remedy. But when at last an improved system of 
management was adopted in consequence of a parliamentary 
inquiry having taken place, the proportion of deaths was 
speedily reduced from 2,600 to 450 in a year. Here, then,-, 
b 2 
