INTRODUCTION. 
5 
dition of the Icelandic population, should ha,ye disclosed the 
existence of almost precisely similar habits of life among 
them, with almost precisely the same results. The dwellings 
of the great bulk of the peasantry seem as if constructed for 
the express purpose of poisoning the air which they contain. 
They are small and low, without any direct provision for 
ventilation, the door serving alike as window and chimney ; 
the walls and roof let in the rain, which the floor, chiefly 
composed of hardened sheep’s-dung, sucks up ; the same 
room generally serves for all the uses of the whole “family, 
and not only for the human part of it, but frequently also for 
the sheep, which are thus housed during the severest part of 
the winter. The fuel employed in this country chiefly con¬ 
sists of cow-dung and sheep’s-dung, caked and dried ; and 
near the sea-coast, of the bones and refuse of fish and sea- 
fowl ; producing a stench, which to those unaccustomed to it 
is completely insupportable. In addition to this, the people 
are noted for their extreme want of personal cleanliness; the 
same garments (chiefly of black flannel) being worn for 
months without having even been taken off at night. Although 
the Icelanders enjoy an almost complete exemption from 
many diseases (such as consumption) which are very fatal 
elsewhere, and the number of births is fully equal to the 
usual average, the population of the island does not increase, 
and in some parts actually diminishes. This result is in great 
measure due, as at St. Hilda, to the very high rate of infantile 
mortality ; a large proportion of,all the infants born being 
carried off before they are a fortnight old. It is in the little 
island of Westmannoe, and the opposite parts of the coast of 
Iceland, where the bird-fuel is used all the year round, instead 
of (as elsewhere) during a few months only, that the rate is 
the highest; the average mortality for many years having 
been sixty-four out of every hundred, or nearly two out of 
three , of all the infants born in these localities. 
But it is yet more remarkable that the immediate cause of 
the high rate of infantile mortality should have been pre¬ 
cisely the same in the Workhouses of London, the Lying-in 
Hospital of Dublin, and the close filthy huts of the peasantry 
of Iceland and St. Hilda; for it was almost entirely referrible 
to one single disease, “ Trismus nascentium,” or, “ Lock-jaw 
of the Hew-born; ” and this disease has diminished in exact 
