490 The Public Health. [ Oct... 
in its course to the river.* The “Alkali Act,” in the hands of 
Dr. Angus Smith, the Inspector, has been of some service in lessening 
the offensive character of the districts where the chemical works 
“most do congregate.” 
Whatever may be the hidden subtle influence which generates 
typhus, cholera, and such epidemic diseases, it is well known, from 
experience gained in Glasgow, that the condition of the dwelling- 
place and the condition of the body are intimately connected with 
the spread of disease. Overcrowding, bad ventilation, damp, dark- 
ness, and underground situation of dwellings, filthiness of the 
person, house, and places adjoming, are all conducive to the spread, 
if not to the origin, of epidemics. With this fact patent to them 
the municipal authorities sought, and have just succeeded in 
gaining, Parliamentary powers for carrying out a City Improvement 
Scheme, by means of which old houses in densely-peopled parts of 
the city will be razed to the ground, the lines of streets widened 
and straightened, and new streets formed where none have hitherto 
been. ‘The purchase of the property required for these alterations 
will necessitate an enormous expenditure of money by the Cor- 
poration; but.the citizens are wisely prepared to submit to an extra 
amount of taxation for a number of years, in the hope that the public 
health and the moral and physical condition of the people may be 
improved in a corresponding degree. The alterations in question 
will be effected where they are most needed, where disease, crime, 
and human wretchedness have for many years reigned supreme, and 
have continually shocked the moral sense of the well-to-do and 
better-disposed members of the community, By-and-by the 
mortality from epidemic disease will doubtless be much diminished 
when those improvements shall have been effected in Glasgow. A 
large portion of the excess of mortality is due to an unusually: 
large infantile mortality ; and the causes of death are in very many 
cases not registered, owing to the fact that medical men have not 
attended the patients during the fatal illness. 
The mortality in Glasgow for 1865, as given by the Registrar- 
General, is 82°89, the number of deaths being about 14,000. Of 
these 3,166 are said to have been under 1 year of age, and 3,285 
under 5 years! 
These are sad facts. However, great praise is due to Glasgow 
for its energy in sanitary Reform, and no greater tribute could have 
been paid to its inhabitants than the mere mention by the Right 
* It is but justice to say that the Messrs. Tennant have been at great expense 
to deodorize their liquid refuse, or rather to render it innocuous while passing 
through the town, for at first it is comparatively inodorous. They have had the 
professional services of eminent chemists, and they have constructed, at their own 
expense, a large sewer all the way from their works to the river, where the refuse 
is discharged. 
