438 The Public Health. [July, 
Officer of Health, Professor W. T. Gairdner, and five district officers, 
all of whom are medical men, and have under them thoroughly 
experienced sanitary inspectors. Through the agency of this staff, 
together with the assistance of the police authorities and the officers 
of the various Parochial Boards, the provisions of the ‘ Public Health 
(Scotland) Act, 1867, are now being gradually brought into 
operation. 
If we look at the death-rate of Glasgow we do not find much 
to boast of, although there is. certainly room to be hopeful. The 
following figures will show that there is some improvement in 
progress :— 
Deaths in five weeks ending May 5, 1866 ae Ua IONS 
» ” os L867 an tees OU 
” ” » 1868 sth dae Mualoue 
It is true that a marked difference is observable between the 
mortality in 1866 and that in 1867 during the corresponding five 
weeks; but 1867 and 1868 do not afford such a favourable contrast ; 
still, as epidemic disease was much more prevalent in April, 1866, 
than in the corresponding five weeks of either of the following 
years, we must not be despondent, as the increase of the population 
must be taken into account. Taking the weekly death-rate for four 
weeks in March during three consecutive years, the following num- 
bers crop out :— 
Death-rate of four weeks, March, 1868 .. 29, 31, 31, 29 
‘5 55 51867 vat! 982088 258s 
” = a5 UY BoM Sy ai), ay 6. 
No well-wisher of his country, however, can feel satisfied with 
the Glasgow death-rate remaining at 30, 31, and 32, while London 
—even where there are certainly many hot-beds of epidemic disease 
—as frequently shows a mortality not exceeding from 22 to 24 per 
1,000 of the estimated population per annum. But the death-rate 
of Glasgow must of necessity remain high, so long as the present 
system of constructing the smallest dwelling-houses prevails. The 
chief epidemic disease of Glasgow is undoubtedly typhus fever, and 
in thousands of the lowest class of houses in the city just named 
the structural arrangements of the “ flats,” as they are called, are 
the very best for assisting most effectually to spread the germs of 
the disease. From the inside common stair there is almost myari- 
ably a lobby from which entrance is obtained to from four to ten or 
more houses of one or two small apartments. Inwards this lobby 
is a cul-de-sac; there is no through ventilation from front to back ; 
and thus as the air of the lobby is common to the whole of the 
houses, a case of typhus occurring in any one of them is rarely a 
solitary one, unless isolation is immediately effected by removal of the 
patient, and this followed by the requisite purifying and disinfecting 
measures. That epidemic fever is really decreasing in Glasgow, and 
