VARIOUS IIYOIENIC ASPECTS OP AUSTRALIAN LIFE. 495 



women in Australia tlie truth of the old a^lage : — " Prevention 

 is better than cure " — a verity clear enough to one standing in 

 the open air of the mountain, but less obvious to smoke-beclouded 

 intellects strugjiling in the crowded thoroughfares. 



Disease against which we contend is manifold, and to live and 

 die without a day's illness is most desirable, but rare enough to be 

 phenominal, to arrive at a great age in these warmer countries is 

 not rare. In Brisbane, two persons whose cases fell under my 

 notice, had lived over a hundred years, the warmth of summer was 

 said to be very agreeable, and one patient aged one hundred and 

 two enjoyed gi-eat activity. Early deaths are, howevei-, very 

 common, and the records of children who perish under five years of 

 age, are high enough to be startling. Against this it may be 

 noted that the births are numerous and in excess of our experiences 

 in Europe. Want of attention and imperfection in housing infants 

 among the working classes leads to great mortality. There is 

 abundance of food for the children ; the hardy ones survive and 

 the delicate ones die. 



If tliis high rate of infantile mortality is to be reduced, more 

 care, at least in Queensland, will have to be taken in improving the 

 dwellings. Often the house of the laboureris his own, itisvery small 

 and he roofs it with corrugated iron in order to obtain pure drink- 

 ing water. The temperature of the ray of the summer sun ranges 

 high — 140° to 16(J^ Far. The hand can only endure a momentary 

 contact with surfaces so heated. I tell parents at times that when 

 their children are brought up under such roofs they will have no 

 difficulty in enduring the climate of New Gruinea. A double 

 layer of iron for roofs and walls of houses as you have in the 

 Fever Hospitals at Little Bay, is a form of dwelling well worthy of 

 study. The former Medical Adviser to the Goveniment of New 

 Sonth Wales, Dr. Mackellar, took much interest in this building, 

 and the recently published records of success in treating fever cases 

 in this Hospital are most encouraging. As a lining to a room iron 

 is less absorbent of all forms or putridity than paper, wood, or 

 plaster ; it is also fire-proof ; it can be easily washed, easily dried, 

 and cheaply painted. To the form only of the corrugations can 

 exceptions be taken, and ironworkers might wisely study to 

 improve the appearance of the sheet metal used to line rooms. 

 The iron age has yet many advances to make, and there does not 

 appear to be any great mechanical difficulty in adapting sucli 

 marvellous plastic metal to our wants in this respect. The single 

 layer of iron is intolerable in cold or hot weatiier ; the double, 

 with suitable packing in the interspace, meets a requirement which 

 health demands. In buildings of iron more attention will need 

 to be paid to ventilation tiian is required in the more porous 

 wooden houses. In the study of buildings to shelter us from the 

 heat and cold of the seasons, we have not to cope with the in- 

 clemencies of the European or North American winters, but our 



