THE CURRENTS OF THE ATLANTIC. 411 



But the supply of air in towns is not merely deficient in quan- 

 tity it is also greatly deteriorated in quality. This is mainly 

 owing to the impurity caused by decaying animal matter. The 

 fluids of the body have a tendency to decompose, which is resisted 

 by the vital power ; and when that power is finally withdrawn, 

 we all know how soon the work of destruction is completed. Life 

 is thus a continued struggle between the chemical and the vital 

 powers ; and the effect of decaying animal matter is to stimulate 

 the chemical forces, and to a degree which the vital power may be 

 unable to resist. The actual contact of such matter with the blood 

 will destroy life speedily ; and every surgeon knows the danger of 

 a wound from the dissecting-knife. But the poison is usually 

 administered more slowly. The effluvium pollutes the air we breathe, 

 and reaches the blood through the lungs ; and thus the process of 

 destruction goes on more slowly, indeed, but as surely. 



These agents of disease and death may be, and have been, suc- 

 cessfully controlled by means within our own power. The death- 

 rate of London was formerly 57 per 1000 as great as it is in 

 Constantinople now. At present it is only 23 ; while, in some of 

 the London districts, the death-rate has been reduced to 17, a 

 proportion as small as that of the healthiest of the rural districts. 

 This is very encouraging to the sanitary reformer. 



The first attempt to legislate for the sanitary improvement of 

 towns was made as recently as the year 1848. Since the passing 

 of the " Public Health Act " of that year, the death-rate in the 

 towns to which it has been applied has diminished by 6 per 1000 ; 

 and, in Liverpool, the death-rate is said to have been reduced from 

 '38, which was its amount in 1846, to 24. Much useful work has 

 also been effected by voluntary associations, and especially by the 

 " Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the 

 Industrial Classes." In one of the great lodging-houses of that 

 Society the " Metropolitan Buildings," in Pancras-road the 

 death-rate has been reduced to 13| per 1000, which is little more, 

 than one half the average death-rate of London. The effects of 

 these improvements are even more marked in the case of children, 

 who are far more susceptible than adults to the deleterious effects 

 of impure air.* The death-rate of children under five years of 



Lite lamented Lord Herbert, that one half of the barracks of the United Kingdom 

 furnished little more than 400 cubic feet of space to each soldier. 



* It appears from the Census of Ireland, that the number of deaths of children, in 



