40 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



"In cities the average dwelling-space of the inhabitants 

 has a closer relationship to their health than any other con- 

 dition of health which is capable of statistical expression. 

 Hence I have dwelt at some length upon density of popula- 

 tion. If we could obtain a classification of a population ac- 

 cording to the amount of measured cubic dwelling-space oc- 

 cupied, and the causes of mortality, possibly we might be able 

 to draw more definite and exact conclusions from the number 

 of persons per 1,000 cubic feet of dwelling-room space than 

 from the number of persons per room, per dwelling, or per 

 house. On the other hand, it has to be considered that it 

 must be healthier to live in two small rooms than in one large 

 room of the same cubic capacity. The former can be used 

 alternately, the latter must be used continuously. The 

 smaller the dwelling the more numerous the uses to which 

 the room or rooms must be put, the most important use from 

 a health point of view being that of sleeping. In a one-room 

 dwelling, even when the breadwinner works away, the par- 

 ents and children live by day in the same room previously 

 occupied by night for sleeping; the air becomes loaded with 

 the dust of bed-making, and is continuously fouled by respi- 

 ration, cooking, washing, etc. In winter and between sea- 

 sons, when the window or door is not wide open, the day usage 

 unfits it for sleeping, and the night usage unfits it for living. 

 The children are the greatest sufferers in physical condition, 

 and as they grow up, possessing never more than feeble health, 

 they become still more degenerate by corruption of moral fibre. 

 In short, in one room sleeping, food-storage, cooking, warming, 

 excretion, ablution, clothes- washing, drying, refuse-storage, 

 bathing, living, including reading, writing, working, and recre- 

 ation, etc., must be carried on, and the continuous and various 

 usages of the room, and the differences of age and sex of the 

 occupants, must lead one to regard the number of rooms in a 

 dwelling of as much importance as the cubic space per head, 

 at any rate when applied to one and two-room dwellings."* 



It is not the purpose of this paper to deal at length with infan- 

 tile mortality as affected by unsanitary housing, although much 

 could be said thereon. The story is the same wherever you go. In 

 the poor and crowded districts infantile deaths represent on the aver- 

 age, over one-quarter of the total death rate : 



"The phthisis death-rate shows a close relationship to 

 density of persons in cubic space, and phthisis appears to 



* Public Health and Housing, John F. J. Sykes, M.D. 



