Oct. 14, 1875] 



NATURE 



523 



to recognise for all of these bodies — whether on encountering tlie 

 earth they had become actually members of the solar family or 

 not — an ultimately extra-solar origin ; that, in fact, whether 

 they, some or all of them, had become temporarily or penna- 

 nently imprisoned, as it were, in the vortex of solar attraction, 

 the probability is that they originally entered our system from the 

 interstellar spaces beyond it. And it may further be said, that 

 the tendency of scientific conviction is in the direction of recog- 

 nising the collection towards and concentration in definite cen- 

 tres of the matter of the universe, as a cosmical law, rather than 

 the opposite supposition of such centres being the sources whence 

 matter is dispersed into space. 



In the meteorites that fall on our earth (certainly in con- 

 siderable numbers) we have to acknowledge the evidence of 

 a vast and perpetual movement in space of matter otherwise 

 unseen, about which we can ocly reason as part of a great 

 feature in the universe, which we have every ground for not 

 supposing to be confined within the limits of the solar system. 



That this matter, whether intercepted or not by the planets 

 and the sun, should to an ever-increasing amount become en- 

 tangled in the web of solar and planetary attraction, and that 

 the same operation should be collecting round other stars and 

 in distant systems, such moving clouds of meteoric particles as 

 have been treated by Schiaparelli, Leverrier, and other astro- 

 nomers, whether as indiviluals or in clusters widely separated, 

 of wandering stone or iron, is a necessary deduction from the 

 view that we have assumed regarding the tendency of cosmical 

 matter to collect towards centres. 



But in order to trace the previous stages of the history of any 

 meteorite, and in particular to determine the conditions under 

 which its present constitution as a rock took its origin, we have 

 only for our guide the actual record written on the meteoric mass 

 itself ; and it is in this direction that the mineralogist is now 

 working. 



But the process is necessarily a gradual one. We may indeed 

 assert that the meteorites we know have, probably all of them, 

 been originally formed under conditions from which the presence 

 of water or of free oxygen to the amount requisite to oxidise 

 entirely the elements present were excluded ; for this is proved 

 by the nature of the minerals constituting the meteorites, and by 

 the way in which the metallic iron is distributed through them. 



The progress of solar physics and the reflex light it is likely to 

 shed on the condition of the primeval chaos of nebular matter, 

 and the stages by which suns and planets were evolved, will no 

 doubt help to explain the origin of meteorites ; and possibly they 

 in turn will be found to offer some not unimportant evidence on 

 those cosmogenic questions which still belong to the more specu- 

 lative region of Science. 



N. S. Maskelyne 



A CITY OF HEALTH* 



T T is my object to put forward a theoretical outline of a com- 

 •^ munity so circumstanced and so maintained by the exercise 

 of its own free will, guided by scientific knowledge, that in it the 

 perfection of sanitary results will be approached, if not actually 

 realised, in the co-existence of the lowest possible general mor- 

 tality with the highest possible individual longevity. I shall try 

 to show a working community in which death, if I may apply so 

 common and expressive a phrase on so solemn a subject — in which 

 death is kept as nearly as possible in its proper or natural place 

 in the scheme of life. 



Before I proceed to this task, it is right I should ask of the 

 past what hope there is of any such advancement of human pro- 

 gress. For as my Lord of Verulam quaintly teaches, "The past 

 ever deserves that men should stand upon it for awhile to see 

 which way they should go, but when they have made up their 

 minds they should hesitate no longer, but proceed with cheerful- 

 ness." For a moment, then, we will stand on the past. 



From this vantage-ground we gather the fact, that onward 

 with the simple progress of true civilisation the value of life has 

 increased. F.re yet the words "Sanitary Science" had been 

 written ; ere yet the heralds of that science, some of whom, in 

 the persons of our illustrious colleagues Edwin Chadwick and 

 William Farr, are with us in this f lace at this moment ; ere yet 

 these heralds had summoned the world to answer for its profligacy 

 of life, the health and strength of mankind was undergoing im- 

 provement. One or two striking facts must be sufficient in the 



* An Address by Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., at the Erighton'meeting 

 of the Social Science Association. Revised'^by the author. 



brief space at my disposal to demonstrate this truth. In England, 

 from 1790 to 18 10, Heberden calculated that the general mor- 

 tality diminished one-fourth. In France, during the same period, 

 the same favourable returns were made. The deaths in France, 

 Berard calculated, were i in 30 in the year 1780, and daring the 

 eight years from 18 17 to 1828, I in 40, era fourth less. In 1780, 

 out of 100 new-bom infants in France, 50 died in the two first 

 years ; in the later period, extending from the time of the census 

 that was taken in 1817 to 1827, only 38 of the same age died, 

 an augmentation of infant life equal to 25 per cent. In 178033 

 many as 55 per cent, died before reaching the age of ten years ; 

 in the later period 43, or about a fifth less. In 1780 only 21 

 persons per cent, attained the age of 50 years ; in the later 

 period 32, or eleven more, reached that term. In 1780 but 15 

 persons per cent, arrived at 60 years ; in the later period 24 

 arrived at that age. 



Side by side with these facts of the statist we detect other 

 facts which show that in the progress of civilisation the actual 

 organic strength and build of the man and woman increases. 

 Just as in the highest developments of the fine arts the sculptor 

 and painter place before us the finest imaginative types of 

 strength, grace, and beauty, so the silent artist, civilisation, 

 approaches nearer and nearer to perfection, and by evolution ol 

 form and mind develops what is practically a new order of 

 physical and mental build. Peron — who first used, if he did 

 not invent, the little instrument the dynamometer, or muscular 

 strength measurer — subjected specimens of different stages of 

 civilisation to the test of his gauge, and discovered that the 

 strength of the limbs of the natives of Van Dieman's Land and 

 New Holland was as 50 degrees of power, while that of the 

 Frenchmen was 69, and of the Englishmen 71. The same order 

 of facts are maintained in respect to the size of body. The stal- 

 wart Englishman of to-day can neither get into the armour nor 

 be placed in the sarcophagus of those sons of men who were 

 accounted the heroes of the infantile life of the human world. 



We discover, moreover, from our view of the past, that the 

 developments of tenacity of life and of vital power have been 

 comparatively rapid in their course when they have once com- 

 menced. Tliere is nothing discoverable to us that would lead to 

 the conception of a human civilisation extending back over two 

 hundred generations ; and when in these generations we survey 

 the actual effect of civilisation — so fragmentary, and over- 

 shadowed by persistent barbarism — in influencing disease and 

 mortality, we are reduced to the observation of at most twelve 

 generations, including our own, engaged indirectly or directly in 

 the work ot sanitary progress. During this comparatively brief 

 period, the labour of which, until within a century, has had no 

 systematic direction, the changes for good that have been efTected 

 are amongst the most startling of historical facts. Pestilences 

 which decimated populations, and which, like the great plague of 

 London, destroyed 7,165 people in a single week, have lost tlieir 

 virulence ; gaol fever has disappeared, and our gaols, once each 

 a plague spot, have become, by a strange perversion of civilisa- 

 tion, the health spots of, at least, one kingdom. The term Black 

 Death is heard no more ; and ague, from which the London 

 physician once made a fortune, is now a rare tax even on the 

 skill of the hard-worked Union Medical Officer. 



From the study of the past we are warranted, then, in 

 assuming that civilisation, unaided by special scientific know- 

 ledge, reduces disease and lessens mortality, and that the hope 

 of doing still more by systematic scientific art is fully justified. 



I might hereupon proceed to my project straightway. I per- 

 ceive, however, that it may be urged, that as mere civilising in- 

 fluences can of themselves effect so much, they might safely be 

 left to themselves to complete, through the necessity of their 

 demands, the whole sanitary code. If thus were so, a formula 

 for a city of health were practically useless. The city would 

 come without the special call for it. 



I think it probable the city would come in the manner de- 

 scribed, but how long it would be coming is hard to say, for 

 whatever great results have followed civilisation, the most that 

 has occurred has been an unexpected, unexplained, and therefore 

 uncertain arrest of the spread of the grand physical scourges of 

 mankind. The phenomena have been suppressed, but the root 

 of not one of them has been touched. Still in our midst are 

 thousands of enfeebled human organisms which only arc com- 

 parable with the savage. Still are left amongst us the bases of 

 every disease that, up to the present hour, has afilicted humanity. 



The existing calendar of diseases, studied in connection with 

 the classical history of them, written for us by the longest un- 

 broken line of authorities in the world of letters, shows, in un- 



