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NATURE 



{Oct. 14, 1875 



mistakable language, that the imposition of every known malady 

 of man is coeval with every phase of his recorded life on the 

 planet. No malady, once originated, has ever actually died out ; 

 many remain as potent as ever. That wasting fatal scourge, 

 pulmonary consumption, is the same in character as when 

 Coelius Aurelianus gave it description ; the cancer of to-day is 

 the cancer known to Paulus Eginosta ; the Black Death, though 

 its name is gone, lingers in malignant typhus ; the great plague 

 of Athens is the modern great plague of England, scarlet fever ; 

 the dancing mania of the Middle Ages and convulsionary 

 epidemic of Montmartre, subdued in its violence, is still to be 

 seen in some American communities, and even at this hour in 

 the New Forest of England ; smallpox, when the blessed protec- 

 tion of vaccination is withdrawn, is the same virulent destroyer 

 as it was when the Arabian Rhazes defined it ; ague lurks yet in 

 our own island, and, albeit the physician is not enriched by it, 

 is in no symptom changed from the ague that Celsus knew so 

 well ; cholera, in its modern representation, is a more terrible 

 malady than its ancient type, in so far as we have knowledge of 

 it from ancient learning ; and even that fearful scourge the great 

 plague of Constantinople, the plague of hallucination and con- 

 vulsion which raged in the fi f th century of our era, has, in our 

 time, under the new names of tetanoid fever and cerebro-spinal 

 meningitis, been met with here and in France, and in Massa- 

 chusetts has, in the year 1873, laid 747 victims in the dust. 



I must cease these illustrations, though I could extend them 

 fairly over the whole chapter of disease, past and present. 

 Suflice it if I have proved the general proposition, that disease 

 is now as it was in the beginning, except that ia some examples 

 of it it is less virulent ; that the science for extinguishing any 

 one disease has yet to be learned ; and that, as the bases of 

 disease exist, untouched by civilisation, so the danger is ever 

 imminent, unless we specially provide against it ; that the deve- 

 lopment of disease may occur with original virulence and fatality, 

 and may at any moment be made active by accidental or syste- 

 matic ignorance. 



I now come to the design I have in hand. Mr. Chadwick has 

 many times told us that he could build a city that would give 

 any stated mortality, from fifty, or any number more, to five, or 

 perhaps some number less, in the thousand annually. I believe 

 Mr. Chadwick to be correct to the letter in this statement, and 

 for that reason I have projected a city that shall show the lowest 

 mortality. 



I need not siy no such city exists, and you must pardon me 

 for drawing upon your imaginations as I describe it. Depicting 

 nothing whatever but what is at this present moment easily 

 possible, I shall strive to bring into ready and agreeable view a 

 community not abundantly favoured by natural resources, which, 

 under the direction of the scientific knowledge acquired in the 

 past two generations, has attained a vitality not perfectly natural, 

 but approaching to that standard. In an artistic sense it would 

 have been better to have chosen a small town or large village 

 thin a city for my description ; but as the great mortality of 

 states is resident in cities, it is practically better to take the 

 larger and less favoured community. If cities could be trans- 

 formed, the rest would follow. 



Our city, which may be named Hygeia, has the advantage of 

 being a new foundation, but it is so built that existing cities 

 might be largely modelled upon it. 



The population of the city may be placed at 100,000, living 

 in 20,000 houses, built on 4,000 acres of land — an average of 

 twenty-five persons to an acre. This may be considered a large 

 population for the space occupied, but, since the effect of density 

 on vitality tells only determinately when it reaches a certain 

 extreme degree, as in Liverpool and Glasgow, the estimate may 

 be ventured. 



The safety of the population of the city is provided for against 

 density by the character of the houses, which ensure an equal dis- 

 tribution of the population. Tall houses overshadowing the 

 streets, and creating necessity for one entrance to several tene- 

 ments, are nowhere permitted. In streets devoted to business, 

 where the tradespeople require a place of mart or shop, the 

 houses are four stories high, and in some of the western streets 

 where the houses are separate, three and four storied buildings 

 are erected ; but on the whole it is found bad to exceed this 

 range, and as each story is limited to 15 feet, no house is higher 

 than 60 feet. 



The substratum of the city is of two kinds. At its northern 

 and highest part there is clay ; at its southern and southeastern 

 gravel. Whatever disadvantages might spring in other places 

 from a retention of water on a clay soil, is here met by the plan 



that is universally followed, of building every house on arches 

 of solid brickwork. So, where in other towns there are areas, 

 and kitchens, and servants' offices, there are here subways 

 through whicli the air flows freely, and down the inclines of 

 which all currents of water are carried away. 



The acreage of our model city allows room for three wide 

 main streets or boulevards, whicli run from east to west, and 

 whicii are the main thoroughfares. Beneath each of these is a 

 subway, a railway along which the heavy traffic of the city is 

 carried on. The streets from north to south which cross the 

 main thoroughfares at right angles, and the minor streets which 

 run parallel, are all wide, and, owing to the lowness of the 

 houses, are thoroughly ventilated, and in the day are filled with 

 sunlight. They are planted on each side of the pathways with 

 trees, and in many places with shrubs and evergreens. All the 

 interspaces between the backs of houses are gardens. The 

 churches, hospitals, theatres, banks, lecture-rooms, and other 

 public buildings, as well as sorfie private buildings such as ware- 

 houses and stables, stand alone, forming parts of streets, and 

 occupying the position of several houses. They are surrounded 

 with garden space, and add not only to the beauty but to the 

 healthiness of the city. The large houses of the wealthy are 

 situated in a similar manner. 



The streets of the city are paved throughout in the same 

 material. As yet wood pavement set in asphalte has been found 

 the best. It is noiseless, cleanly, and durable. Tramways 

 are nowhere permitted, the system of underground railways being 

 found amply sufficient for all purposes. The side pavements, 

 which are everywhere ten feet wide, are of white or light grey 

 stone. They have a slight incline towards the streets, and the 

 streets have an incline from their centres towards the margins of 

 the pavements. 



From the circumstance that the houses of our model city are 

 based on subways, there is no difficulty whatever in cleansing 

 the streets, no more difficulty than is experienced in Paris. That 

 disgrace to our modern civilisation, the mud-cart, is not known, 

 and even the necessity for Mr. E. H. Bayley's roadway movable 

 tanks for mud sweepings (so much wanted in London and other 

 towns similarly built) does not exist. The accumulation of mud 

 and dirt in the streets is washed away every day through side 

 openings into the jubways, and is conveyed, with the sswage, 

 to a destination apart from the city. Thus the streets everywhere 

 are dry and clean, free alike of holes and open drains. Gutter 

 children are an impossibility in a place where there are no 

 gutters for their innocent delectation. Instead of the gutter, the 

 poorest child has the garden ; for the foul sight and smell ot 

 unwholesome garbage, he has flowers and green sward. 



It will be seen, from what has been already told, that in this 

 our model city there are no underground cellars, ki'chens, or 

 other caves, which, worse than those ancient British caves that 

 Nottingham still can show the antiquarian as the once fastnesses 

 of her savage children, are even now the loathsome residences 

 of many millions of our domestic and industrial classes. There 

 is not permitted to be one room underground. The living part 

 of every house begins on the level of the street. The houses are 

 built of a brick which has the following sanitary advantages : — 

 It is glazed, and quite impermeable to water, so that during wet 

 seasons the walls of the houses are not saturated with tons of 

 water, as is the case with so many of our present residences. 

 The bricks are perforated transversely, and at the end of each 

 there is a wedge opening, into which no mortar is inserted, and 

 by which all the openings are allowed to communicate with each 

 other. The walls are in this manner honeycombed, so that there 

 is in them a constant body of common air let in by side openings 

 in the outer wall, which air can be changed at pleasure, and, if 

 required, can be heated from the firegrates of the house. The 

 bricks intended for the inside wall of the house, those which 

 form the walls of the rooms, are glazed in different colours, 

 according to the taste of the owner, and are laid so neatly that 

 the after adornment of the walls is considered unnecessary, and, 

 indeed, objectionable. By this means those most unhealthy 

 parts of household accommodation, layers of mouldy paste and 

 size, layers of poisonous paper, or layers of absorbing colour 

 stuff or distemper, are entirely done away with. The walls of 

 the rooms can be made clean at any time by the simple use of 

 water, and the ceilings, which are turned in light arches of 

 thinner brick, or tde, coloured to match the wall, are open to 

 the same cleansing process. The colour selected for the inner 

 brickwork is grey, as a rule, that being most agreeable to the 

 sense of sight ; but various tastes prevail, and art so soon 



