12 Human Physiology. 



portions would be found crowding, filth, imperfect drainage, 

 stagnant air, bad or deficient water-supply, adulteration of food, 

 the refuse of the markets, drunkenness, vice, crime, and every 

 form of human wretchedness. 



It is only in the human race, or among animals subjected to 

 the rule of man, that we find such differences of condition. 



It is calculated that, by public sanitary measures alone, the 

 general death-rate of the metropolis could be reduced from 24 

 to 1 8 per 1000. This would be saving the lives of more than 

 twenty thousand persons yearly, for whose deaths the authori- 

 ties are now responsible. 



The amount of sickness prevented would be in proportion 

 to the saving of life ; and for this sickness also, and all its cost, 

 and loss, and suffering, those who govern the country are 

 strictly responsible for the pain endured, the anxiety felt, the 

 loss of labour and wages, cost of medical attendance, increase 

 of rates; the thousand miseries of fever-stricken populations. 

 If parliament or municipal bodies did their duty there would 

 be few deaths by measles, scarletina, small-pox, typhus or 

 syphilis. 



We shudder at the slaughter of great battles, but the annual 

 preventable mortality of our large towns is equal to that of 

 most battle-fields. The yearly account of London is, killed, 

 20,000; wounded, 200,000; while Liverpool, Manchester, 

 Glasgow, &c., suffer in still Jarger proportions. 



Is it not time that the educated and influential members of 

 society the nobility and gentry, the clergy, the press, members 

 of parliament and of municipal bodies should take an account 

 of their responsibilities, and be ready to answer the cry of God 

 ~" Where is thy brother Abel?" 



