. THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 25 1 



found the people huddled together in a very nest of abomina- 

 tion, doing, it would seem, their utmost to shut out the fresh 

 sweet breezes. 



Nor was it only in the village — and there were only too 

 many like it in the neighbourhood — that there was such a 

 contrast between natural features and the habitations man had 

 made for himself: it was the same in the scattered, outlying 

 cottages with which that part of the country abounds. I went 

 one day to visit a patient who dwelt high up on the slope of 

 a hill a few miles distant from the village. It was late 

 summer, and gorze and heather were in their full glory of gold 

 and purple. Below was the clear, blue water, breaking in white 

 foam upon the rocks, a crisp, invigorating breeze swept up 

 from the sea, the sun was warm and bright — everything sug- 

 gested life, purity, health. Surely here disease could find no 

 lurking-place ? Yet the little rustic cottage whither I was 

 bound, for all its picturesqueness, was a very hot-bed of 

 disease-engendering organisms. In the small dark attic lay a 

 young girl sinking fast under consumption : she was, in fact, 

 already in a typhoid state, and she soon after died. The 

 odour of this little room was overpowering, and no wonder — 

 for a whole family of eight slept in it, and the tiny casement 

 was seldom opened ! 



The great contrast, so often noticed, between the physique 

 of the two sexes is explained when we remember how much 

 of the women's lives is spent in houses such as these. This 

 contrast is very striking in the particular village in question. 

 The women grow rapidly old and wizen after marriage, and 

 this, doubtless, because they are cooped up all day in dark and 

 foul- smelling rooms, while the men — sturdy, handsome fellows 

 — are busied either upon the sea or by the shore. 



Indoor life is, to a very large extent, a necessity with the 

 women, but habit so affects them that in course of time they 

 grow quite indifferent to the confinement, and care no more for 

 fresh air than for the beauties of the surrounding scenery ; 

 indeed, in some cases there is an actual aversion to going out. 

 One woman in this village had not stirred from her house for 

 fourteen years, and a few steps would have brought her to the 

 brink of the Atlantic ! I may add that, after persistent per- 



