144 Epidemics. 



ing, and drainage, all tend to regulate the amount of health, 

 and the totality of disease and death in that given area. 

 The food, labour, and exercise, the clothing, housing, and 

 bedding of man and animals, alike promote disease or 

 minister to health. 



Certain localities, in their geographical features or 

 geological positions, entail certain fixed and recognized 

 diseases, as swampy lands. Lincolnshire and Kent, for 

 instance, give (or once gave), as a birthright to their in- 

 habitants, a large preponderance of ague. The Alpine and 

 Derbyshire waters, being excessive in lime the Alpine 

 giving magnesia additionally induce goitre and cretinism. 

 The ploughing or digging of certain kinds of soil, whether it 

 be in Ireland, Scotland, England, China, India, or the 

 Americas, etc., are frequently attended with special forms of 

 fever and bowel affections, etc., etc. 



Human tenements overcrowded, or long inhabited, 

 without regard to daily cleanliness, and periodic renovations 

 in the coating of the walls and ceilings, etc., and neglecting 

 the careful removal of surface soil to suitable distances, 

 and then to be subjected to special management, having as 

 its basis complete or limited chemical changes all, or 

 several of these agencies, have, as their natural sequences, 

 the power of inducing or intensifying special forms of 

 disease. 



Hence endemic disease, being disease in some special 

 form, or of a more intense character in one locality than in 

 another, embraces in its agency a variety of conditions, 

 both personally and relatively to the individual or the 

 community, as well as the incidental geographical tract, or 

 geological stratum, in which a community or an individual 

 may be located, which are inimical to health. 



To these may be added, not only the moral and vicious 

 habits of particular individuals, or even whole communities, 



