INTRODUCTION. 5 



dition of the Icelandic population, should have disclosed the 

 existence of almost precisely similar habits of life among 

 them, with almost precisely the same results. The dwellings 

 of the great bulk of the peasantry seem as if constructed for 

 the express purpose of poisoning the air which they contain. 

 They are small and low, without any direct provision for 

 ventilation, the door serving alike as window and chimney ; 

 the walls and roof let in the rain, which the floor, chiefly 

 composed of hardened sheep's-dung, sucks up ; the same 

 room generally serves for all the uses of the whole family, 

 and not only for the human part of it, but frequently also for 

 the sheep, which are thus housed during the severest part of 

 the winter. The fuel employed in this country chiefly con- 

 sists of cow-dung and sheep's-dung, caked and dried ; and 

 near the sea-coast, of the bones and refuse of fish and sea- 

 fowl ; producing a stench, which to those unaccustomed to it 

 is completely insupportable. In addition to this, the people 

 are noted for their extreme want of personal cleanliness ; the 

 same garments (chiefly of black flannel) being worn for 

 months without having even been taken off at night. Although 

 the Icelanders enjoy an almost complete exemption from 

 many diseases (such as consumption) which are very fatal 

 elsewhere, and the number of births is fully equal to the 

 usual average, the population of the island does not increase, 

 and in some parts actually diminishes. This result is in great 

 measure due, as at St. Kilda, to the very high rate of infantile 

 mortality; a large proportion of, all the 'infants born being 

 carried off before they are a fortnight old. It is in the little 

 island of Westmannoe, and the opposite parts of the coast of 

 Iceland, where the bird-fuel is used all the year round, instead 

 of (as elsewhere) during a few months only, that the rate is 

 the highest; the average mortality for many years having 

 been sixty-four out of every hundred, or nearly two out of 

 three, of all the infants born in these localities. 



But it is yet more remarkable that the immediate cause of 

 the high rate of infantile mortality should have been pre- 

 cisely the same in the Workhouses of London, the Lying-in 

 Hospital of Dublin, and the close filthy huts of -the peasantry 

 of Iceland and St. Kilda ; for it was almost entirely referrible 

 to one single disease, " Trismus nascentium," or, " Lock-jaw 

 of the New-born ; " and this disease has diminished in exact 



