268 TiMEHRl. 



Let us go back to some 50 years ago. Then the people 

 were properly housed and the death rate was com- 

 paratively low, while in the barracks where soldiers were 

 living the death rate was terrible. Phthisis and chest 

 diseases together with fevers carried of men and officers 

 at the rate of a regiment 1,000 strong in five years, and 

 sometimes in a single year as many as 300 would die. 

 In the barracks where this happened the men had only 

 22^ square feet of floor space and 250 cubic feet. Now 

 this has been altered ; the men are allowed 100 square 

 feet and 1,500 cubic feet with the result that there is 

 little or no death rate amongst the troops, — it being as 

 low as 6*6 per thousand while there is no lack of sickness 

 from malarial diseases. The sickness rate being as 

 high as 1,380 per 1,000 strength. 



In short then the people lived in good houses and had 

 no phthisis, while the soldiers lived in bad barracks and 

 had a high death rate from this disease. Now the soldiers 

 live in properly built barracks and have no death rate, 

 and the people live in badly ventilated houses and have 



one fourth of their deaths from a preventable disease. 

 Malarial poison also is said to exist in the air and 



will give rise to its diseases under certain conditions. 

 Diarrhoea and Dysentery are also produced by impure 



air where there is much over-crowding, but impure 



water has more influence in these cases, 



Measles, Small-pox^ Typhoid, Cholera, are also from 



time to time claimed as spreading through the 



air but the evidence for the most part is defe6live. 



Such diseases as Mumps and Influenza spread by the air 



but even here proximity is required. 



There are also at home various trade diseases pro- 



