Blasius.] ^ ' '-' [Dec. 17, 



the same direction do not mix mucli. Thus an offensive air-current 

 coming from the opening of a large culvert would be perceived over a 

 distance of 5 to 6 blocks, but only in space corresponding in vridth and 

 depth to the opening from whence it issues. As the development of or- 

 ganized life, as well as of other noxious elements, in the air takes place 

 principally during the warm season, when the prevailing wind in our lati- 

 tude comes from the southwest, it follows that a house or a city to the 

 north, northeast, or east of a source of such disease-brewing miasmas 

 cannot be healthy, whether they lie high or low, or even if they are far 

 off from this source ; but if they are situated to the south, southwest or 

 west, of such a hot-bed of miasma, they will not suffer from such locali- 

 ties, even if it is close by and on low ground. As the miasma carrying 

 southern current is warm and rises over the highest mountains, it certainly 

 will reach a house or a city lying 10 or 100 feet higher than a swamp, I 

 know hovises close to a swamp or river, those southwest of them are per- 

 fectly healthy, while those much further off, higher and to the north- 

 east of them are uninhabitable on account of malarial fever. Illus- 

 trations of this apparent anomaly are frequent. Aloog low swampy 

 rivers in summer you will find the eastern shore unhealthy, while 

 the western shore is healthy. To bring matters home to us, I 

 would say that West Philadelphia generally, even the Almshouse and 

 Pennsylvania University, so close to the swamps of the Schuylkill, 

 enjoy, during the dangerous warm season, the purified air from ag- 

 ricultural Delaware county, while the fashionable residences along 

 the eastern shore of the Schuylkill are most exposed to the mi- 

 asmatic air from the Schuylkill, into which the sewers throw 

 their contents, from the swamps alqng its western shore , and from the 

 lower portion of the city. Camden, situated to the east of two such rivers, 

 with their swamps, and an artificial swamp between them, this ci:y has still 

 more to suffer. A friend wishing to buy a house upon the western slope 

 of Brooklyn Heights was advised by physicians to choose rather the 

 eastern side ; since upon the western slope, even at the summit, malarial 

 fevers are more numerous and more virulent. The reason for this is obvi- 

 ously that the wind which brings the miasma from the river and the low 

 lands to the west and southwest is a warm one, and thus reaches the 

 highest point west of Brooklyn Heights, but passes high above the lower 

 laud to the east. As little as any of us would like to drink the water of 

 a river in which decomposition from vegetable and animal matter is go- 

 ing on, so little would we like to drink out of an air current saturated much 

 more with poisonous gases and destructive organisms, if our eyes and 

 tongue were sensible of it. This is the reason why a house in the west- 

 ern portion of a city is more healthy than one in the eastern or northern 

 portions, and why cities extend to the west, not to the north, except 

 where impediments determine their direction ; in this case those living 

 most to the north will have to pay the penalty in the rate of death. This 

 is also the reason why in a well regulated city no noxious factories should 

 be allowed on its western or southern side, such as the limekiln above 



