250 REID — ON MORTALITY. 



Commerce and Manufactures, or Trade, has obtained a pre-emi- 

 nent position, and controls the massing of populations to a far 

 greater extent than politics, nationality, or political geography. 



The study of the science of Hygiene has made very great pro- 

 gress, and has been able to influence the deliberations of the national 

 as well as the municipal governments, so that the march of im- 

 provement is now going on actively, but the course is yet both 

 difficult and long. 



Within the past fifty years trade has inclined to populate the 

 cities at the expense of the farms, and war has tended so little to 

 diminish numbers, that we have very many centres very thickly 

 inhabited, which, from the vicissitudes of trade are alternately in 

 affluence and poverty, and either extreme tends to produce disease. 



Hence, we have all that is required to give a very high death 

 rate ; and that it is not worse, we must thank the labours of those 

 who, for very many years, have striven to inculcate the require- 

 ments of health. 



It would be theoretically possible to have most thickly populated 

 and perfectly healthy districts, but since the natural depurating 

 agencies are then insufficient, artificial means must be adopted, pro- 

 portional to the artificial condition. 



Every individual should have abundance at all times of 'pure 

 air, pure water, good food, regular exercise, and no less regular 

 sleep), with as far as possible, restriction from indulging the appetite 

 for excesses of every kind. 



Sewage, (a convenient term for classing, — the solid liquid and 

 part of the gaseous excreta), cannot be too perfectly attended to, 

 for its influence in poisoning the air and water is supreme. 



To accomplish this it is necessary to have perfect removal of 

 dirt of every kind, with such a disposal of the liquids and solids as 

 will enable them to be utilized in nature's way, by vegetable growth, 

 or at least to be disinfected by some means, artificial or natural. 



Ventilation is equally as urgent to remove the gaseous excreta 

 of respiration as well as the products of manufactures and sewage 

 decomposition, which must to some extent, obtain, no matter how 

 well their removal may be managed. 



