334 THE SECRET OF A TERRIBLE DISEASE 



diminishing the death-rate of large towns, to be obtained 

 by cleanliness, the destruction or removal from man's body 

 and surroundings of organic " dirt," viz. his excreta, the 

 exudations and exuviations of his body, the waste and 

 fragments of his food. The names of Rawlinson, Chadwick 

 and Simon remain as those of the prirne movers in that 

 legislation which has given us improved water supply, 

 sewerage, removal of dust heaps, clearance of cesspits, 

 cleansing of houses, and prevention of overcrowding. Yet 

 there are writers who, in ignorance and infected with the 

 modern madness which makes half-educated Englishmen 

 presume to teach where they have yet to learn, and to 

 pose as proptrets by belittling and running down, without 

 regard to truth, their own country and its finest efforts in 

 the cause of civilisation, actually declare that Germany 

 has led the way in this matter. This is the very reverse of 

 the truth. Foreign countries are, in this matter, following 

 long in the wake of England. There are no cities in the 

 world so healthy as British cities. Practical measures of 

 cleansing, faithful activity in destroying dirt and prevent- 

 ing over- crowding, enforced by legislation, have reduced 

 the death-rate of our great centres of population in fifty 

 years by more than one third — that is to say, from some- 

 thing like 29 per 1000 to something like 18 per 1000. 

 No other country can show such a result. 



Gaol-fever, spotted or putrid fever, or typhus fever has 

 practically ceased to be a regularly occurring disease in 

 the West of Europe. The last cases in London were, I 

 well remember, in a poor district near the Marylebone 

 Road about thirty years ago. A very few cases have 

 appeared since in the overcrowded and poorest districts of 

 our largest cities. Beleaguering armies and beleaguered 

 cities suffered from it as late as in the Crimean War, but 

 we may now fairly say that it has disappeared from our 

 midst. It, however, still abounds in Russia and her 



