1865.] On the Predisposing Causes of Pestilence. 383 



Eussian cities ; and is it indeed true that the best of men, those who 

 labour to preserve our bodily and mental health, our medical and 

 clerical brethren, walk daily in the haunts of disease and death, and 

 that they are the only victims in the ' middle classes,' of the pesti- 

 lence which is constantly decimating the lowest orders ? " 



These are the inquiries which we are bound to answer, and the 

 following observations must serve as the replies. 



If our readers were abruptly told that there are to be found anywhere 

 in the present day thousands of human beings who live herded together 

 so as to render the exercise of social and moral influences impossible, 

 and in such a manner as to induce every form of vice, misery, and 

 disease ; that the air requisite for normal and healthy respiration in one 

 individual is often distributed to a whole family by whom it is again 

 and again inhaled along with their united exhalations ; and that there are 

 poor creatures who have become so completely habituated to this noxious 

 state of existence as to dread the exposure to healthier surrounding 

 influences whereby their old habits and associations would be broken 

 or interfered with ; they would regard the statements as exaggerated, 

 or would imagine that they referred to the inhabitants of some African 

 village, or to the snow-huts of the Esquimaux. But when we add that 

 it is not in savage life, where Nature continues to some extent to 

 maintain the sway whereby she keeps the lower animals healthy and 

 unpolluted, that these abominations exist ; but that it is in the very 

 centres of civilization of the two foremost nations in the world, in the 

 large cities of Great Britain and France, then we shall expect to be 

 called upon for evidence in proof of our assertions. This we are un- 

 fortunately but too well able to afford, but before calling our witnesses 

 we would add that not alone is the wretched mode of existence a 

 misery to the poor creatures who are subjected to its influences, and 

 fatal to those who are compelled by their avocations to visit and 

 associate with them, but it spreads havoc and desolation around 

 amongst the wealthy and intelligent, singling out its victims indis- 

 criminately; here a son or daughter, there a father or a mother, and 

 consigning them to an early grave ; and thus illustrating the principle 

 that no section of society can commit a breach of moral or physical 

 law, without the whole being more or less involved in the punishment. 



It is about twenty or twenty-five years since the governing bodies of 

 the State and the municipalities of our large towns had their attention 

 drawn to the mine upon which the people reposed in fancied security, 

 a mine which was now and then sprung to the astonishment and horror 

 of the ignorant, who could not understand that the combustibles were 

 constantly accumulating below and only needed the spark to produce 

 an explosion, but who looked upon the recurrent epidemic, pestilence, 

 or plague, as an unwelcome visitor from foreign parts. The startling 

 announcements of the inherent danger were made by a few individuals, 

 whose official position had rendered them familiar with its existence, 

 and the late Dr. W. H. Duncan, medical officer of the Liverpool 

 Health Committee, was one of the most prominent of these benefactors 

 of the people. He ascertained that 20,168 of the inhabitants of 

 Liverpool dwelt in 6,294 cellars, many of them damp, close, and 



