1867.] The Public Health. 303 



everyone expected that some active measures would nave been 

 immediately taken by the inhabitants (for it is sheer nonsense to 

 attribute this neglect to corporations) to remove the evils then 

 exposed. But here at the end of twelve months we find the same 

 sickening account of accumulated filth — of pale-faced, hollow-eyed 

 children — of strong men and women dying of fever ; in short, 

 English people giving indications of an existence more degrading 

 than anything Du Chaillu or Livingstone has described of the blacks 

 of Africa. Are there no black-skins or red-skins in the world who 

 will take pity on these poor whites, and send over some missionaries 

 to help them, and try to convert the people of Leeds to Christianity ? 

 We now turn to what is being done in some other towns in 

 the United Kingdom. 



Since the remarks were written which appeared in the October 

 number of this Journal in reference to the sanitary condition of 

 Glasgow, that city, in common with other populous places, has had 

 its attack of epidemic cholera and diarrhoea. Compared with the 

 results of that epidemic in some towns, and compared with the 

 population of Glasgow and suburbs, well nigh 500,000, the number 

 of cases and the mortality were small. The visitation, however, has 

 taught some valuable lessons which will not be without effect in the 

 proper quarter. Owing to the existence of a well-qualified sanitary 

 staff, presided over by Dr. W. T. Gairdner and the other medical 

 officers, all of whom were thoroughly alive to the work required of 

 them, and owing, likewise, to the extensive powers vested in the 

 police authorities by the Local Police Act (1866), such provision 

 was made to meet the attack of the conjoined epidemics, that they 

 seem almost to have been frightened away from a city where, on 

 former occasions, they produced dreadful ravages. Yery few cases 

 were reported during the months of August and September, and for 

 the three months beginning with October, the following numbers 

 give the total cases and deaths : — 



Cases. Deaths. 



Cholera 45 35 



Choleraic Diarrhoea .... 65 9 



Diarrhoea 621 74 



Totals . . .731 118 



Besides employing a portion of the Police Fever Hospital 

 formerly spoken of for the patients, a special cholera hospital was 

 erected on Glasgow Green, and amply and suitably furnished at 

 considerable expense. The latter is now closed up — its " occupation 's 

 gone," but the former is in much request for fever patients, typhus 

 having greatly increased, owing probably, in part, to the poverty and 

 wretchedness which great depression in trade has brought about 

 among the poor ; indeed, the death rate is now (February) higher 



