458 The Public Health. [July, 



tion. Another point to be remembered was, that hand-fed children 

 needed a warm temperature, to compensate for the loss of warmth 

 which they sustained from want of constant contact with their 

 mothers." 



The public mind has been suddenly excited by the announce- 

 ment that the " Black Death " had appeared in Dublin. It will be 

 satisfactory to the public to know that from January to the present 

 month fifty-seven cases only of a fever which has got the above 

 name applied to it, has occurred. The symptoms are those of great 

 prostration, with the appearance of purple or almost black spots 

 under the skin. These are the symptoms of severe typhus, and at 

 first this was thought to be the character of the disease. Dr. 

 Mapother, however, the acting Medical Officer of Health for 

 Dublin, has already carefully investigated the disease, and has come 

 to the conclusion that, unlike typhus, it is not a communicable 

 disease. The first cases were more sudden than those which have 

 occurred subsequently, and the disease has been most prevalent in 

 the most unwholesome parts of the city. Its principal symptoms 

 in the milder cases are like those of the cerebro-spinal arachnitis 

 which prevailed in 1866 in West Prussia. This disease was re- 

 ported on by Dr. Sanderson, Who was sent over by the English 

 Grovernment to investigate its nature, and he came to the conclusion 

 that it was non-contagious. It is to be hoped then that in this 

 somewhat novel disease we have no reason to fear its spreading so 

 long as proper sanitary arrangements are enforced. 



Turning now to the sanitary condition of some of our large 

 towns, we have to report as follows : — 



Manchester. — The sanitary condition of Manchester has not, 

 during the last quarter, at all improved, nor have any effectual 

 efforts been made by the authorities to amend it. The average 

 death-rate has continued to be as high as that of any large town in 

 the kingdom, and in some weeks Manchester has stood at the head 

 of the black list. The deaths from continued fever, which in 1863 

 were little over 300, amounted in 1866 to 1,061, and up to the end 

 of the first quarter of the present year they were nearly as numerous. 

 Diarrhoea also, another certain indication of a poisoned atmosphere, 

 has been almost as fatal. 



The worst feature of this deplorable state of affairs is the appa- 

 rent indifference of the inhabitants to the subject. The apathy they 

 display is something marvellous. A comparatively trivial matter, 

 such as a change ordered by the Council in the omnibus routes, has 

 produced scores of letters to the newspapers, many indignation meet- 

 ings, and heated and angry deputations to the Council. But the 

 tale of thousands of preventable deaths, of children made orphans, 

 of desolated homes, has appeared to fall almost unheeded on the 



