SI 4 



most appalling expression of it would be the mere cold 

 statement of it in figures. Drains, to be efficient, accord- 

 ing to the same authority, must be flushed with water, 

 and this in all the smaller ones can only be accomplished 

 at great expense. Dr. Southwood Smith goes on to say, 

 (p. 995,) No drain can be efficient through which there 

 do not flow currents of water. Without a provision 

 for this regular and abundant supply of water, drains not 

 only fail in accomplishing their object, but they become 

 positively injurious. They generate and diffuse the very 

 poison, the formation of which it is their object to prevent ; 

 and the extent to which at present poison is thus actually 

 generated and carried forth, may be accurately measured 

 by every inch of drain which is not regularly washed by 

 a good stream of water." 



Dr. Graves, one of the Physicians to the Meath Hospital 

 and County of Dublin Infirmary, states in his " Clinical 

 Medicine,'' (p. 42,) " For a considerable period there was 

 a great tendency among physicians to refer the origin of 

 typhus, and almost every variety of fever, to malaria, or 

 unwholesome emanations from the soil, produced by the 

 decomposition of vegetable matter. In Ireland, facts do not 

 bear out this hypothesis, for when an epidemic of fever has 

 become established, it breaks out simultaneously in situations 

 the most different, and in some where no such emanations 

 can be supposed to exist. Thus, I have seen a whole family 

 aff'ected in the telegraph, situated at the summit of Killiney, 

 a mountain formed of bare granite ; and, indeed, the granite 

 and mountain districts beyond Rathfarnham, Tallaght, and 

 Killikee, supply the Meath Hospital with its worst cases 

 of typhus." He quotes Major Tulloch respecting the 

 troops in the Colonies, where it clearly appears that 

 fevers of the most malignant character frequently arise 



