[November, 
702 The Sanitary Millennium. 
is dirt ? That if we take care to keep our drinking waters 
free from pollution, abolish cess-pools, ventilate our houses, 
and avoid overcrowding, we may laugh at epidemics, and 
may, if we wish, reduce our death-rate to five or six in the 
thousand ? Have we not spent some 300 millions of money 
in carrying out these teachings and in paying the fees of our 
teachers ? -it 
That we have parted with the money is a truth that can- 
not be gainsaid. But in view of the importance of the 
subject it will not be deemed any undue outbreak of scep- 
ticism if we ask what we have purchased therewith, and 
whether our modern security is as well-founded as we 
think. , r r 
For a better understanding of the case let us first reter to 
the plague in London in 1665* — the last be it observed of 
22 visitations of the same disease in England. We are 
commonly told that the great fire of the succeeding year 
thoroughly purged the city, which was rebuilt in such an 
improved manner as regards cleanliness that the recurrence 
of the disease has been thereby prevented. A little reflection 
will show us that here lurks an error. Plague had not been 
confined to London ; it had from time to time ravaged the 
provincial cities and even the villages of England. Surely 
the fire of London could not improve their sanitary condition 
or secure them from further visitations. Nor could it in any 
way explain the gradual disappearance of the scourge from 
all parts of western Europe. Its last outbreak in France 
occurred at Marseille in 1720. Now it cannot be contended 
that either in England or in France any very marked change 
had taken place betwen the years 1650 and 1750. Social 
and domestic arrangements had not been so modified as to 
explain this cessation of pestilence. No additional precaution 
had been taken, and the intercourse between different nations 
— and in consequence the supposed facilities for the trans- 
mission of disease— was all the time increasing. Since then 
the plague has been confined to Egypt and Turkey, and 
even there its ravages have become less frequent and less 
severe, and till within the past few years it seemed likely to 
cease altogether. Yet in the East nothing bordering upon 
sanitary improvement has been undertaken. Surely then it 
must be conceded that the gradual recession of the plague 
from Europe and its almost extinaion in Egypt, Syria, and 
the adjacent regions cannot be attributed to any human 
& Let^us now return to England : according to Dr. Percival 
and Mr. Griffith Davis in 1757 the death-rate in Manchester 
