i88o] 
The Sanitary Millennium. 
707 
tarianism- the woman’s rights movement, Mormonism, 
Nihilism, 'and the general tendency to political agitation. 
In dealing with the causes of epidemics, the author is, in 
our opinion, perfeaiy successful in disposing of the two 
most popular theories, the dirt doCtnne of the sanitary 
reformers, and the notion of contagion, lhe faCts which 
he mentions, most of which are common matters of history, 
are decidedly opposed to both. Thus, when pestilence 
reaches a great commercial centre— e.g., the Black Death 
at Constantinople in the 14th century— it does not, as the 
contagion theory would require, radiate out on all the lines 
of traffic, but seleCts some single track. Even the Black 
Death did not pass northwards from Constantinople to 
Russia, but turning westwards coasted the Mediterranean, 
passed through France into England, thence to Norway 
and Sweden, though the intercourse was then exceedingly 
slight, and lastly passed into Russia, lhe cholera has 
been known to travel steadily for hundreds of miles in the 
teeth of a strong monsoon. It often works up a river, 
showing that it is not occasioned by infeaious matter 
draining into the current. Pestilences have generally been 
found more violent in open airy places than in such as are 
close and sheltered. The yellow fever haunts the breezy 
Antilles and the coasts of Brazil and of La Plata, but pene- 
trates inland only in proportion as the forest:, is cleared 
awav In the epidemic of cholera m Trinidad in 1854 the 
mortality at the leeward end of the streets was less by 5 
ner cent than at the windward end. Houses on open roads 
were attacked, huts in the bush escaped. Alike in epide- 
mics of plague, cholera, and yellow fever, it has been found 
that classes of people who from occupation or habit were 
most exposed to the air suffered most, whilst those who 
kept themselves shut up escaped. How ill this agrees with 
the teachings of the sanitary reformers ! 
We must now turn to Dr. Parkin s own theory. He 
refers pestilence to what he calls “ volcanic aCtion, under- 
standing thereby not merely eruptions and earthquakes, but 
the more quiet and continuous agency of which earthquakes 
and emissions of lava are the occasional and palpable results. 
He affirms that both earthquakes and epidemics are most 
common and most destructive in alluvial districts, and on 
the contrary rarer and less violent among the mountains- 
As regards earthquakes we cannot accept this opinion \vith- 
out hesitation. The western mountainous region ot bouth 
America is far more troubled with earthquakes than the 
comparatively level lands of Brazil and Guayana, including 
