SANITARY SCIENCE IN RURAL DISTRICTS. 
247 
influence of physical surroundings on the vitality of the system. 
Looked at in this broad light, it is seen to cover a very extended 
area, bounded on the one side by the smallest acts of the individual, 
on the other by the most general and wide-spread changes, due to 
causes far removed from our control and even knowledge. 
To some there may appear an irrelevance in rural districts being 
specially considered, and as it were brought on a level with the 
lower districts in towns, to which alone, according to many, sanitary 
principles can be applied. On reflection, however, the mere fact 
of a house being in the country is anything but a guarantee of its 
healthy condition, and were it not for the exceptionally healthy 
surroundings country people are exposed to, during the greater 
portion of the day, many would give way, and not a few do, to 
the damp, noxious sewage emanations they are exposed to during 
the night. 
Overcrowding is a peculiarly rural fault arising from the primi- 
tive nature of country dwellings. In too many cases these consist 
of only a single apartment for each family, a practice fraught with 
evil physically and morally. Such homes will always be the 
stoutest enemies to sanitary improvement in themselves and in 
their consequences, aided in all cases by the natural inertia of 
" leaving bad alone," and in most by the difficulty in getting better 
accommodation. 
It must never be lost sight of that cleanliness and orderliness in 
domestic matters is the key to a very large possible improvement 
in sanitary efficiency quite beyond the reach of sanitary boards 
and expensive measures. Here is the point where the evil fre- 
quently occurs. The Eural Medical Officer of Health for the 
Merthyr Union states in his report, September, 1874: "I have 
already stated that fifty per cent, of the deaths were those of 
children under five years of age, and I would now further say that 
half of those under live who died were under two years of age, 
and that with the exception of ten all the others died of maladies 
whose chief promoting cause is the impurity of the air within and 
around their dwellings, that impurity being due to two main causes, 
offensive and unhealthy odours from putrifying house-slops and 
cesspits, and insufficient ventilation of dwellings." 
Sudden changes and complete exposure are the inevitable result 
of the present system of house construction. In planning the 
meanest of dwellings in this country, the living apartment ought on 
