Nor has the recent history of the United States been less fruitful in lessons. Yellow fever, which formerly swept not only Southern cities but even New York and Philadelphia, has now been almost entirely warded off. Such epidemics as that in Memphis a few years since, and the immunity of the city from such visitations since its sanitary condition was changed by Mr. Waring, are a most striking object lesson to the whole country. Cholera, which again and again swept the country, has ceased to be feared by the public at large. Typhus fever, once so deadly, is now rarely heard of. Curious is it to find that some of the diseases which in the olden time swept off myriads on myriads in every country, now cause fewer deaths than some diseases thought of little account, and for the cure of which people therefore rely, to their cost, on quackery instead of medical science.
This development of sanitary science and hygiene in the United States has also been coincident with a marked change in the attitude of the American pulpit as regards the theory of disease. In this country, as in others, down to a period within living memory, deaths due to want of sanitary precautions were constantly dwelt upon in funeral sermons as "results of national sin," or as "inscrutable Providences." That view has mainly passed away among the clergy of the more enlightened parts of the country, and we now find them, as a rule, active in spreading useful ideas as to the prevention of disease. The religious press has been especially faithful in this respect, carrying to every household more just ideas of sanitary precautions and hygienic living.
The attitude even of many among the most orthodox rulers in church and state has been changed by facts like these. Lord Palmerston refusing the request of the Scotch clergy that a fast day be appointed to ward off cholera, and advising them to go home and clean their streets,—the devout Emperor William II forbidding prayer-meetings in a similar emergency, on the ground that they led to neglect of practical human means of help,—all this is in striking contrast to the older methods.
Well worthy of note is the ground taken in 1893, at Philadelphia, by an eminent divine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Bishop of Pennsylvania having issued a special call to prayer in order to ward off the cholera, this clergyman refused to respond to the call, declaring that to do so, in the filthy condition of the streets then prevailing in Philadelphia, would be blasphemous.
In summing up the whole subject, we see that in this field, as in so many others, the triumph of scientific thought has gradually done much to evolve in the world not only a theology but also a religious spirit more and more worthy of the goodness of God and of the destiny of man.(340)
(340) On the improvement in sanitation in London and elsewhere in the
north of Europe, see the editorial and Report of the Conference on
Sanitation at Brighton, given in the London Times of August 27, 1888.
For the best authorities on the general subject in England, see Sir John
Simon on English Sanitary Institutions, 1890; also his published Health
Reports for 1887, cited in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1891. See
also Parkes's Hygiene, passim. For the great increase in the mean length
of life in France under better hygienic conditions, see Rambaud, La
Civilisation contemporaine en France, p. 682. For the approach to
depopulation at Memphis, under the cesspool system in 1878, see Parkes,
Hygiene, American appendix, p. 397. For the facts brought out in the
investigation of the department of the city of New York by the Committee
of the State Senate, of which the present writer was a member, see New
York Senate Documents for 1865. For decrease of death rate in New York
city under the new Board of Health, beginning in 1866, and especially
among children, see Buck, Hygiene and Popular Health, New York, 1879,
vol. ii, p. 573; and for wise remarks on religious duties during
pestilence, see ibid., vol. ii, p. 579. For a contrast between the old
and new ideas regarding pestilences, see Charles Kingsley in Fraser's
Magazine, vol. lviii, p. 134; also the sermon of Dr. Burns, in 1875,
at the Cathedral of Glasgow before the Social Science Congress. For a
particularly bright and valuable statement of the triumphs of modern
sanitation, see Mrs. Plunkett's article in The Popular Science Monthly
for June, 1891. For the reply of Lord Palmerston to the Scotch clergy,
see the well-known passage in Buckle. For the order of the Emperor
William, see various newspapers for September, 1892, and especially
Public Opinion for September 24th.