“These cases of typhus all occurred in the same neighbourhood, where the road is bad and a dirty ditch of stagnant water on each side of it; the road is generally overflowed in the winter. The disease broke out in the month of October; other cases occurred in the same neighbourhood at the time.”
The nature of the more common impediments which stand in the way of the removal of the causes of disease and obstacles to production described in the preceding, are noticed in the instances following. Others will be adduced when the subject of the legislative means of prevention are stated.
Dr. Traves, on the sanitary condition of the poor in the Malton union, states,—
“The whole of the low district above alluded to, and extending into the Pickering union, (known by the name of the Marishes, or Marshes,) has at different times within the last few years been the seat of typhus and other fevers.
“Attempts were made by some of the landed proprietors a few years ago to effect a system of drainage and embankments likely to prevent the inundations of these rivers in wet seasons, but the attempt was abandoned in consequence of the reluctance of certain townships to bear their portion of the necessary outlay, and any partial system of embankment is positively injurious, inasmuch as the water that is let in upon the land at a higher point of the river is prevented returning into the stream again by an embankment at a lower point, so that this water, containing vegetable matters in a state of decomposition, must remain stagnant until evaporated by the sun’s rays, or dissipated by the wind; cases of fever occurring under these circumstances have repeatedly come under my observation, as well as that of other medical men familiar with the district, and this fruitful source of disease (in seasons like 1839 more especially) will probably now remain in full force until an Act of the legislature shall effect a change.”
Mr. Thomas Marjoribanks, the minister of Lochmaben,—
“No means of any consequence, so far as I am aware, have yet been tried to remedy the evil, the removal of such substances as generate malaria. There are no scavengers appointed for the removal of nuisances. One great mean of preventing the generation of malaria (in my opinion) would be the lowering of the bed of the river Annan, which would to a great extent free the surrounding lands of stagnant water, give greater facilities for draining, improve the system of farming, lessen the risk of damage, and increase the quantity as well as improve the quality of the food which the low lands produce, and in every way conduce to the comfort and cleanliness of the inhabitants. It is computed that in consequence of the flooding of the Annan, damage during the last four years has been done to the amount of 6,000l., and this along only about three miles of its course. The property is very much subdivided, and, in consequence, poverty and want has increased to a great extent among the small proprietors.”
In closing this exposition of the state of the chief external evils that affect the sanitary condition of the labouring population, it may be observed that the experience, on which the conclusions rest as to the principles of prevention is neither recent nor confined to this country. That which is new, is the advantages we possess beyond other times, and perhaps beyond all other countries, in capital and practical science for its application. The experience of the advantage of public sewers to the health of a town population is nearly as old as Rome itself. I may refer with M. Du Châtelet to the experience of that city, to illustrate the consequences of neglects, such as are manifest amidst large masses of the community throughout the country, and are partially displayed in the mortuary registers first cited. He gives the details from the treatise De Adventitiis Romani Cœli Qualitatibus, by the celebrated Italian physician Lancisi, who deeply studied the sanitary condition of Rome, and wrote several admirable works on the subject, which had the happy effect of inducing the pope to cleanse and drain the city:—
“The barbarians of every tribe having several times pillaged and sacked the city of Rome, the aqueducts were destroyed, and the water, spreading into the surrounding plains, formed marshes, which contributed greatly to render uninhabitable the surrounding country.
“The aqueducts existing no longer, the sewers and privies were alike neglected, and produced serious and frequent sicknesses, which were more effectual in destroying the population than the arms of the barbarians. All the historians of these remote times, and particularly St. Gregory, in his Homilies, and the deacon John, in the Life of that saint, give a frightful picture of the city of Rome. The air became so vitiated that plagues and fevers of a malignant character continually carried on their ravages to such a point that Peter Damien, writing in the eleventh century to Pope Nicholas II., to intreat him to accept his resignation, alleged as the pretext the danger he ran every instant of losing his life by remaining in the town.