LONDON
(Ancient and Modern)
From the Sanitary and Medical Point of View.
CHAPTER I.
LONDON FROM THE SANITARY POINT OF VIEW.
In considering the sanitary conditions of a great city like London, it behoves us to remember that it has been a place of importance since the days of the Roman occupation of this country—that is, for some 1,500 years.
A place that has been peopled for centuries is very apt, in the absence of special precautions, to become unwholesome by reason of the vast accumulation of refuse. Roman London is many yards beneath the surface of the present City. It has been deeply buried, and by what? By refuse and debris from every source; and this in itself is necessarily a danger to health, and doubtless has in times past greatly tended to produce many of those diseases for which mediæval (and even modern) London was noted.
SITUATION.
The situation of ancient London was most convenient for commerce, and fairly good from a sanitary point of view. The advantages of its situation have been dwelt upon by many writers, and were well summed up by Edward Chamberlayne, who thus speaks of it in his “Present State of England” (1682), a work which was analogous in many respects to the “Whitaker’s Almanack” of the present day.
Chamberlayne says:—“In the most excellent situation of London the profound wisdom of our ancestors is very conspicuous and admirable. It is seated in a pleasant evergreen valley, upon a gentle rising bank in an excellent air, in a wholesome soil mixed with gravel and sand upon the famous navigable river Thames, at a place where it is cast into a crescent, that so each part of the City might enjoy the benefit of the river, and yet not be far distant one from the other; about sixty miles from the sea; not so near, that it might be in danger of surprise by the fleets of foreign enemies, or be annoyed by the boisterous wind and unwholesome vapours of the sea; yet not so far but that by the help of the tide every twelve hours, ships of great burden may be brought into her heaving bosom; nor yet so far but that it may enjoy the milder, warmer vapours of the eastern, southern, and western seas; yet so far up in the country as it might also easily partake even of all the country commodities; in an excellent air upon the north side of the river (for the villages seated on the south side are noted to be unhealthy in regard of the vapours drawn upon them by the sun), but roughed by gentle hills from the north and south winds.
“The highways leading from all parts to this noble city are large, smooth, straight and fair; no mountains nor rocks, no marshes nor lakes to hinder carriages and passengers.” * * *
Chamberlayne, in speaking of the Thames, is, as well he may be, loud in its praise: