The Committee stated that—
“There are no sufficient ‘data’ at present obtainable for a comparative estimate of the health and physique of the people.”
That being undoubtedly so, the best light obtainable on the subject must be sought for in a different way. Fortunately that way exists—and it is possibly the soundest of all—the method of inference from well-established facts.
The reports of the Medical Officers of Health for London during the last half-century enable this method to be applied to London.
In cases innumerable it has been demonstrated beyond dispute that the death-rate was highest in overcrowded houses or localities, that the sick-rate was proportionately higher, that disease assumed more virulent form in them, and left the victim in a more impaired condition.
“It is almost an axiom that the greater the crowding, the greater the sickness and the higher the death-rate.”
That these conditions affect the health and stamina of persons of all ages, and more especially of the children who are to constitute the new generation, is a truism, and thus the health and stamina of a large proportion of the population is, of necessity, damaged and deteriorated, and a heritage of suffering and debility passes to a succeeding generation. Were these evils mere passing events like an epidemic of cholera which sweeps away its thousands of victims and is gone, the results would not be so disastrous.
But when to these clearly proved facts is added the awful fact that these evils have been unceasingly in active operation for considerably more than half a century, that the past is still exerting a powerful and pernicious effect upon the present, and that the seeds of evil then sown are still producing a deadly crop, it is a necessary and unavoidable conclusion that there has been a considerable deterioration of race.
Counteracting these deadly forces have been those which have been described in this book:—
Efficient sewerage and drainage, water supply improved in quantity and quality, sounder food, wider thoroughfares, cleaner streets, open spaces, new dwellings, prevention of the defilement of the atmosphere, prevention of the spread of infection—all these, together with better knowledge of health matters, the vast advance in medical science, the better provision for the treatment of the sick, greater temperance, and the great work carried on by numerous philanthropic workers and organisations, have effected vast improvement—an improvement testified to in the fall in the death-rate of London from 23·38 per 1,000 in 1851 to 17·1 in 1901 since which year it has further decreased.