[540]. During ten years 80 patients of this description were admitted into Bethlem hospital, 50 of whom perfectly recovered.
[541]. De Sedibus et Causis, Epist. 1, 8, 6.
[542]. See a review of a work entitled “A Treatise on the Diseases of the Nervous System, Part I; comprising Convulsive and Maniacal Affections,” by J. C. Prichard, M.D. &c. London, 1821, p. 426, Medical Repository, Feb. 1, 1822.
[543]. On the manufactures and occupations above alluded to, we have make the following observations.—
(1) As the vegetable matter undergoes the putrefactive process in stagnant pools, the effluvia which arise are necessarily highly pernicious; while the waters become so poisonous as to destroy the fish contained in them, as well as to prove injurious to cattle that drink of them. In Italy the process of steeping flax or hemp is only permitted at the distance of some leagues from a town. Zimmerman tells us that the effluvia from this source have been known to occasion a malignant fever, which proved fatal to the family in which it first began, and afterwards spread its contagion through a whole country. Lancisi observes, that dangerous fevers are often prevalent at Constantinople, which owe their source to the hemp brought from Cairo, and which is put wet into the public granaries, and suffered to ferment during the summer. At Helmstedt there is annually in the autumn, when the flax is steeped in the Aller, an epidemic dysentery that prevails for several weeks.
(2) The manufacture of starch can scarcely be considered, in itself, a nuisance, for although it be necessary to produce the acetous fermentation, in order to remove from the fecula any colouring matter, yet if sufficient attention be paid to the operation, and the water be properly let off from the settling-vessels, no inconvenience can arise. A nuisance, however, of considerable magnitude may incidentally attend these manufactories, from the number of swine which are constantly kept by the starch maker, and the profit of which forms a part of his speculation, and which is so considerable that he can generally afford to sell the starch at prime cost, relying wholly upon the former trade for his profits.
(3) The process of tanning involves several operations of a very nauseous description; the hides, for example, undergo incipient putrefaction in order to loosen the epidermis, and to render the hair and other extraneous matter easy of separation from the true skin.
(4) The peregrinations and vicissitudes of fate to which the horse is doomed during life has repeatedly furnished subjects of reflection; but few are aware to how many economical purposes his carcase is converted after death, and to how many noisome processes it gives rise. The dealers in dead horses, or nackers, as they are termed, begin their mercantile anatomy by taking off the shoes and disposing of them to the farrier; the skins are next stripped off, and sold to the tanner; the carcase is then cut into pieces, and boiled in large cauldrons of water, in order to extract the fatty matter, which, being skimmed off from the surface of the liquor, is “rendered down” and packed in cases for the soap-boiler, or the manufacturer of cart-grease. Whatever remains after this operation supplies the venders of dog’s and cat’s meat with a dainty article of sale; at length the views of the greedy trader are directed to the bones of this noble animal; a number of persons find employment in chopping them into small fragments, from which the marrow is then extracted by a boiling for several hours, and added to the fat already obtained from the carcase; the dry remains are employed in the production of hartshorn by distillation; and after this process is finished, they are removed from the still, and calcined to whiteness, in order to be mixed with clay for the manufacture of porcelaine; or they are consumed for the formation of ivory-black.
(5) The intolerable nuisance of a public brewery arises from the volumes of carbonaceous matter with which it overwhelms the neighbourhood. We shall therefore take this occasion to offer the remarks which we are prepared to make respecting the effects of smoke on the inhabitants of the metropolis, and on the methods which have been suggested for the mitigation of the evil. And upon this subject we entirely agree with an intelligent reviewer, that, after all, it is not a few chimneys attached to steam engines that infect the air of London with smoke; every house is busy in the work of contamination, although less observed, because administered by separate vents, and in divided doses.
In the year 1661, a work was published by the celebrated John Evelyn on the subject of this grievance, entitled, “Fumifugium; or the Inconveniences of the Air and Smoake of London dissipated; together with some remedies humbly proposed to his sacred Majestie, and to the Parliament now assembled.” The above “short discourse” has become exceedingly scarce, but the reader will find an interesting account of its contents in the Journal of Science and the Arts. It is certainly a curious coincidence that the attention of John Evelyn should have been first excited on this subject by “a presumptuous smoake issuing from one or two tunnels near Northumberland house, and not far from Scotland yard,”—the very seat of the plots of our modern fumifugists! After adverting to the situation of the metropolis “built upon a sweet and most agreeable eminency of ground at the north side of a goodly and well conditioned river, toward which it has an aspect by a gentle and easie declivity,” he proceeds to animadvert upon that “hellish and dismall cloud of sea coale, which is not only perpetually imminent over her head, but so universally mixed with the otherwise wholesome and excellent air, that her inhabitants breathe nothing but an impure thick mist, accompanied with a fuliginous and filthy vapour, which renders them obnoxious to a thousand inconveniences, corrupting their lungs, and disordering the entire habit of their bodies.” It appears that in Evelyn’s time, brewers, dyers, lime-burners, and salt and soap-boilers, were the principal nuisances; and “since then,” says the editor of the new edition of the Fumifugium in 1772, “we have a great increase of glass-houses, founderies, and sugar-bakers, to add to the black catalogue, at the head of which must be placed the fire engines of the water-works at London bridge and York-buildings, which leave the astonished spectator at a loss to determine whether they do not tend to poison and destroy more of the inhabitants by their smoke and stench than they supply with water;” to which sooty list, says the reviewer, in the Journal of Science and the Arts, above cited, “what astonishing additions have been made, within the last thirty years, in and about London? How many new water-companies, and smoke-producing manufactories have been added to the catalogue? A newspaper cannot now be printed, nor a pound of meat minced for sausages without a steam-engine; to the same smoky servant the druggist resorts to grind his rhubarb and to sift his magnesia,[[544]] and upon all possible occasions the services of the other elements is superseded by that of fire.” With respect to the deleterious effects of smoke upon the health of the inhabitants of our mighty city, much difference of opinion has existed; amongst Foreigners the air of London has the reputation of being extremely unhealthy, on account of the exhalation which arises from the use of coal; it excites in strangers, says Zimmerman, a considerable heat in the stomach, and sometimes a spitting of blood, and even nervous fevers which terminate in palsy. (Experience in Physic, vol. 2, p. 137). It is hardly necessary for us to make any observation upon a prejudice so absurd and unfounded; Evelyn also seems, in our opinion, to attribute more evils to the smoke than can be well substantiated; “I report myself,” says he, “to all those who have been compelled to breathe the air of other countries for some years, if they do not now perceive a manifest alteration in their appetite, and clearness of their spirits, especially such as have lived long in France and the city of Paris.” Although we are not disposed to consider the smoky atmosphere of London as so destructive to health as some have imagined, we are not prepared to state that it is entirely harmless. Children are certainly less healthy in this city than in the country; and the superior rapidity with which iron becomes oxidized, indicates the existence of atmospheric impurities. The phenomena of vegetation also offers another demonstration of the same fact; Evelyn has the following curious remarks upon this circumstance: “That the smoake destroys our vegetation is shewn by that which was by many observed in the year 1644, when Newcastle was besieged, and blocked up in our late wars, so as through the great dearth and scarcity of coals, these fumous works were either left off, or diminished, divers gardens and orchards planted even in the very heart of London, (as in particular, my Lord Marquis of Hertford in the Strand; my Lord Bridgewater’s, and some others about Barbican) were observed to bear such plentiful and infinite quantities of fruits, as they never produced the like before, or since, to their great astonishment; but it was by the owners rightly imputed to the penury of coales, and the little smoake which they took notice to infest them that yeare.”