SANATORY EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE, ETC. 77 referable to diseases of the respiratory organs; and that the half of the remaining mortality, or, in round numbers, one fourth of the whole, is referable to epidemic, endemic, and contagious diseases, which are so intimately connected with the condition of the atmosphere; the remaining fourth of the whole mortality having to be divided among the diseases of the brain and the nervous system, and the diseases of the digestive organs,-numbers of which would no doubt owe their predisposing causes, to the disturbed and cachectic condition induced by a continued respiration of a vitiated atmosphere? Let the reader refer to the several Sanatory Reports that have been issued by the authority of Parliament within the last few years, including the Reports of the RegistrarGeneral,-let him study the startling tables of diseases and their mortality contained in those reports, -and then trace so many of those diseases, as he will find himself compelled to do, with all their sad consequences in the diminished expectancy of life, in the deaths of the middle-aged, and consequent reduction of the growing and the helpless to orphanage and poverty, to the neglect of drainage and of sewerage, to imperfect ventilation of streets and dwellings, and see how fever may be mapped as to the streets and districts attacked, by the imperfect condition of the sewers,—and see how the mortality of towns over that of the rural districts is needlessly and wantonly increased,—and see how, even in rural districts, fever is engendered and continued by the putrid emanations from neglected and uncovered ordure, and needless collections of stagnant waters charged with animal and vegetable decomposition,— and thus see, how a village, or a parish, may become as remarkable for the amount and character of its mortality, as the unventilated gaols used to be in the last and preceding centuries, and then try to think how important must be the condition of the respiratory organs, and how important must be the purity of the respired air, to the health and lifeexpectancy of the population! Supposing the primary conditions of drainage and sewerage to be secured, and to be in a state of fullest efficiency,—and this would very soon be the case if medical men would but bestir themselves to draw public attention to these questions, to their fearful and perhaps incalculable importance, and supposing that every householder were at once bent on exerting his social power in securing these great essentials to his chances of health and life and those of his children, -and to use his individual power by removing to a well-sewered and drained district, no matter at what immediate pecuniary risk or sacrifice, under the conviction that the alternative is a fearful probability,the next great question becomes that of a thorough street-ventilation, to be secured by having the streets as wide, as a needful economy of space and previously existing circumstances will admit, by having the roadways and footpaths as clear as may be, by having the roadways sufficiently arched, guttered, and drained by gratings, and the footpaths so inclined as to prevent the formation of puddles and the INTRA-MURAL SEPULTURE. 79 lodgment of impurities. Thus, the question would be reduced to that of house-ventilation; a matter little less neglected than the more widely spreading evils already spoken of, and one that is only of importance second to them. : There is, indeed, one question that should be referred to, in this sketch of the comprehensive question of the causes and effects of a vitiated atmosphere on the economy of health, viz., the deleterious influence of the interment of the dead in crowded churchyards, that are surrounded by the abodes of the living a practice which, however it may harmonise with the feelings, from long-continued custom, is quite indefensible, and not justifiable on any pretext whatever. By circumstances that are perhaps characteristic of this country, this great sanatory question has been kept in abeyance, and subjected to some degree of sufficiently important prejudice. By having become mixed up with sectarian feelings, with attempts to remove the performance of the last duties and offices of the dead from the controul of the clergy of the Established Church, by the opening of unconsecrated grounds for the purpose of interments; the prejudiced feeling being added to by the circumstance, that these cemeteries have been formed with the capital of public companies, subscribed with the avowed object of realising a profit on such investment; a strong and not altogether unreasonable degree of feeling has arisen in the mind of many, in favour of intra-mural sepulture. But the great sanatory object must be sooner or later obtained without any attendant evil; the living and the useful members of the world's family cannot be suffered to continue, year after year, damaged in health, and curtailed in duration of life, for the purpose of enabling the dead to be interred in any particular place, no matter in what degree sanctioned by usage or by feeling. The whole good sought for may be attained, by the due consecration of ground, the property of the public, in places sufficiently far removed from human habitations, or from a densely peopled district, to do away with evil results to the public health; and this, with the fullest sanction and guidance of the constituted ecclesiastical authorities, and every reverential respect and attention that is at present shewn to the remains of the departed. It might be said, with much more real respect to those remains, if only one-half of the statements and evidence brought forward by Mr. Walker, in his great and untiring efforts in this important sanatory cause, were shewn to be true;-if, in the crowded churchyards, and in the towns almost all the churchyards are crowded, the corpses are only covered over with a thin layer of earth, as a pretext for interment; to be torn, within a few months or years, from their receptacles, mangled and cut to pieces, and thus made to occupy the least possible space; the coffins being destroyed, and the coffinfurniture sold for the value of the metal ;—while the injury done to the health of the neighbouring population from the emanations of the graveyards, an injury sufficiently shewn and proved VENTILATION OF DWELLING-HOUSES. 81 by Mr. Chadwick's able report,-might be wholly arrested. As regards the general ventilation of dwellinghouses, how little the sanatory importance of the subject has been understood, and how great the indifference respecting it, are proved by facts as striking, as those which appertain to the more wide questions of drainage and sewerage. Look at the numbers of people who are living in cellars, in some of the greatest and wealthiest towns ;-look at the facts as to the crowding of such cellars with inmates: places that must be imperfectly lighted, if lighted at all, by the sun; that must be imperfectly ventilated, even if a partial current of air through them be established from the door to the fire-place; that must be damp and noisome from unavoidable circumstances, independently of the polluted atmosphere, breathed over and over again by their wretched inmates;-carry the mind upward to the rooms, crowded and close, of a class next above that of the occupants of cellars, and find the numbers who occupy the same small room;-and thence go to the crowded workshops, reeking with the commingled results of imperfect ventilation, or if not so far neglected, marked by a distinct sense of closeness and mal-odorous character;-and thence proceed to the over-heated and over-crowded apartments of warehouses and factories ;-and thence, ascending still in the social scale, follow the member of the middle classes to his close apartment, to his bed-room, probably with a low ceiling, with closely |