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    370 OTF^JSTT MORTALITY.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    A # Intakttiie Death-Kates. De. W. T. Ga...

    be possible to dislodge and destroy them systematically . If they follow and infest man after the manner of parasites , whatever

    renders living parasites impossible to exist will do . the same for the seeds of these diseases .

    There are just six places in which the poisoning seeds of _^ fchese diseases can lurk , and out of which they can be evolved . For our

    purpose it does not signify whether we adopt the old doctrine of specific contagion , and believe that no case of either of these

    diseases can arise except from a pre-existing case ; or whether we accept the newer doctrinethat they spring up i from time to time

    out of the decaying organic , matter which surrounds us . In either case the habitat must be the same .

    1 . It maybe the skin . From want of simple ablution , layers have of disused seen a scarf child -skin broug are ht carried for advice about for for " debilit months y ' or after years scarlet . I

    feverand furnished with cod-liver oil and steel from a dispensary . But the , surface of the body , where protected by clothes , was covered

    with blackened cuticle , never washed off nor intended to be . Some persons believe that a fragment of scarf-skin adhering to a letter

    sent by post will convey the infection of scarlet fever . If that be truewhat must not one child dounwashed after the illness ?

    2 . , It may be the wearing apparel , . Few persons reflect on the time during which wearing apparel of woollen materials is used

    among the poor , and the number of persons , children and others , whom it serves in succession as " it passes through " its stages of

    disintegration . When examining the vaccination of children , I have been ready to faint at the odour of old woollen clotheshidden under

    , pinafores , thoroughly rotten , fastened in by pins , and evidently saturated with the exhalations of years . I have seen in an infant

    . school thirty-three , with dirty skins and dresses , in a space of nine feet by fiveand fifty-five others in a space of twelve feet by

    six , sitting close , together , side by side , in three rows : the heat from their bodies as perceptible to the hand at a little distance as

    the heat from a tea-urn . Is disease , and its propagation , inexplicable on these terms ? The Vicar of Wakefield chose his wife as she

    did her silk gown , in the hope that it would wear many years . Cheap cotton is better for people who cannot afford a new gown

    ofteni 3 . It may be in carpets , curtains , bedding , and other _& Ked articles

    of clothing : and—4 . It may be in houses . Every one can distinguish the

    atmosphere of a newly-cleansed house , and the air of exhilaration and increased health which follows the operations of the painter . But

    rooms are too often covered with flimsy absorbent papers —( a respectable witness tells me that he has counted eight layers in a poor

    house , each riddled with vermin ); and although a wash of lime or of cheap color is wholesomer than paper , yet the size with which

    colors are mixed is decomposable and the surface , absorbent . I

    370 Otf^Jstt Mortality.

    370 _OTF _^ _JSTT _MORTALITY .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1861, page 370, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021861/page/10/