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180 A PHYSICIANS MEMORANDA.
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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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« When Lord Chief Justice Holt Was A You...
spite of such demonstration , that the destroyer again rears his head in the very highest turret of our social edifice ?
pari The son top to ic the may bli appear ghting an desolation unsavory which one . untimel But what y death is that brings in com to
our hearts and homes ? Dare we neglect plain speaking because conventionalisms forbid drains , and sewers , and cesspools to be alluded
to in the hearing of ears polite ? Are we not to wage war with the enemy which leads two thousand five hundred of our London
population in the flower of life to a premature grave , because a maudlin sentimentality objects to the rout and disturbance of a melancholy
routine ? What are the deaths and accidents caused by tlie explosion of paraffinor by the foolish expansion of crinolinestartling as they
areto the , hecatombs that are annually sacrificed , on the altar of ignoranc , e and selfishness by our neglect of the causes in which _,
typhoid fever strikes its roots and flourishes , an indigenous upas-tree _. In the Windsor epidemic of 1858 , it was proved in the most
conclusive manner by a searching inquiry , that the disease was produced by the putrid emanations of decaying animal matter , and
more particularly from the sewage in the drains . The disease was confined to no one class of the population , for _ricli and poor
suffered alike ' , * and it was certain that famine and destitution had no influence over the fever at Windsor . The drought of the
preceding summer , and the neglect of the due flushing of the sewers especially , promoted the extrication of the noxious gases ; which ,
finding their way by the law of gravitation , to the higher level _s readily escaped wherever the traps were defective or the
communications between the houses and the drains were altogether devoid of such intercepting media . It was shown , at the same time , that even in
certain lace . parts The following of the Castle obs buildings ervations , of such the an gentleman escape of * gases who took was
commissioned p to report on the subject , are so pregnant with suggestive matter , that we may be pardoned for substituting them for
any further observations we might wish , but for the necessary limits of this paperto offer to our readers : — " A very large proportion of
the casesand , all the fatal onesoccurred in two of the districts in . which ther , e was a direct communication , between the drains and
the interior of the houses , and in which fetid smells from the drains were a subject of frequent complaint . The cases were especially
numerous and severe in the first district , where all the drains of the town are congregatedand where they have the least inclination in
their course . In the third , or Bier-lane district , though comprising the worst houses , the water-closets were all outside , bad smells were
but little complained of , and there was a comparative immunity from fever . But even in this district an obvious connexion was
traced between the fever and emanations from the drains , the few
* Dr . Murchison .
180 A Physicians Memoranda.
180 A _PHYSICIANS MEMORANDA .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1862, page 180, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051862/page/36/
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