overcrowding of houses on inadequate areas, and, unfortunately, it
is this fact which has rendered the system so popular. With water
under pressure there is no need to provide houses with any back-door
or back-yard, and there is no inconvenience in having excessively
high buildings. The speculative builder, who has been relieved of
all responsibilities in connection with sewage and water supply, has
abundantly used his opportunities, and the happy ground-landlord has
sold his land at large prices per square foot. We are shutting out the
light and air more and more from our cities, and the crowding in the
streets is making locomotion in them difficult. This overcrowding is
a serious matter, and I will show what it means in London by means of
a table and diagrammatic plan of the sanitary areas of London, with
the mortality figures in the years 1892 and 1893, as calculated by Mr.
Shirley Murphy, after due correction for abnormalities of age and sex
distribution.
This table and plan (p. 144) shows at a glance that the mortality
of London as a whole (taken as 1,000) is 14 or 15 per cent. higher
than that of England and Wales, and that while some of the outlying
districts, such as Hampstead, Lewisham, and Plumstead, have a mortality
below that of England and Wales, the areas near the centre of London
are all considerably above it; and some, such as the Strand, Holborn,
St. George's-in-the-East, and Whitechapel, have a mortality as high as
that of the worst manufacturing towns.
The danger of overcrowding is well shown by the explosive outburst of
small-pox in Marylebone in 1894.
MORTALITY FIGURES
(Figures in small type show the population of the Sanitary Areas)
England and Wales=~860~ ~1893~ London (entire)=~1000~
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Hampstead Hackney |
| 73,380 240,584 |
| ~673~ ~892~ |
+--+ |
| Paddington Marylebone St. Pancras Islington |
| 120,421 139,726 233,936 327,919 |
| ~762~ ~1103~ ~1054~ ~942~ |
| |
| Hammersmith Shoreditch |
| 103,044 123,440 |
| ~865~ ~1193~ +-----------------+
| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| St. George's W. |St. James St. Giles Holborn Clerkenwell St. Luke Bethnal Green Mile End | Poplar |
| 76,043 | 24,000 38,641 32,690 65,589 41,577 129,620 108,041 | 169,141 |
| ~803~ | ~991~ ~1193~ ~1327~ ~1327~ ~1498~ ~1175~ ~1045~ | ~1072~ |
| | | |
| Kensington |Westminster St. Martin Strand City of London Whitechapel St. George's E. Limehouse| Woolwich Plumstead |
| 167,029 | 54,829 14,034 23,788 35,870 75,178 45,493 57,115 | 41,854 94,596 |
| ~874~ | ~1197~ ~1161~ ~1592~ ~1215~ ~1238~ ~1439~ ~1381~ | ~1022~ ~762~ |
| | | |
|Fulham Chelsea | Newington St. Saviour St. George's S. St. Olave Bermondsey Rotherhithe| Greenwich |
|104,735 98,182 | 117,672 26,854 59,953 12,903 84,246 40,020 | 171,120 |
| ~910~ ~955~ | ~1139~ ~1135~ ~1404~ ~1130~ ~1135~ ~1076~ | ~951~ |
| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Lambeth Lewisham |
| 280,284 98,258 |
| ~969~ ~704~ |
| |
| Wandsworth Battersea Camberwell |
| 172,143 158,105 245,143 |
| ~726~ ~910~ ~915~ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
DR=Corrected Death Rate ~1892~ MF=Mortality Figures
DR MF
Hampstead 14·2 657
Lewisham }
Plumstead } 15·7 727
Wandsworth 16·8 778
Hackney 18·1 838
~England and Wales~ ~19·0~ ~880~
Paddington }
St. George's, Hanover } 19·3 894
Square }
Battersea }
Kensington } 19·4 898
Greenwich 19·7 912
Camberwell 19·9 921
Islington 20·1 931
St. James's, W. 20·2 935
Lambeth 20·7 958
Hammersmith 20·8 963
Fulham 20·9 968
~London (entire)~ ~21·6~ ~1000~
Chelsea 22·0 1019
Rotherhithe 22·2 1028
Woolwich 22·8 1056
Poplar 23·2 1074
St. Marylebone 23·4 1083
St. Pancras 23·5 1088
Mile End 23·8 1102
Shoreditch 23·9 1106
Bethnal Green 24·1 1115
Bermondsey 24·3 1125
City of London 25·3 1171
Newington 25·5 1181
St. Giles 26·2 1213
Westminster 26·6 1231
St. Saviour, Southwark 26·7 1236
Whitechapel 26·8 1241
Clerkenwell }
St. George's, Southwark } 27·5 1273
Limehouse 27·8 1287
St. Martin's in the Fields 27·9 1292
St. Olave's 28·1 1301
St. Luke's 28·2 1306
St. George's East 28·8 1333
Holborn 29·7 1375
Strand 33·4 1546
Fig. 36 represents part of the Asylums Board Map, in which each case of
notified small-pox is shown by a black dot. This map shows that the
outbreak was limited to two spots, one in Portland Town and one round
Nightingale Street, Edgware Road, where the density of population,
according to Mr. Charles Booth, is over 300 persons to the acre.
[Illustration: Fig. 36.]
Other maps published by the Asylums Board show that whereas the
air-borne contagium, diphtheria, was confined more or less to the
crowded districts, enteric fever, which is a water-borne contagium, was
evenly spread over the whole parish. It need hardly be said that the
enforcement of vaccination, notification, and isolation, is important
in proportion to the density of population. The working of the sanitary
laws is a great expense to the ratepayers. I find it stated, for
instance, in the report of the Asylums Board, that for the removal of
the 260 small-pox patients from Marylebone the ambulances travelled
nearly twenty miles for each patient, and collectively 5,200 miles, or
about the distance from here to Bombay. Overcrowding is not cheap, and
I find, by a reference to the report of St. Marylebone, that whereas
in 1871 that parish, of about 1,500 acres, and with a diminishing
population, could be 'run' for about 660_l._ a day, it now costs about
1,100_l._ per day. It is right to add that the parish has no control
over a great part of the expenditure, but, nevertheless, 440_l._ per
diem is a fair sum to place upon the shrine of progressive municipalism.
If infectious disease occurs in our houses we have only to notify, and
the parish does the rest. We have put a premium on fever, and the lucky
man whose house is visited by a mild scarlatina is rewarded by having
his family maintained for six weeks at the public expense, and his
whitewashing done by the parish. If, on the return of a child from the
hospital, another child catches the disease, he can recover damages.
The Asylums Board is probably the most pauperising institution ever
conceived, but we are such cowards in the presence of disease that
financial and moral considerations have but little weight, provided the
unclean be removed.
Another great drawback to the water-carriage system of sewage is the
increasing difficulty with regard to water supply. Our needs per head
per diem in the matter of water have gradually increased to something
like forty gallons, which many experts consider to be none too much.
In London the air is so foul that rain-water is valueless for domestic
use, and the water of the surface wells is too poisonous to drink,
because we have neglected what I believe to be the most important of
the principles of sanitation, viz. the keeping of organic refuse,
whether solid or liquid, on the surface. The humus is the most perfect
purifier and the best of filters, in virtue of its physical conditions
and the life that is in it. We deliberately take our filth to the
under side of the filter, and then complain because our surface wells
are foul. The water companies are masters of the situation. Water is
not paid for, as a rule, in proportion to the quantity used, because
Parliament in its wisdom has decided that thriftiness in the use of
water is wicked. The grossly overburdened ratepayer is now pricking
up his ears to listen to the prattle about Welsh water schemes at the
cost of 38,000,000_l._, and is congratulating himself that he is only a
leaseholder, and that his bondage is terminable in seven, fourteen, or
twenty-one years at most. Water carriage, in which the carrier is some
sixty times more heavy and twenty times more bulky than the thing to be
carried, is economically ridiculous (except in places where Nature has
provided enormous quantities of water), and involves everyplace where
it is tried in ruinous debt. Let us take an illustration.
A suburban district having 27,000 persons on 7,000 acres of land, or
a population of less than four to the acre, mainly engaged in market
gardening, has in the last ten years borrowed 106,442_l._ for sewerage
works. The only visible result to the inhabitants is that even country
roads, with houses at ¼-mile or ½-mile intervals, have been dotted
with foul-smelling manholes.
In 1894-5 the sum of 18,534_l._ 14_s._ 1_d._ was raised from rates,
and of this there was spent 6,518_l._ 13_s._ 10_d._ for interest and
repayment of sewerage loans, and 2,542_l._ 3_s._ 11_d._ for current
expenses in connection with sewage. If to this be added one-third of
the establishment charges (say 700_l._), we reach a total of 9,860_l._,
or more than half the sum received from rates.
The provision and maintenance of all the patent domestic gimcracks
which water carriage involves, together with the necessarily increased
bills for water paid by the householder, would probably double that
sum, and we shall not be far wrong in saying that these 27,000 persons
are spending 20,000_l._ a year for the purpose of throwing their
capital into the Thames.
This doubling of rates has most seriously crippled the chief industry
of the district, and the market gardeners feel severely the heavy extra
charges which they are called upon to pay. These gentlemen, by putting
much of the offal of great towns to its proper use, and converting it
into food and wages for the poor, are doing a great work, but they are
in a fair way of being ruined by the silly recklessness of our local
governors.
On December 8, 1895, a writer in _The Times_ pointed out that in
1895, as compared with 1890, 633,000 acres of land were either out of
cultivation or had been converted into 'permanent pasture,' a term
which implies a minimum cultivation. Of these lands there were in Essex
over 31,000 acres, in Kent nearly 30,000, in Surrey 15,000, in Sussex
29,000, in Berks 20,000, in Bucks 11,500, Herts 7,600, Middlesex 5,500.
It is a noteworthy fact that in the eight counties nearest London,
which provides for them an insatiable market, nearly 150,000 acres of
land should have glided out of cultivation in the last five years. It
is impossible not to believe that the local rates in places near London
are the last straw upon the back of the agriculturist, who is ruinously
taxed in order that his land may be starved. To show what suburban
agriculturists have to bear in the way of local taxation I will quote
from my little book, 'Essays on Rural Hygiene,'[4] a few figures
showing what is paid by a gentleman who farms 200 acres of land, of
which 15 are grass:
£ _s._ _d._
Income Tax (at 6_d._) 47 4 9
Land Tax 24 16 8½
Poor Rate 123 0 5
Burial Rate 19 13 8
District Rate 83 1 11
Tithe (considered low) 15 11 4
----------------
£313 8 9½
The social problems of the present day are many and complicated, and
all of us have heard of 'Distressed Agriculture,' 'Pauperism,' 'The
Aged Poor,' and the 'Unemployed.'
The agriculturist, who is being burdensomely taxed in order that his
land may be starved, now has part of his rates paid for him out of the
Imperial Exchequer. No one who knows the straits he is in will grudge
him this relief. But the paying of local charges out of Imperial taxes
has the inevitable result of making our 'Local Boards' more and more
extravagant, because they have the spending without the trouble of
raising money.
The reform most needed in the interest of agriculturists and others is
to put an effectual check upon the extravagance and ostentation of
Local Boards and District Councils, and to see that they spend no more
money in any one year than they can raise in their districts. These
bodies are now obliged to submit their accounts to a proper audit and
to publish them, and it is hoped that the ratepayer will subject them
to close criticism.
The policy of allowing persons who are elected for three years to raise
loans and plunge a district into debt for a period of thirty years
without one iota of personal responsibility is obviously dangerous.
To allow reckless borrowing for the construction of works which are
a source of expense and waste, and never of profit, would be called
madness in private life.
Doubtless a seat on a Council which borrows money in lots of
100,000_l._ at a time affords a delightful amusement to the idle man,
the busybody, the faddist, the philanthropist with a mission for
fumbling in other persons' pockets, and the prophet who is ever anxious
to borrow in order to provide for the future of which he is ignorant.
Your prophet is the most dangerous of these persons, and instances will
occur to the minds of most of us of municipalities which have been half
ruined by over-sanguine persons endowed with speculative minds and
persuasive tongues. The risk run by these persons is so small, be it
remembered, that if an aggrieved ratepayer makes them defendants in an
action, they enjoy the unique privilege of paying part of their costs
and damages out of the successful plaintiff's pockets.
Most of the local borrowing in this country has been for works of
sewerage, and although such works are financially ruinous, we are
told that we get a dividend of 'Health.' This, however, is not true,
and nobody could expect health to emerge from a system of which
putrefaction and overcrowding are the chief characteristics.
The application of organic matter to well-tilled soil leads to positive
gain and definite increase. The soil is the only permanent source of
wealth in this world. And we are all of us absolutely dependent upon
it for existence and happiness. The soil, if properly tilled, provides
health as well as wealth, and be it remembered that in proportion
to its productiveness so is the need of labour; and further, be it
remembered that long after the eye is too dim and the hand too slow
to keep time with steam machinery, the physical powers are amply
sufficient for the cultivation of the land.
Many of our pressing social problems are inextricably linked with our
duty to the soil, and any country in which the fertility of the soil
does not increase cannot be rightly regarded as really in the van of
civilisation and scientific progress. We are probably the wealthiest
country on the globe, because for some time past we have been the hub
of the entire financial world. Our success in one direction is no
excuse for neglecting the more certain sources of wealth, and it is to
be hoped that it will soon be regarded as evidence of neglect of our
moral obligations to allow the land to drift out of cultivation.
CHAPTER VI
THE SOIL IN ITS RELATION TO DISEASE AND SANITATION[5]
In dealing with the relation of the earth to disease it behoves us to
move with caution, and we shall do well at the outset to admit that
there is very little knowledge of the subject which can be regarded as
certain. We are in the land of conjectures, surmises, and plausible
hypotheses, which perhaps are leading on to certain knowledge, but it
will be necessary to check the dicta of the laboratories by experience
gained outside of them. Such has always been the admirable custom in
this country, where the labours of the pure scientist have been checked
by that truly excellent staff of workers, the medical inspectors of
the Local Government Board, to whom the world at large is more deeply
indebted that perhaps it is aware. Before we blame the earth for
causing us harm we must be sure that the facts, or alleged facts, of
the bacteriologist are supported by the experience of the practical
epidemiologist. Science unchecked by practice will certainly lead
us astray in the future, as it has done in the past, and just as a
'lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,' so a new
scientific fact imperfectly understood has potentialities for evil
which are unbounded.
If we set aside for the present the question of malaria, which is
undoubtedly primarily connected with certain soils, we have very little
evidence that any other disease of practical importance is primarily
connected with the soil. There appear to be two microbes which are
present with tolerable constancy in the upper layers of the soil, and
which, when applied to a raw surface or injected hypodermically, may
cause tetanus and malignant œdema; but as yet we are without any
evidence that either of these diseases can be caused by drinking water
which has percolated through the soil, or can rise as a miasm from the
soil. They concern the surgeon mainly, and from the point of view of
epidemiology are unimportant.
Phthisis, or rather death from phthisis, which is not quite the same
thing, is said to be more prevalent on damp soils than on dry ones, and
it has further been said that the death-rate from this disease has been
reduced in certain towns by sewerage. This statement is not universally
accepted, and even if it be true it does not necessarily inculpate
the soil because damp soils are cold, and patients with phthisis or
any chronic lung trouble are very intolerant of cold and damp. It is
very generally recognised that phthisis is prevalent in proportion to
overcrowding, and that it is conveyed by tuberculous milk or meat seems
to be certain as the result of recent experimental work. Any charge
against the soil itself is as yet not proven.
Diphtheria has been said to be prevalent on certain soils, but this
assertion is now discredited, and we recognise that the great cause of
its spread is overcrowding. Its habitat, if it has any, outside the
animal body is not yet known.
Anthrax, which is due to a spore-bearing organism, can certainly be
conveyed to animals browsing on grass soiled by the dung or blood of
infected animals. The bacilli seem to die in the carcase of a dead
animal within three days after death; and as, for spore formation, the
free access of air and a temperature of 70° F. are necessary, it is not
likely that this goes on in the earth. Pasteur's assertion that anthrax
spores may be brought to the surface by earthworms is discredited by
Koch and others. Man, I believe, has never been infected with anthrax
except by direct inoculation or, as in the wool-sorter, by inhaling
spores from infected wool or hides. Clearly, animals should not be
allowed to browse in an infected field, and such fields should, where
possible, be ploughed up and converted from pasture into arable land.
The danger of burying animals dead of anthrax is considered unworthy
of credence by those eminent veterinary authorities, Professor Brown
and Professor McFadyean, and the latter has shown that the process
of putrefaction is fatal to the virulence of the tissues of the dead
animal when these are inoculated into other animals or administered by
the mouth.
Enteric fever and cholera bear a close resemblance to each other in
their mode of spread, and they are both recognised in this country
as mainly, if not entirely, water-borne diseases. Whether this be
absolutely the case in the tropics I will not pause to discuss, because
I am ignorant of the conditions of tropical life; but it is known that
at present the water-borne theory, as against the air-borne theory,
is receiving more and more support in India. That these diseases are
produced in most cases by the direct infection of water by the excreta
of infected patients is in Europe very generally acknowledged. The
cholera epidemics of 1848, 1854, and 1866, and the more recent epidemic
at Hamburg, strongly support the water-borne theory of cholera, and
the enteric fever epidemics which afford similar evidence in this
country have been so numerous that it is unnecessary to particularise.
The spread of both these diseases seems to be favoured by conditions
of filth and overcrowding, and the existence of a filthy and sodden
condition of the soil has been often spoken of in connection with them.
Nevertheless, there have been very few outbreaks of enteric fever in
which the fact that cesspools, sewers, or underground middens have
been in direct communication with the sources of water has not been
detected. If, as seems highly probable, typhoid fever may be conveyed
by sewer air, there is nothing improbable in the suggestion that it can
be conveyed by the air of privies or middens in which fæces are allowed
to putrefy. That typhoid fever poison can lurk in properly-tilled
ground seems very unlikely, and I am not aware that such a thing
has ever been suggested. Pettenkofer's statement, that epidemics of
typhoid fever and cholera follow depressions of the ground water may
be true for Munich, but it has not been materially supported in this
country; and, in Budapest, Fodor has found that these diseases are
more prevalent when the ground water is high. The variations of level
in the ground water depend upon such a number of meteorological and
other conditions, and give rise to so many and different effects, that
even if Pettenkofer's statement be accepted it would not necessarily
point to the earth as the natural habitat of the typhoid fever poison.
Professor Lane Notter, in his summing up of this ground-water question,
says[6]: 'It must, however, be borne in mind that it is not the ground
itself which is the cause of the disease, but the impurities in the
soil which the varying level of the ground water helps to set in
action.' Now, no organic impurity can possibly reach the soil from
the subsoil, which is purely inorganic. Any organic impurity which
reaches the ground water must, therefore, come from above, and is due
in the vast majority of cases to our mismanagement of organic refuse.
Dr. Sims Woodhead[7] says that '_the deeper layers_ of the earth are
frequently almost entirely free from micro-organisms, _just as is the
ground water_.' Of course if the soil of a city be porous, and if there
be a subterranean network of sewers interspersed with cesspools, this
would (in the high probability that an average proportion of these
contrivances leak) constitute a very great danger, but we must not
blame the earth because we mismanage it. The earth, be it remembered,
is our sole permanent source of wealth, and we must not needlessly
quarrel with our bread-and-butter.
This world would not be habitable were it not for the humus with which
its bare rocks are clothed. The humus is the living covering of the
skeleton, and its formation has taken ages. The primitive bare rock
which has been 'weathered' by the changing seasons gets clothed with
a growth of lichen. This thin but rough covering entangles stray
particles, and thus by its own decay affords a nidus for a stronger
growth. This stronger growth, by chemical action and physical force,
works further into the rock, on which the soaking rains and rending
frosts have an increasing effect, and thus, partly by the disruption
of the inorganic rock, and partly by the increase in ever-growing
quantities of vegetable decay, the humus rises, as it were, 'on
stepping-stones of its dead self' until it is able to afford footing
and nourishment for the stately forest tree, and its fertility finally
becomes sufficient to attract the attention of the husbandman. This
humus, the loose, mainly organic covering of the rocks, is formed,
as we have seen, by crumbling rocks from below and by the constant
additions of dead organic matter which are deposited upon the surface.
These additions of organic matter, be they in the form of dead animals,
dead leaves, dung, or what not, become humified, and thus the stock
of humus tends steadily to increase. The greater the stock of humus
the greater the fertility, and the greater the fertility the greater
will be the amount of dead organic matter to increase the stock of
humus. The conversion of the dead organic matter into humus is a
biological process, and is caused by the animals which live in the
humus, and is perfected by the growth of fungi. On this account I
ventured some years ago to speak of the humus as the 'Living Earth,'
and I take it that no more important addition has ever been made to
the stock of human knowledge than the recognition that the humus teems
with life, and that its fertility and healthiness depend entirely upon
biological processes. If the humus be sterilised, either by heat or
antiseptics, it becomes absolutely barren. It was at one time supposed
that the fertility of the soil depended mainly upon the process of
nitrification, whereby nitrogenous organic matter is converted into
soluble nitrates which are absorbed by the roots of plants, and there
can be no doubt that these nitrifying organisms are most important. The
causes of the fertility of the soil are probably far more complex than
we suppose, and I think it may be said that we are as yet only upon the
threshold of our knowledge with regard to them.
The phenomenon of 'symbiosis,' or the living together of
chlorophyll-bearing plants with those which have no chlorophyll in
so-called symbiotic community, where each partner works for its
fellow's good as well as its own, is far more common than was supposed.
Originally demonstrated in so-called lichens, which really consist of
symbioses of fungi and algæ, it was next shown in the papilionaceous
leguminosæ, whose nourishment appears to be largely dependent upon
so-called bacterial nodules which grow upon their roots, and, according
to my observations, more upon the superficial roots than those which
run more deeply. In Oliver's edition of Kerner's 'Natural History of
Plants'[8] will be found an account of symbioses between fungi and
big flowering plants in which 'the division of labour consists in
the fungus mycelium providing the green-leaved phanerogam with water
and food-stuffs from the ground, whilst receiving in return from its
partner such organic compounds as have been produced in the green
leaves.' 'The union of two partners always takes place underground, the
absorbent roots of the phanerogam being woven over by the filaments of
a mycelium.... As the root grows onward the mycelium grows with it,
accompanying it like a shadow.... The ultimate ramifications of roots
of trees 100 years old and the suction roots of year-old seedlings
are woven by the mycelial filaments in precisely the same manner.' It
is stated that many plants only flourish in symbiotic community, and
in this fact lies the explanation of the readiness of some plants to
grow and flourish from cuttings put in sand, or from seedlings grown
in nutritive solutions, while others, in the absence of the necessary
fungi encircling their roots, cannot be made to strike root or flourish
in this way. When it is stated that to the latter class belong oaks,
beeches, firs, willows, poplars, rhododendrons, and heaths, the
importance of symbiosis in this world will be readily understood. Now
we know why it is that the gardener prizes leaf-mould in spite of its
being comparatively poor in nitrogen as compared with guano. Leaf-mould
is full of fungi, and in it the plant readily establishes its requisite
symbiosis.
This great and astounding fact of symbiosis, of which we have only
recently had cognisance, will serve to enforce the steadily growing
opinion that the sphere of the chemist is in all living processes
strictly limited. In estimating the value of artificial manures the
chemist's dictum is of the greatest value, but his analysis when used
to gauge the value of the living humus may be entirely misleading. The
chemist has told us again and again that the quantity of nitrogen in
humus and in earth-closet soil is, as compared with many artificial
manures, comparatively small, and therefore the mistake has been made
of regarding human fæces and the product of earth closets as of small
manurial value. I believe that such a statement is most misleading,
and on this point I claim to speak with no inconsiderable experience.
For the past ten years I have cultivated a garden of about an acre
and a quarter in extent in which the only manure used has been the
excremental and other refuse of some twenty cottages with about 100
inhabitants. In August 1895 I invited a party of the British Medical
Association to view that garden, and I think that none of my guests
on that occasion will refuse to admit that the garden was as full of
crops of one kind and another as a garden could well be. Dr. Voelcker,
the chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society, whom I had the honour
of numbering among my guests on that occasion, told me that he had
never seen a piece of ground more fully stocked, and he very kindly
went carefully round the garden with me to see if his experienced eye
could detect any sign of sickness in the soil. I have never detected
any such signs, and neither could he. The garden affords no evidence of
being overdone with manure, and my belief is that it would take a great
deal more. This ten years' experience has convinced me that human fæces
constitute a manure of the greatest value, all analyses to the contrary
notwithstanding. The probable explanation lies in the fact that the
microbes extruded with the fæces are of great value in developing the
fertility of the humus.
Many recent experiences in sanitation and in medicine force upon
us the conclusion that the value of chemical analysis in biological
questions is not final. Water which has been found to contain the
bacillus of typhoid fever has passed the tests of the chemist, and
there can be little doubt that in the past many samples of wholesome
water have been condemned for containing the products, in the form of
nitrates, of oxidised organic matter. Again, the action of toxins and
antitoxins is quite beyond the reach of the chemist, and the marvellous
results which have been obtained by administering thyroid extract
teach us that in dietetics there is something which the chemist cannot
gauge. Raw thyroid and cooked thyroid would give the same results on
analysis, but how different is the physiological result! How different
is the action of the carefully dried stomach of the calf in the form
of rennet or pepsin as compared with a dish of tripe! These facts must
force upon us the speculation that the same thing may produce very
different effects according to the temperature to which it may have
been artificially raised by drying under a vacuum or by cooking, and
must drive us to the conclusion that although it may be advisable under
certain circumstances to boil our milk or our water, it is possible
that the act of cooking may change, we know not to what degree, the
physiological action of the milk or water which has been thus treated.
My experience tells me that the chemists are wrong when they say that
human excreta are of small manurial value. Their analyses are doubtless
right, but their conclusions are erroneous and very dangerously
misleading. In this statement I should be supported by the whole of the
'Far Eastern' nations.
The ultimate manurial value of urine is doubtless very great, although
when pure or nearly pure it is very deadly to herbage. The only
satisfactory way of using urine as a manure is to imitate the farmer,
by mixing it with an absorbent material, such as straw, sawdust,
peat, earth, paper, cotton waste, wool waste, &c., placing it upon the
surface of the ground and digging or ploughing it in.
The best evidence that the humus is alive is the fact that it breathes.
The fungi which are destitute of chlorophyll absorb oxygen and give off
carbonic acid, in this respect resembling animals and differing from
the chlorophyll-bearing plants. The most easily obtained evidence of
this is the fact that decaying refuse generates heat, a fact which is
easily ascertained by using a thermometer. Thus I have at present in
the garden of my cottage in the Thames Valley a heap of privet leaves
intermixed with a quantity of fine twigs which give it great porosity
and serve to admit a large quantity of air. On the morning of October
21 the temperature of the air was 39° F., and the temperature of the
heap of leaves was 57° (18° more than the air). On October 22 there
was a heavy cold rain with a cold easterly wind. On the morning of
October 23 the temperature of the air was 40° and the temperature of
the heap of leaves was 56°. On the night of October 23-24 there was
(for the time of year) a very severe frost. My heap of leaves on the
morning of the 24th was solidified on the surface by the frost, but
the temperature of the interior was 53° while that of the air was 30°
(an increase of 23° over the air). This heap, it should be stated, is
only a small heap, and would all go into a big wheelbarrow. On the
morning of October 24, after taking the temperature of this heap, I
turned it over with a fork, putting the frozen top in the centre and
altering the position of the constituents of the heap. A quarter of
an hour later the temperature of the heap was found to be 32°, and
at seven in the evening it was still at freezing-point, or only just
above it. The night of October 24-25 was again very frosty, as many
as 12° of frost having been registered at a house close by. At eight
in the morning of the 25th, however, my heap of leaves showed a
temperature of 40°, having risen 8° during this very cold night, and
being 20° above the minimum cold recorded in the night. At 7 P.M. on
the 25th the temperature of the heap was 42°, and the next morning,
after a third very cold and frosty night, it had risen to 45°. The
rise of temperature here was clearly due to the respiration of living
things, and could not have been in any degree caused by absorption of
sun heat. (Since the above was written autumn has come upon us, and
the fallen leaves have been collected into a big heap. On November 15
the temperature of this heap was found to be 62° F., and a week later
(November 22) had risen to 104° F.!) The fact that the humification of
organic matter generates heat is a fact which is of enormous practical
value to the gardener and farmer. The market gardens round London,
which produce astounding crops and assimilate an enormous quantity of
dung, are in a sense extended and mild hotbeds. One hopes that those
who are advocating the burning of organic refuse will pause to think,
however necessary such a process may be under certain circumstances,
how great is the dispersion of energy which such a process involves and
how much heat is lost which might otherwise be used for the stimulation
of germination and growth in seeds and plants. One hopes also that
those who would condemn as foul the humus which contains a large amount
of carbonic acid will remember that this gas may only be an evidence
of perfectly healthy and vigorous action. The important fact that the
tillers of the soil are the most long-lived of all the laboring classes
is one which must never be lost sight of.
That the humus breathes and generates an enormous quantity of carbonic
acid precisely as an animal does is a fact which the agriculturist must
ever bear in mind. Many of the operations of the farm have for their
object the loosening of the soil and the admission of air to enable
the respiratory processes to go on. Every farmer will tell you that
the earlier he can get upon the ground to hoe his turnips the better
will be the crop (other things being equal), and every farmer knows the
advantage of thorough tillage. If the respiration of the humus is an
important fact, it becomes very important indeed not to drown it. It
stands drowning no better than a man does, but, like a man, it requires
a requisite amount, but not too much, to drink. There can be no doubt
that the failure, which is almost general, of so-called sewage farming
arises through the drowning of the humus; and it must be borne in mind
that sewage water consists to a very considerable extent of water which
has been boiled, or is hard, deep well water, and has not the valuable
quality of rain-water of containing some 2·5 volumes per cent. of
atmospheric air dissolved in it. There can be little doubt that the
great trouble to the sewage farmer is the excess of water which drowns
the humus. When three or four ounces of excrement are mixed with 1,200
times their weight of water they run small chance of humification, and
one must fear that the difficulties of the sewage farmer (financial
or agricultural, or both) must increase with the magnificence and
extravagance of the water-supply of the town the sanitary interests of
which the sewage farm is intended to subserve. The evil effects of too
much water have come before me lately in two very striking examples.
While going over the experimental farm belonging to Mr. H. C. Stephens,
M.P., at Cholderton, on Salisbury Plain, this autumn (which I did in
company with a large number of practical agriculturists), there were
here and there noticeable in the middle of fields having a uniform
quality of soil, and which had been treated in identical fashions,
certain large patches over which the growth of turnips, as compared
with the rest of the fields was very defective. The explanation
offered was that on these patches the animals had been folded in wet
weather, that the dung had been trodden into the ground, and the soil
had been hardened and consolidated by the trampling of the beasts.
Under such conditions (air not being adequately admitted to the pores
of the soil) the humification of the dung had been hindered and the
crops stunted in consequence. This was a fact new to me, who am only
an amateur agriculturist; but I may state that it was unanimously and
unreservedly accepted as an adequate explanation by all the farmers
present, who seemed to be perfectly familiar with the consequences
of folding cattle in the wet. On the other hand, the most fertile
patch of the whole farm was where the cattle had been folded for a
fortnight continuously on the same spot during the severe frost of last
winter, and had been fed upon food which was necessarily brought to
them on that spot. The ground being as hard as iron could not be more
consolidated by trampling, and with the advent of the thaw there was a
general disruption of soil and dung, and humification went on rapidly
in earth of which the pores had been opened by the beneficent effects
of a deep frost, and which had received an amount of dung which was
exceptionally great.
Another experience was a visit to a sewage farm belonging to a town in
which brewing is the staple industry. This farm was large (nearly twice
as big as at one time was considered necessary) and was composed of a
very porous, gravelly soil in a high situation. The manager was an able
man, and one felt that if success was to be obtained it was here. But
the amount of water pumped on to this ground was exceptionally great,
amounting at times to as much as 150 gallons per head of population
per diem. The result can be imagined. The humus was drowned, and large
tracts of the farm were as wet as a marsh, bore no crops, and never
could be made to bear any under such conditions. As soon as it had been
saturated it was ploughed up and saturated again, there being no time
(let alone other considerations) to grow crops in face of the huge
volumes of water which had to be dealt with. Those parts of the farm
which were under cultivation grew enormous quantities of water-grass,
a noxious weed, and altogether the agricultural aspects of this estate
were as gloomy as could well be. As for the effluent, it was thick and
turbid, and stunk like a dirty brewery. It was impossible to believe
that the effluent had been rendered safe for discharge into a river,
and its cost must have approached that of the beer which was sold in
the adjoining town. The amount of water seemed to be the trouble here,
and clearly the first duty of the municipality would be to divert
directly into the river all the storm water and all the water which
was used in enormous quantities for refrigerating purposes, and which,
being perfectly wholesome, might go into the stream direct. A visit to
the pumping-station of this municipality was most unpleasant for the
nostrils, and left upon me the impression that the Local Government
Board would do well to insist that all sewage committees should have
a board-room at the pumping-station and another at the farm, and
should be allowed to deliberate in no other place. The humification
of excrement in the presence of such an overpowering amount of water
is impossible, and I believe that municipalities which are now busy
diverting storm water will have to go further and deal with excreta,
domestic slop-water, and manufacturers' effluents on different and
separate systems. I confess I should like to see water-closets dealt
with on an independent system by a vacuum principle such as is
advocated by Shone and Liernur. Manufacturers' refuse, which is liable
to contain chemicals and antiseptics, is so likely to kill the humus
by poison as well as by drowning that it seems impossible to deal
with it on any one system, and it is to be hoped that with the advance
of chemistry it may be increasingly possible to turn manufacturing
effluents to profitable account.
It is now more than ten years ago since I first deliberately drew
attention to the shortcomings of modern sanitary methods, and pointed
out that the safe disposal of organic refuse was a question of which
the biologist, rather than the engineer or chemist, would give us the
solution. It is a hopeful sign of the times that engineers are now
recognising this fact, thanks mainly to the teaching of the Board of
Health in Massachusetts. The purification of sewage is wrought by the
presence of living organisms on the filters; and for the due filtration
of drinking-water it is now admitted that the filtering material must
have a coating of living slime. These are facts which are now all but
universally admitted.
Our go-ahead municipalities, formed on democratic lines, are more
ostentatious than the worst of Roman emperors. The London County
Council wished at one time to give 750,000_l._ for a _site_ for its
house! The central ideas of modern municipalism are the raising of
loans and the sweating of the ratepayer. It must be remembered that
there is no relation between magnificence and real efficiency. For
example, in a town which I sometimes visit I am always interested by a
stately pageant consisting of a huge conveyance weighing at least half
a ton and looking like a cross between a railway truck and a hearse.
This is drawn by a horse weighing 15 or 16 cwt., and this horse is
guarded by two men weighing, perhaps, 12 st. apiece. Inside the hearse
are eighteen huge pails weighing 40 lb. each, and inside the pails are
the weekly excreta of ninety people, which should, if properly managed,
certainly not weigh more than 200 lb. or 300 lb. In short, there are
about 30 cwt. of gear for the removal of at most 3 cwt. of material.
This cumbrous array works, it need hardly be said, at a funereal pace,
and there can be no doubt that a lad with a hand-truck coming every day
would do the work far more rapidly, efficiently, and cheaply.
It must be borne in mind that the fertility of the soil should bear
a certain proportion to the density of population, and that the
ability of land to support its population ought steadily to increase,
especially if the population enjoys the blessings of free trade. I
may perhaps best illustrate my meaning by referring again to the
visit which I paid to the farm of Mr. H. C. Stephens, M.P. The down
lands which comprise this district consist of a very few inches of
humus overlying chalk, the herbage is scanty, and the population of
animals (in relation to acreage) necessarily very small. One of the
difficulties which the farmer has had to encounter in this district is
the obtaining of sufficient water for his stock, and perhaps the most
important work which Mr. Stephens has done is to sink a deep well in
the chalk. This well, worked by a wind engine and provided with storage
reservoirs, gives a supply of water which may be regarded as unlimited.
With good water-supply, ample area, and the possibility of importing
food which the neighbouring railway affords, it became possible to
maintain a very large number of sheep, oxen, and horses for farm and
breeding purposes. The animals are all folded, and the whole of their
dung is returned to the soil, and the effect produced by this large
addition of organic matter cannot fail to strike the visitor, who
finds in spots where the herbage was previously so thin as to approach
barrenness that he now has to wade knee-deep through a thick felt of
grass. All over the farm the effect of adding this organic matter to
the soil is everywhere apparent, and it is certain that the need of
imported food-stuffs for the animals must diminish in proportion
to the increase of fertility of the farm. This estate on Salisbury
Plain realises, in fact, the utopia of which I have spoken in 'Rural
Hygiene'[9]—_i.e._, a place where there are water-pipes but no sewer
pipes. The indispensable water has by skilful but comparatively simple
engineering been brought within easy reach of the human and animal
population, but the organic excrements and other refuse, instead of
being washed away into a neighbouring valley to poison the inhabitants
there, are retained upon the soil to provide extra herbage, extra meat,
extra work, and extra wages, with increased contentment and no loss of
health. The increased fertility of the soil must have the effect of
counteracting poverty and diminishing that charge upon the land known
as the Poor-rate, and as for sanitary rates, the very essence of the
progress I have been describing consists in the fact that there are
none to pay. When the members of the local council in this utopia have
mended the roads and paid for the school they may return with a clear
conscience to their own business, instead of meddling with that of
other people.
The fact that the potential increase of the fertility of the soil is
to a certain extent proportioned to the increase of population is a
political and economical fact of fundamental importance. The fertility
of the soil of a country which imports millions of tons of food
ought steadily to increase, and I believe that but for counteracting
circumstances free trade ought to have benefited the farmer equally
with all other classes of the community. If the enormous quantity of
excremental and refuse matters due to free trade had been placed upon
the land to increase the national stock of humus the fertility of the
soil must have increased proportionately, and the fall in prices due
to the competition of imported food would have been proportionately
counteracted. If on the farm at Cholderton which I have been describing
the well water had been used for washing all the excrement of the
animals into the nearest river there could have been no increase of
fertility of the soil, and the animals must have been dependent upon
imported cake and other food-stuffs to a degree which would never
vary, instead of, as at present, tending steadily to get less. Among
the nostrums which have been suggested for the relief of agricultural
distress are 'light railways,' but as imports and exports are apt to
balance themselves, one would fear that the light railway, for every
truss of hay or sack of corn which it conveys to the nearest junction,
will bring back a frozen carcase of meat or its equivalent. If,
however, these light railways (and the existing railways) can bring
the refuse of the towns on to the land to increase the agricultural
capital in the form of humus, the farmers will certainly have more to
sell and our need of imported food (per head of population) will tend
steadily to get less. Until—if I may use the expression—we make some
serious effort to leave our imported 'cake' upon the land in a form in
which it can be advantageously utilised, our needs for importation will
never get less, and our state of scare as to the sufficiency of our
Navy will get steadily worse as the population increases. It is very
bad policy for railways to charge exorbitant rates for the conveyance
of dung, because the less dung they import the less will be the export
of produce on the return journey. It is impossible to doubt that the
man who increases the fertility of the soil of a country deserves
well of that country and should be encouraged by the State and his
fellow-countrymen. Professor Otis Mason of Washington has gone so far
as to say: 'The form of law which does not _decrease_ the amount of
taxation proportionally to the yield per acre is not in the line of
progress.' And again: 'Any law which punishes a man with taxation for
preventing waste, recuperating worn acres, or developing the latent
resources of nature, is wicked.' There can be no doubt that taxation
presses very hardly upon agriculturists, especially those whose land
happens to be within the boundary of a 'progressive' corporation. I
have mentioned (p. 149) a friend who farms 200 acres of land (of which
fifteen are grass) in the Thames Valley who pays more than 300_l._ a
year in imperial and local taxes. This is due to the fact that he is
under the heel of a 'progressive' board, which, finding it can borrow
money at 3 per cent., is making full use of its powers and is fast
converting a pretty village into something scarcely distinguishable
from Houndsditch.
We may now profitably turn to the consideration of Malaria, a disease
which is undoubtedly connected with the soil and which has its habitat
in the soil of certain places. Malaria requires for its development
decaying organic matter, a high or moderately high temperature, and
usually an excess of moisture. Tropical marshes are the elected seats
of malaria, but not the exclusive seats, for it is known that certain
rocks and arid plains, as well as the sandy estuaries of rivers,
are liable to be malarious. The one thing which all, or almost all,
malarious districts have in common is the fact that they are barren,
or nearly so, uncultivated, and in many cases uncultivable. Malaria is
rare in England, but once it was common, and we must not forget that
James I. and Cromwell are both of them said to have been victims of
this disease, which was rife in London in their time, especially in the
Essex marshes and on the south side of the Thames, in Lambeth Marsh
and the adjoining districts. An undrained country is uncultivable,
and it has been found that drainage followed by cultivation has in
this country enormously lessened the amount of malarious disease.
Cultivation of land finishes the work begun by artificial drainage.
The soil is dried and aërated by tillage, and the organic matter, when
the humus is no longer drowned, is oxidised, and goes to nourish plants
and trees, which effect an upward drainage no less important than
the downward drainage, while the oxygen exhaled by the green leaves
cannot but benefit the air of the locality. If we wish to keep clear of
malaria in this country we must till the soil and so nourish the humus
that its produce may be sufficiently valuable to bear the expense of
any artificial drainage which it may be necessary to maintain. If the
land of this country goes out of cultivation, as in places it seems to
be doing, I see no reason why we or our successors should not witness
a recrudescence of malarious disease in localities which are prone to
develop it.
It will not be unprofitable in this connection to consider the history
of the Roman Campagna. It is generally admitted that the Roman Campagna
was not always the desolate waste which it ultimately became. It was
prone to malaria, doubtless, but this was kept in check by the large
farming population. It is not conceivable that in days when locomotion
was slow a city could have attained the proportions and importance of
Rome if it had been situated in the middle of a sterile and malarious
plain. The neglect of agriculture began in the Augustan age, when Rome
was at the zenith of her power, and it is worthy of note that Mæcenas
is credited with having incited Virgil to write the 'Georgics' in order
to direct, by this fascinating method, the attention of the Roman
people to the neglected joys of agriculture. With the acquisition of
fertile districts in Africa and elsewhere, not only did the need for
home-grown commodities decrease, but it is probable that the profits of
home farming decreased also. Corn was imported in enormous quantities,
while the expenses connected with the defence of the Empire led to
such a merciless taxation of the landholder that in self-defence he was
obliged to allow his land to go out of cultivation, and thus escape
from the brutal exactions of the tax-gatherer. According to Gibbon,
within sixty years of the death of Constantine 320,000 acres of the
district of Campania had become barren. Further, there can be no doubt
that the Cloaca Maxima and other cloacæ sent to the Tiber much, if not
all, of the organic refuse which should have been returned to the land.
Finally, there can be little doubt that the extravagant water supply
of ancient Rome must have had the effect of causing neglect of local
wells, and as the water of the aqueducts was supplied to places in
the Campagna as well as to Rome itself, the discontinuance of pumping
must have helped to leave moisture in the soil at the same time that
an extra supply from a distance was giving an additional quantity to
it. As these great works of engineering did away with the necessity of
manual labour, and as the barren land stood in no need of husbandmen,
it is not to be wondered at that the problem of the unemployed grew
urgent in Rome. We hear that in the later days of the Empire the
masses congregated at the baths or waited whole days at the doors
of the amphitheatre while they were fed with doles of bread or corn
supplied from the public granaries. With a dense idle population and
with barren and unwholesome surroundings the amenities of Rome as an
imperial residence declined, and on this account it was probably that
Diocletian seldom visited it; and one cannot but think that the social
and sanitary conditions of the capital were among the causes which led
Constantine to abandon it in favour of his new city on the Bosphorus.
Finally, one is not surprised to hear that when Alaric took the city in
the beginning of the fifth century he did so, not by direct assault,
but by seizing the huge granaries and magazines at the Port of Ostia,
and then offering to the unhappy Romans the choice of surrender or
starvation. We are often asked to admire the Roman aqueducts, and Rome
is not infrequently held up to us as a model to be copied. I fear we
are copying her only too exactly, and I fear that equally with Rome we
shall find out the futility of a brutal and reckless expenditure mainly
directed towards the starvation of the soil and a senseless struggle
with conditions imposed on us by Nature. I have heard it suggested
that the cultivation of the soil of England is of no importance, that
our islands are destined for residential and manufacturing purposes
only, and that our sustenance is to depend entirely upon 'big-bellied
argosies' bearing all the treasures of more fertile climes. But the
cultivation of the soil and the nurturing of the humus have important
bearings upon questions other than food supply, and if we continue to
starve the humus and to convey our filth beneath it instead of upon it,
I fear that the cost of living in this country is likely to increase,
while the pleasures of existence will diminish.
The moral of all that I have been saying is to the effect that to
nourish the humus and to till it are the inexorable duty of the
sanitarian. This simple duty is the key to plentiful food and a good
supply of wholesome water. Nature is relentless, and will sooner or
later destroy those who neglect to follow her inexorable laws. We
used to say that 'the weakest' (morally, physically, and mentally)
'must go to the wall.' Now we use the expression 'survival of the
fittest' to express the same idea. Nature does not relent, but man, in
his commendable efforts towards philanthropy, endeavours to relent,
and hence the principle underlying much modern sanitary work is the
attempt to bring about the survival of the unfittest. If I may judge
from the criticisms to which at one time and another the ideas which
I have put forward have been subjected, I may conclude that the
principles advocated are considered right, but that the lowest classes
of our population are not to be trusted to safeguard to any extent
the wholesomeness of their homes. Therefore we are all asked to come
down to the level of the dirtiest and most careless, and our sanitary
methods (in which there is too much of Hercules and too little of
Minerva) do not admit of any encouragement being given to those living
within a municipal boundary who may be so circumstanced that they can
adopt the principles I have advocated. No! we must all be tarred with
the same brush, and no quarter is given to those who refuse to allow
the municipality to be put to the trouble and expense of robbing them
of stuff which they find invaluable on their own land. In Hampshire
I have spent a considerable sum of money in freeing the river from
some pollution and saving trouble to the town. Incidentally, I have
improved the value of a house, and, of course, the rates of that house
have been raised. Such a fact is a most effectual check upon the vast
majority of those who might wish to imitate what they may approve of
in principle, and I feel assured that no real advance in sanitation
will be made until there is an equitable adjustment of sanitary rates
and we have the right, if we desire it, to pay for water by meter.
That water should be paid for according to rateable value, and that
the rating authority and the water authority should be identical,
seems to me to be an arrangement which the ratepayer will possibly
find irksome. The greatest of sanitary troubles in the present day is
overcrowding, and this trouble is greatly fostered by our methods of
sanitation. And yet we find responsible persons suggesting that open
spaces should be taxed at 'site value,' while at the same time they are
willing to spend any amount of millions in bringing water from Wales
because they think that eventually their dangerously dense population
will have a density twice as great. We shall some day recognise the
futility of fighting against Nature. It is the engineer's business to
overcome natural obstacles, and we of the medical profession cannot
but have the greatest admiration for the many distinguished members of
that sister profession which, by its skill and daring, has in countless
ways assisted the development of our commerce and manufactures. They
have, indeed, 'expelled Nature with a pitchfork,' but it behoves us to
remember the rest of the quotation. We must distinguish also between
brilliancy of achievement and the end attained. We all of us admire the
brilliant men who made the Thames Tunnel, built the 'Great Eastern'
steamship, and gave us the luxury of the broad-gauge railway; but it
is doubtful if the original shareholders in those enterprises would
participate in our enthusiasm. Money will accomplish nearly anything
in the engineering way, and it is not the engineer's business to
consider the financial side of the question. I have always had a shrewd
suspicion that Archimedes was possibly less admired by the Syracusan
ratepayer than by the rest of the world, and I have often pondered
whether, had he lived in these days, and had made his famous request of
δὸς ποῦ στῶ, the Local Government Board would have sanctioned
the issuing of a Syracusan 3 per cent. stock to provide the fulcrum for
which he asked.
I frequently meet friends who say, 'I've been reading that article
of yours about the earth,' and so forth, and then, after patting one
on the back and being charmingly complimentary, they generally end
by asserting that, after all, the convenience of the water-closet
more than counteracts its disadvantages. The fascinations of this
winsome apparatus seem unconquerable, and one is bound to confess
that—provided the machine be of a good pattern and well made;
provided the plumber who sets it has knowledge and a conscience;
provided those who use it do not try its constitution with brickbats
and old boots; provided there is not a frost; and provided there is not
a drought—it does sweep out of the Cockney's house material of the
use of which he is ignorant, and for which he has no market. All the
difficulties and dangers of the water-closet are on the far side of the
trap, and do not trouble the householder. I feel inclined to paraphrase
the words which King Lear used to something equally fascinating and, as
he found, equally treacherous:—
'But to the syphon do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends'....
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
To sweeten my imagination.'
As a champion of individual liberty, I would say that those who in
country places wish for water-closets should pay for them, and those
who, for conscience' sake, do not pollute the rivers or starve the soil
should not be taxed to pay for the misdeeds of those who do.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Discourse delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain,
Friday, April 24, 1896.
[4] _Essays on Rural Hygiene_, 2nd ed. 1894. Longmans.
[5] Delivered before the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society on Oct.
30, 1895.
[6] Parkes' _Hygiene_, 8th edition, p. 10.
[7] _Bacteria and their Products_, p. 394. Walter Scott, 1891.
[8] Vol. i., p. 249.
[9] _Essays on Rural Hygiene_, 2nd edition. Longmans, 1894.
INDEX
Andover, garden at, 37, 159
— well at, 63
Animals, housing of, 59
Anthrax, 153
Aspect of dwelling, 13
Bacterium coli commune, 142
Bedroom windows, 21
Building regulations, 104
— societies, 91
Bungalow facing south, 13
Cellarage window, 28
Cellars, 27
Cholderton experimental farm, 163, 167
Cholera, 154
Circulation of organic matter, the, 125
Classification of refuse, 84
Construction of wells, 61
Corridors, the ventilation of, 9
Cost of the dwelling, the, 112
Defects in planning, 1
Diphtheria, 153
Dry catch privy, 39
— method of treating urine, 49
— methods, 32, 49
— refuse, 89
— urinals, 55
Earth-closets, indoor, 44
Enteric fever, 154
Fauna of death, the, 135
Filtration gutters, 78
—, intermittent, 83
Flora of excrements, the, 137
Garden at Andover, 37, 159
Generation of heat by decaying refuse, 161
Hospital construction, 9, 10
Hotel bedrooms, 19
House, the typical London, 3
Houses, damp, 26
Housing of animals, 59
Humification, 33
Indoor earth-closets, 44
Isolated dwelling, sanitation of the, 32, 41
Larders, 30
Local taxation, 147
London house, the typical, 3
— mortality, 144
Malaria, 170
Marylebone small-pox outbreak, the, 143
'Model' by-laws, 107
Mortality, London, 144
Overcrowding, 90
— final conclusions, 123
— remedies for, 115
Pail system, the, 42
Phthisis, 153
Planning, defects in, 1
Practical sanitation, 34
Principles of slop-drainage, 75
Putrescible fluids, 23
Rates, cubic contents in relation to, 120
Rating, 119
Refuse, classification of, 84
— dry, 89
Roman Campagna, 171
Rome, ancient, 171
Rooms, living, 18
Sanitation, practical, 34
— of the isolated dwelling, the, 32, 41
Sewage farms, 164
Slop-drainage, principles of, 75
Slop-water, 69
Soil, the, in relation to disease and sanitation, 153
Strand, the, 101
Symbiosis, 136, 157
Taxation, local, 147
Town dwellings, 87
Urinals, dry, 55
Urine, dry method of treating, 49
Ventilation of corridors, the, 9
Warming, 16
Water by meter, 118
Wells, construction of, 61, 141
Window, bedroom, 21
— cellarage, 28
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SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
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* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by ~tildes~.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Dwelling House, by George Vivian Poore