THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 

HEALTH AND LIFE 
 
HEALTH AND LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 M.A., LL.D., F.S.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO 
 THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND 
 
 " NATIONAL HEALTH ff^^lilB IS NATIONAL WEALTH " 
 
 LONDON 
 DALDY, ISBISTER & CO. 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL 
 1878 
 
 {Second Thousand] 
 
 Vli 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, 
 CITY ROAD. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 THE learned Editor of Good Words invited 
 me, two years ago, to write for the pages 
 of his journal some half-dozen papers on subjects 
 relating to Health. 
 
 I undertook the task, intending to produce 
 nothing more than a few chapters which would 
 serve the immediate purpose for which they were 
 intended, and would remain a part of periodical 
 literature. 
 
 When, however, the pen is in the hand of the 
 writer, he is apt, if the subject on which he 
 writes be congenial to him, to be led beyond his 
 original intention. It was so in this case. The 
 chapters increased in number until they were 
 sufficient to make a volume, while by the favour 
 of the public they received a welcome which in 
 the opinion of the publishers warrants their 
 appearance as a separate work. 
 
 They are now, therefore, respectfully pre- 
 
 M373155 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 sented between their own covers, not as at all 
 pretending to be completed in this form of 
 presentation, but rather as being the first of a 
 series of Health books, in which some of the 
 subjects forming the parts of this book shall be 
 rendered in a more comprehensive and inde- 
 pendent form. 
 
 12, HINDE STBEET, W., 
 March 1st, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAUT THE FIEST. 
 
 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER I. HEALTH AND CIVILISATION 3 
 
 II. HEALTH AND THRIFT . . . . .9 
 
 III. JEWISH VITALITY 16 
 
 IV. JEWISH VITALITY IN ENGLAND 25 
 
 . V. NATIONAL HEALTH 32 
 
 VI. MODERN PROGRESS AND HEALTH . . . .38 
 
 VII. THE ART OF HEALING 45 
 
 VIII. THE ART OF PREVENTION 52 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 AIE AND LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. VITALIZED AIR 63 
 
 X. USES OF AIR f 70 
 
 XI. AIR AS A FOOD 75 
 
 XII. DIFFUSION IN AIR 80 
 
 XIII. OZONIZED AIR 84 
 
 XFV. USES OF OZONE 90 
 
 ,, XV. OZONE AND DISEASE 94 
 
 XVI. DEVITALIZED AIR 100 
 
 XVII. DAMP, DARKNESS, AND COLD 106 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 XVIII. HEALTH AND ALIMENTATION 
 XIX. ESSENTIALS OF FOODS 
 
 XX. PREPARATION OF FOODS . 
 XXI. MODERN COOKERY 
 
 XXII. QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS 
 XXIII. ABSTINENCE FROM ALCOHOL 
 XXIV. DEBILITY FROM ALCOHOL . 
 
 PAGE 
 . 113 
 
 . 120 
 . 125 
 . 129 
 . 134 
 . 143 
 . 149 
 
 PAET THE FOURTH, 
 
 HABITATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. PRIMITIVE HABITATIONS : CAVE, CASTLE, AND 
 
 CLOISTER 157 
 
 XXVI. SANITARY RECONSTRUCTION .... 164 
 
 XXVII. A SANITARY MODEL : THE MODERN GAOL . .171 
 
 XXVIII. IDEAL OF A MODEL CITY 177 
 
 XXIX. IDEAL OF A MODEL HOUSE 185 
 
 XXX. A MODEL HOUSE : THE BASEMENT STORY . . 190 
 
 XXXI. A MODEL HOUSE : THE UPPER FLOORS . .195 
 
 PART THE FIFTH. 
 
 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. HEALTH AND LABOUR 203 
 
 XXXIII. MORTALITIES AND OCCUPATIONS .... 208 
 
 XXXIV. WORK AND LONG LIFE 212 
 
 XXXV. WORK AND SHORT LIFE 217 
 
 XXXVI. CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES .... 223 
 
 XXXVII. IDLENESS AS A DISEASE 232 
 
 XXXVIII. COMPETITION VCTSUS HEALTH .... 238 
 
 XXXIX. SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY .... 246 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGK 
 CHAPTER XL. RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD .... 254 
 
 XLI. GETTING UP 262 
 
 XLII. GOING TO SLEEP 267 
 
 PAET THE SIXTH. 
 
 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. SHADOWS OF THE MIND 275 
 
 XLIV. DECEPTIONS OF THE SENSES ..... 280 
 
 XLV. APPLIED HALLUCINATION 285 
 
 XLVI. PROJECTED VISIONS 290 
 
 PAET THE SEVENTH. 
 
 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. STATISTS AND HEALTH . . . . ' . 297 
 
 XLVIII. LEGISLATION AND HEALTH 304 
 
 XLIX. REGISTRATION OF DISEASE 310 
 
 L. DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD 316 
 
 LI. LEGISLATION AND GOOD "WATER .... 325 
 
 LII. LEGISLATION AND STRONG DRINK . . .330 
 
PAET I. 
 
 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 B 
 
I. 
 
 HEALTH AND CIVILISATION. 
 
 IF it be true that man in his past history has 
 been ever struggling against natural ob- 
 stacles towards greater advantages of health and 
 towards the happiness which accrues from the 
 possession of that acquirement, a notable im- 
 provement ought to be shown at the present day 
 in the conditions of health that are manifested 
 amongst our modern civilised communities. The 
 results in health should compare favourably 
 with those which existed in preceding and less- 
 favoured civilisations, or that exist in this day 
 in uncivilised tribes. I do not think there is 
 any reasonable doubt that the fact is as it should 
 be in this respect. 
 
 It may be urged that no comparison can be 
 instituted between the current civilised states and 
 those practically lost civilisations which marked 
 the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the ancient Greek, 
 and the ancient Eoman empires. I have heard 
 
4 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 it expressed by more than one admiring scholar 
 of those civilisations, that if we knew all the de- 
 tails of them which are now concealed we should 
 probably see in them a standard of excellence 
 which this age, in its most refined aspects, does 
 not approach. I bow to this opinion with the 
 knowledge that it is unanswerable. All I know 
 is, that nothing comes to my hand, no book, no 
 word, that conveys to the mind the idea of the 
 existence of any period when the human race, 
 existing under any form of known civilisation, 
 was freer of great pestilences, was freer of slowly 
 killing diseases, was freer of loathsome diseases 
 that do not necessarily kill, than it is at this 
 hour. 
 
 I turn to the fathers of medical science to find 
 them rich in their knowledge of diseases, know- 
 ledge which they could never have learned 
 unless the diseases had been before them as sub- 
 jects of study. I turn to the historians to find 
 the records of great devastations from plague, 
 pestilence, and famine. I read the poets telling 
 of the same, and of the vengeances of offended 
 deities. I find an ancient ruler, no less ancient 
 and no less cunning a ruler than Cambyses him- 
 self, teaching his son Cyrus lessons in sanitary 
 science as lessons then much needed. With regard 
 to health, Cyrus tells his father that " since he 
 has heard and seen that those states which seek 
 
HEALTH AND CIVILISATION. 5 
 
 for good health educate physicians, and that 
 commanders take with them physicians for the 
 sake of the soldiers, he too, therefore, as soon as 
 his present expedition was intrusted to him, gave 
 his attention to this subject, and thought that he 
 had with him very competent physicians." To 
 which the father, Cambyses, replies, " But these 
 physicians, my son, of whom thou speakest, are 
 like menders of torn garments, and thus they 
 cure those who have fallen sick. Thy chief 
 anxiety should be to provide for health ; for thou 
 oughtest to take care to prevent the army from 
 falling into sickness at all." And then he de- 
 scribes, as a modern and learned surgeon-general 
 might describe, what is to be dreaded, what is 
 to be avoided. He tells that the bodies and faces 
 of men are the signs of good health and bad 
 health ; and he adds other advice and observa- 
 tion which shows to us that in Cambyses 7 day, 
 in the midst of a very high ancient civilisation, 
 there was no special exemption from the thou- 
 sand natural ills that flesh is heir to. 
 
 I need wait no longer on this interesting 
 topic. Happily, proof nearer at hand is before 
 me for comparison of the modern with past life 
 proof which tells that with true civilisation 
 health ever appears in friendly communion. We 
 must not, however, rush at once to the conclu- 
 sion that health and longevity are developed 
 
6 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 with every phase of what is called modern civili- 
 sation. The modern civilised man conquers, and 
 in conquering drives the modern savage out of 
 existence, or leaves him part of a mere fragment 
 of a wandering tribe. But civilisation, however 
 refined it may be, however intellectual, inven- 
 tive, learned, or knowing it may be, is foolish 
 and helpless to check disease and death unless it 
 be wise as well as knowing, unless it be self- 
 sacrificing, and unless the passions of men, 
 which civilised life so variously modifies, are- 
 influenced by it in such a manner as to be held 
 from the influence of destructive causes. When 
 civilisation leads to excess of luxury ; when it 
 leads to excess of strain, mental or physical, 
 after wealth and the supposed advantages that 
 can only be purchased by wealth ; when it 
 spreads too eagerly the sails of commerce; when 
 it grasps too fiercely after conquest and domi- 
 nion; when it brings about collisions between 
 classes of men in the same population then it is 
 not an agency for the steady promotion of 
 national health and national life. 
 
 We, who would do all we can to improve the 
 health and life of the nation, must always bear 
 these truths in mind. Steadiness of national life 
 requires steady national repose. The political 
 soundness and safety of a nation are recorded in 
 the annals of its mortality. 
 
HEALTH AND CIVILISATION. 7 
 
 The best typical examples of communities 
 living under conditions most favourable to vital 
 integrity have been those which have been civi- 
 lised in the midst of the extremest simplicity, in 
 other words, in the midst of freedom from evils 
 incident to civilisation. This point will well 
 bear direct and practical illustration. 
 
 At the census of 1821 it was calculated that 
 in the English county of Monmouth the death- 
 rate was in the proportion of fourteen, and in 
 1 8 3 1 of twelve, in the thousand living. But from 
 the years 1841 to 1870, the death-rate of the 
 same county has presented a mean of twenty- 
 three in the thousand living, or nearly double 
 the rate that existed from 1821 to 1831. 
 
 The mortality tables by Edmonds show that 
 for the eighteen years from 1813 to 1830 the 
 mortality of England and Wales was at the 
 rate of 21-20 in the thousand living. From 
 1841 to 1870 the death-rate has been twenty- 
 two in the thousand living. 
 
 These examples could be multiplied, but they 
 are sufficient to indicate that what is commonly 
 called advancing civilisation is not sufficient of 
 itself, in detail, to insure a reduction of mortality 
 in a limited series of years. 
 
 "We cannot suppose that the county of Mon- 
 mouth is less civilised now than it was forty-six 
 years ago, yet its mortality has considerably 
 
8 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 increased. We cannot assume that England 
 altogether is less civilised than she was forty- 
 five years ago, yet her general mortality has 
 slightly increased. 
 
 What shall we say, then ? Shall we rush to 
 the conclusion that with our vaunted civilisation 
 we are passing into a lower phase of national life ? 
 Is our vital force on the decline ? Are learned 
 authors who have written on the decrease of 
 disease by civilisation, Marx and Willis, Berard, 
 Francis d'lvernois, Boudin, to be considered 
 dreamers ? Is it possible that we are blindly 
 and imperceptibly drifting into danger, wearing 
 out, as philosophers say the sun our master is ? 
 Or is there a mistake somewhere, and are we 
 improving, as we hope we are? Optimist or 
 pessimist, which is the authority ? 
 
 Before these questions can be answered, let us 
 look at another series of facts. Our balance will 
 then be more fairly poised. 
 
II. 
 
 HEALTH AND THRIFT. 
 
 IN the year 1700 the mortality of London was 
 computed as one in twenty-five ; that is to 
 say, as forty in the thousand. In the year 1801 
 it was computed as one in thirty-eight ; that is to 
 say, as twenty-six in the thousand. From 1841 
 to 1850 it was computed as one in forty ; that is 
 to say, twenty-five in the thousand. From 1861 
 to 1870 it was computed as one in forty-two ; 
 that is to say, twenty-four in the thousand. 
 These facts show a steady and remarkable pro- 
 gression in favour of health, as far as such pro- 
 gression is indicated by reduction of vitality. 
 Should the reduction continue, we may fairly 
 assume that, if the improvement does not move 
 faster even than it has moved, twenty persons 
 out of every thousand living will die in the year 
 1900, instead of the forty that died two hundred 
 years ago. One in fifty in the year 1900, instead 
 of one in twenty-five in the year 1700, will be 
 the mortality in the metropolis. 
 
io HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 If we apply the same test to England alto- 
 gether, we find that a century since, within two 
 years, the deaths were computed at one in forty, 
 or at the rate of twenty-five in the thousand 
 living. At the present time the deaths are one 
 in forty-five, or at the rate of twenty-two in the 
 thousand. This, it is true, is a small improve- 
 ment ; yet it indicates the position that with an 
 advance of civilised life there runs an advance of 
 actual life. The position is strengthened by the 
 further fact that whereas at the date of a hun- 
 dred years back the whole population of England 
 was barely eight millions and a half, in 1870' 
 it was twenty-two millions, seven hundred and 
 twelve thousand, two hundred and sixty-six, with 
 one cause of mortality, the overcrowding of popu- 
 lations, greatly increased. 
 
 Whither, then, are we led ? There seems before 
 us a statistical paradox, and some will say, as they 
 read, that statistics can be made to prove anything. 
 Eeally, there is no paradox, and the statistics, 
 as is commonly the case, prove, when they are- 
 honestly read, the simple and consistent truth. 
 
 To read the facts correctly it is necessary to 
 classify them as they lie within or in the circum- 
 ference of the period of time in which they have 
 been produced, and to remember that the greater 
 circle includes the lesser. Taken in this way, 
 we learn that in the wider circle of time the 
 
HEALTH AND THRIFT. n 
 
 mortality of the nation has been reduced ; while 
 in the smaller circles there have been periods in 
 which the reduction has ceased, or has even been 
 replaced by a slight increase. 
 
 At the same time it must be confessed that 
 improvement so far is extremely slow, and is, 
 indeed, so finely balanced, it is hard to predict 
 whether it will or will not be maintained. 
 National health is national wealth, but the re- 
 verse is not equally true. National wealth is 
 not, of necessity, national health. I fear the 
 contrary is nearest the truth. If we could invent 
 a social state in which health of life and wealth 
 of life would co- exist, we should have a state 
 where a noble intellectual civilisation would be 
 combined with a very frugal mode of subsistence, 
 with moderation of pleasure, and with such 
 restraint of passion, that violence of character 
 would never be exhibited by those who wished 
 to be accounted sane. With this state would be 
 connected all the external sanitary requirements 
 for the maintenance of health, and to these ad- 
 vantages would be added a due prudence in 
 respect to marriage, so that marriages would not 
 be contracted until the married had the means 
 necessary for maintaining the life of the offspring 
 that result from their union. The last-named 
 provision is possibly the primary and essential ; 
 for death is the shadow of birth. 
 
12 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 A valuable lesson on this subject has been 
 written by a very able reviewer, in relation to 
 the life value of the inhabitants of the little 
 town of Montreux, a parish in the canton of 
 Yaud, in Switzerland. The facts, and the argu- 
 ment based on the facts, run somewhat in the 
 following order. The records of Montreux, 
 which had been faithfully kept for several years 
 by the good pastor, M. Bridel, showed that the 
 population was limited to two thousand eight 
 hundred and thirty-three souls, and told all that 
 related to the life-history of this self-contained 
 community. The births were at the rate of one 
 in forty-five, the deaths one in sixty-four, an- 
 nually, or 15*62 in the thousand living. The 
 writer compared this mortality with that of a 
 Eusso- Greek population existing at the same 
 period of time, in which population the births 
 were one in seventeen, and the deaths one in 
 twenty-five, i.e. at the rate of forty in the 
 thousand. Mark ! says he, the figures which 
 announce the proportional mortality of these 
 contrasted communities. In the Eussian com- 
 munity one-twenty-fifth disappear annually; in 
 Montreux one-sixty-fourth. The Eussian gene- 
 rations passed away more than twice as rapidly 
 as the population of Montreux. Who would 
 purchase the advantage, equivocal at best, of a 
 triple number of births, accompanied by this 
 
HEALTH AND THRIFT. 13 
 
 enormous multitude of premature deaths ? In 
 Montreux, four-fifths of those born reached the 
 age of twenty, while in the Eussian diocese of 
 Nisni Novgorod, out of one thousand baptized, 
 six hundred and sixty-one perished before their 
 fifteenth year. The nuptial garments of the 
 mothers were the destined shroud of the first- 
 born. In the Eusso-Greek community the 
 march of life, seemingly so fruitful and rapid, if 
 it had been calculated by the birth rate alone, 
 was, in fact, the most murderous in Europe. In 
 the Swiss community the march of life, so seem- 
 ingly slow, if estimated by the same method, 
 was towards health and a steady and improving 
 vital progress. 
 
 When this writer came to inquire into the 
 cause of these differences, he traced the rate of 
 death to the rate of birth, under conditions 
 favourable or unfavourable to persistence of life. 
 He found that the advance of a population, and 
 its condition with regard to subsistence, are 
 universally correlative, and that a state of com- 
 fort stands in relation to the rate of increase, 
 either as cause or effect. If the rate is rapid, 
 the state of comfort is in the relation of cause. 
 If the rate is slow, the state of comfort is its 
 effect. Thus the conditions of ease, and the con- 
 sequent health of the social body sustained at 
 Montreux, were due to the comparative slowness 
 
14 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 and circumspection with which its successive 
 races were brought upon the scene of the world. 
 
 The secret of success for securing the low 
 mortality, and a social state in which the happy 
 circumstances of one generation were handed 
 down unimpaired to the next, was assigned by 
 this excellent writer to Swiss forethought and the 
 virtue of continence. These civilised peasants of 
 a Swiss village conserved their health, conserved 
 their lives, maintained a condition of ease, and 
 thereby a condition of social health, simply by 
 the comparative slowness and circumspection 
 with which their successive races were brought 
 upon the scene of the world. In Montreux the 
 nuptial garments of the mother were not destined 
 to serve as the shroud of the first-born. 
 
 It would be urged that the comparison I have 
 borrowed between the death rate of a community 
 of Switzers and a community of Eussian Greeks 
 is not strictly applicable to our communities of 
 modern English type. Unfortunately the com- 
 parison admits of application. For the Eusso- 
 Greek population of a past day I may substitute 
 an English community of the present, which 
 cannot, in the ordinary sense of the term, be 
 considered less civilised than Montreux was forty 
 years ago. In Liverpool, from the year 1861 to 
 1870, the deaths were at the rate of thirty-nine 
 in the thousand annually. For the little Swiss 
 
HEALTH AND THRIFT. 15 
 
 population at Montreux it would be difficult to 
 substitute au English population of the present 
 day in which the deaths are at the rate of less 
 than sixteen in the thousand as a regular occur- 
 rence. 
 
 Whatever may be the favouring influences, 
 then, of our modern civilisation, and no one can 
 fail to admit there are favouring influences, 
 they must be accepted, qualified by the know- 
 ledge that they can only prove their value when 
 they are sustained by moral influences which lie 
 apart from them in a sanitary point of view. 
 The fact is obvious that some communities, by 
 virtue of certain physical or moral laws, exhibit 
 a high standard of health and longevity without 
 being dependent for their health and longevity 
 on what we sanitarians call strict formal sanitary 
 rules. Nay, they exist sometimes in the absence 
 of, or it may be in opposition to, certain of the 
 sanitary rules on which an exaggerated or faith- 
 ful reliance is commonly placed. 
 
III. 
 
 JEWISH VITALITY. 
 
 THE effect of social prudence on health and life 
 is strikingly illustrated in the history of the 
 Jewish communities and their vitalities, in modern 
 times. 
 
 The Jews, spread throughout the world in 
 small clusters of population, have been unusually 
 healthy and tenacious of life. That they should 
 exist at all is one of the marvels of history. 
 That they should exist as they do, and present 
 the vitality they do, adds even marvel to marvel. 
 Of no other people can it be so truly said that 
 the advancing civilisation of the nations in which 
 they have been cast has been a ban and a curse. 
 Yet concerning them the saying is too true. 
 From the time of their great revolt under their 
 last great leader, Barchochebas, in the reign of 
 the Emperor Adrian, a revolt which ended in the 
 complete destruction of their city as a home for 
 them, their career has been one incessant struggle 
 
JEWISH VITALITY. 17 
 
 with fate for very life. From the time of Justi- 
 nian and Justinian law, they have had to compete 
 not only with the difficulties caused by nature, 
 but with the legal difficulties raised by more cruel 
 and more specifically directed powers against 
 them than those of nature, viz. the powers 
 of the men who gave them permission to live 
 and be persecuted. They have been debarred 
 political rights and social privileges. They have 
 been born in circumstances most unfavourable to 
 healthy development : they have been forced to 
 live in special and overcrowded quarters of great 
 cities. They have been pressed to supply the 
 wants of their oppressors, when their own wants 
 were far greater than were the wants of those 
 who oppressed them. They have been often 
 deprived of the highest services which the heal- 
 ing science gave to their more fortunate and 
 favoured compeers. They have been cut off 
 from advantages of education which to others 
 were offered in the choicest forms. 
 
 In the midst of all these adversities and depri- 
 vations the Jews have continued to live, and, 
 what is more remarkable, have continued to live 
 exhibiting a healthier life and a longer life than 
 others amongst whom they have been cast. In 
 every country to which the modern statistician 
 has turned his attention, and has found material 
 on which to estimate the vitality of the Jews, and 
 c 
 
1 8 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 to compare that vitality with the vitality of the 
 people immediately surrounding them, the result 
 has been as favourable to them as to the Switzers 
 of Montreux, or the natives of Monmouth- 
 shire in the beginning of this century. Some 
 examples of these results are deserving of our 
 attentioji. 
 
 M. Mayer, in the year 1864, made a series of 
 observations on the relative values of life of the 
 conscript population of the town of Fiirth. The 
 physical population of Fiirth was, he states, at 
 that time poor and mean, so that the number of 
 conscripts exempted from service on account of 
 infirmities and defective height was greater by 
 one-half in Fiirth than it was in Munich. His 
 calculations, therefore, were made on a popula- 
 tion which, whether it were Jewish or Christian, 
 was of an inferior physical character ; and they 
 are the more valuable on this account, since they 
 present the facts derived from two populations, 
 both of which were poor, with one, the Jewish, 
 labouring under some disadvantages not felt by 
 the other. Under these conditions there was 
 observed during ten years a notable difference in 
 favour of life among the Jews. This advantage 
 was most distinctly evidenced during the first 
 periods of life. Of children from one to five 
 years of age the Jews lost 10 per cent., the 
 Christians, or, more correctly speaking, those 
 
JEWISH VITALITY. 19 
 
 who did not profess the Jewish faith, 14 per 
 cent. This tenacity of life was traced as be- 
 longing to the Jews during every other stage 
 of life until the age of sixty. From sixty to 
 seventy the mortality was at the rate of 12 
 amongst the Jews, and of 9*8 amongst the other 
 part of the conscript class. From seventy to 
 eighty it was 9 per cent, amongst the Jews, and 
 8 '9 amongst the others. From eighty to ninety 
 it was 8*1 per cent, amongst the Jews, and 2-4 
 amongst the Christians and others who did not 
 profess Judaism. 
 
 The results of these calculations indicated that 
 through every phase the vitality of the Jewish 
 people was superior to that of the surrounding 
 people with whom they were cast. At first 
 sight it may seem that the Jews who had passed 
 the age of sixty were less healthy and more dis- 
 posed to die, either from premature old age or 
 from disease, than the other conscripts. But tho 
 inference, as Mayer shows, would be wrong. 
 The greater mortality of the Jews above sixty 
 was due to the circumstance that a much greater 
 number of them lived to die beyond that period 
 of life. Even at the age of between eighty and 
 ninety so many were left that their deaths could 
 be counted in the proportion of 8 per cent., com- 
 pared with 2-4 per cent, of their immediate 
 neighbours. 
 
20 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 From Furth the inquiry was carried to Frank- 
 fort, a town in which some of the most remark- 
 able chapters of Jewish life have been written. 
 In this town the modern Jews have laid the 
 beginning of that extraordinary wealth, the end 
 and influence of which, for good or for evil, for 
 themselves and for others, has yet to be seen; 
 a wealth that will probably bring about the 
 strangest revolutions that have yet been realised 
 in their strange history ; a wealth that may make 
 them the kings of the world or destroy them 
 altogether. In Frankfort the Jews have lived 
 until lately in their own quarters ; they have 
 had few social advantages, as such advantages 
 appear to the mere politician, to the man of 
 pleasure, or even to the masses of mankind. It 
 is no insult to them, because they have not 
 deserved what they have suffered, to say that 
 they have as yet barely escaped the thraldom of 
 a people living by permission and resting upon 
 mercy sanctioned under legal prohibition. 
 
 It would be difficult to invent, for the purposes 
 of our present inquiry, a series of conditions 
 more critical than have been actually presented 
 to us in the mortality statistics afforded in 
 Frankfort by the two communities of Jews and 
 Gentiles. Both were living, in the general mean- 
 ing of the word, under the same kinds of civili- 
 sation, but socially the Jews were hampered 
 
JEWISH VITALITY. 21 
 
 while their fellow-citizens were entirely free. 
 The Jews had closer quarters, they were reputed 
 to be less cleanly than their neighbours, and 
 though some of them were, confessedly, very 
 rich, the mass of them were, or were supposed to 
 be, poorer than the majority of the citizens. 
 They had no direct hand in making the laws, 
 and altogether were not, at first sight, to be 
 envied. What under these states of relative 
 existence were the relative values of their health 
 and life? 
 
 The answer to this curious question is given 
 by Mayer from evidence carefully collected by 
 Dr. Neufville in Frankfort. The average dura- 
 tion of life of the whole population, Jewish 
 and Christian, was thirty-seven years and seven 
 months. But the mortality was unequally divided. 
 The average duration of life amongst the Jews 
 was forty-eight years and nine months ; amongst 
 the other classes of the community it was thirty- 
 six years and eleven months. During the first 
 five years of life the Jewish children died at the 
 rate of 12*9 per cent. ; the children of the other 
 classes at the rate of 24*1 per cent. Of the 
 Jews that passed into manhood or womanhood 
 54 per cent, reached their fiftieth year ; of the 
 other classes that passed into manhood or woman- 
 hood 38-1 per cent, reached their fiftieth year. 
 Amongst the Jews 24' 7 per cent, attained the 
 
22 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 ago of fourscore and ten ; amongst the other 
 classes 13*4 attained that nearly ripe maturity. 
 In the total, one-fourth of the Jews lived to be 
 twenty-eight years and three months old, while 
 one-fourth of the rest of the community lived 
 to reach six years and eleven months only. 
 One-half of the Jews lived to be fifty-three years 
 old ; one-half of the other classes lived to be 
 thirty-six only. One-fourth of the Jewish popula- 
 tion attained the age of threescore and ten years ; ' 
 one-fourth of the other population barely attained 
 the age of fifty-nine years and ten months. 
 These general rates of mortality in Frankfort, 
 common to the communities at large, extended, 
 according to JN"eufville, into special orders. Of 
 one hundred commercial men amongst the Jews, 
 fifty died before reaching the age of sixty-one. 
 Amongst a hundred of the same occupation, not 
 Jews, fifty died before reaching the age of fifty- 
 seven. 
 
 An eminent French statistician, who prepared 
 for his Government, a few years ago, an elaborate 
 paper on the vitality of the Jews, I refer to M. 
 Legoyt, has reported some equally important 
 facts relating to the Jews in Prussia between the 
 years 1859 and 1861. He corroborates what has 
 been stated by Mayer and Neufville as to the 
 greater value of Jewish life in the earlier years 
 of existence. He indicates that the number of 
 
JEWISH VITALITY. 23 
 
 still-born children, that is, of children who die 
 before, during, or soon after birth, was in 1849 
 one still-born child in 97*75 amongst Jews, to 
 one in 44-86 amongst other people. He shows 
 that from 1859 to 1861, in one hundred births in 
 Prussia, the proportion of mortality was 48 '11 
 amongst the Jews to 66*33 amongst the other 
 classes of the country. 
 
 From these experiences Legoyt assumes that 
 the average life of the Israelites ought to exceed 
 that of the general population. The fact, he 
 adds, is so. The difference to their profit is 
 about five years. The civil state extracts, 
 in Prussia impute to them 1*61 deaths in a 
 hundred, while for the whole kingdom the 
 mortality assessment is 2 '62 in the hundred. 
 The population increases 1'36 in the hundred 
 among the Christians, and 1*73 among the Jews, 
 annually. The effectives of the first require a 
 period of 51 years to double themselves ; those 
 of the second a period of 41*50 years. In 1849 
 Prussia calculated one dead in 40*69 Jews, and 
 in 32*26 of other classes. From a table of 
 mortality which he constructed from data in- 
 cluded between the years 1855-9, Legoyt drew 
 as conclusions : firstly, that at birth the aver- 
 age life of the general population was higher 
 than that of the Jewish ; secondly, that at all 
 other ages the Jews had the advantage ; thirdly, 
 
24 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 that as regards the Jewish women their average 
 duration of life did not attain that of the whole 
 population up to the age of sixty years, but 
 beyond that limit it became higher. 
 
IV. 
 
 JEWISH VITALITY IN ENGLAND. 
 
 SOME other details bearing on the vitality of 
 the Jewish people and conveying the same 
 truths are before me. From them I submit one 
 more series of evidences, because they are quite 
 recent and original, and because they refer to 
 our own country. 
 
 We have in England, as yet, no collected 
 official documents bearing on the divisions of 
 classes of people in respect to race or religion. 
 We know from the admirable census returns how 
 many persons of different trades and occupations 
 there are amongst us. We know that in the 
 twenty-two millions seven hundred and twelve 
 thousand two hundred and sixty-six persons of 
 both sexes who made up the population of 
 England and Wales in 1871, there were six 
 hundred and eighty-four thousand one hundred 
 and two who were professional persons; five 
 millions nine hundred and five thousand one 
 
26 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 hundred and seventy-one who were engaged in 
 domestic or household affairs ; eight hundred and 
 fifteen thousand four hundred and twenty-four 
 who were commercially occupied; one million 
 six hundred and fifty-seven thousand one hundred 
 and thirty-eight who were Adam's first journey- 
 men, tillers of the soil, agricultural workers ; 
 five millions one hundred and thirty-seven thou- 
 sand seven hundred and twenty-five who were 
 toiling and spinning in the busy hives of in- 
 dustry, industrials; and eight millions five 
 hundred and twelve thousand seven hundred 
 and six who being either boys and girls at 
 school, or persons of rank and property, or 
 persons doing nothing to gain a livelihood were 
 all classed together under the head of indefinite 
 and non-productive persons. We know how 
 many of all these classes were males or females^ 
 how many were married or single, with various 
 other pieces of important information. But up 
 to this time the facts which relate to racial pecu- 
 liarities, to families, to modes of life springing 
 from habit, education, and thought, remain un- 
 revealed in this kingdom. The reasons that are 
 commonly urged against the collection of official 
 data on these points have always seemed to me 
 to be puerile, and indeed to be the foolish results 
 of prejudice, I had almost said of superstition. 
 However this may be, the fact remains that 
 
JEWISH VITALITY IN ENGLAND. 27 
 
 we cannot ascertain on any determinate scale 
 what the influence of the closest inner social life 
 of the people is on the vitality of the people. In 
 relation to the Jews, who stand out more dis- 
 tinctly than any other class, we cannot estimate- 
 their numbers accurately even in London, to say 
 nothing of the country. From two good sources- 
 of information, each of which I should have con- 
 sidered to be reliable, I have heard different 
 statements, one saying that there are twenty, 
 the other that there are forty thousand Jews- 
 in the metropolis. Thirty thousand is pro- 
 bably nearest to the actual truth. Owing to- 
 these circumstances, it is impossible for me to 
 place before my readers any such series of facts 
 as those they have gathered from the labours of 
 Mayer, Neufville, and Legoyt. I have never- 
 theless a short record to offer which bears on our 
 subject, and which is, as far as it goes, of con- 
 siderable interest. 
 
 Dr. Asher, the secretary to the Great Syna- 
 gogue of Jews in London, has supplied me with 
 the data of the number of burials of Jews in 
 London, as they are officially known, for the 
 three years 1873-4-5. In the tables thus sup- 
 plied to me there are recorded the ages of all 
 who were buried from the age of one month to 
 that of ninety years. The total number of inter- 
 ments in the period named was two thousand 
 
2S HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 five hundred and sixty-three. Of these, one 
 thousand and eighty-four were not members of 
 the Great Synagogue, and they are simply re- 
 turned under this general head. One hundred 
 and seventy-two were members of the families of 
 seat-holders of the Great Synagogue. The rest 
 were members of families belonging to the Ham- 
 foro', the New, the Central, the Bayswater, the 
 Borough, and the North London Synagogues. 
 One thousand and twenty-six were males, one 
 thousand one hundred and nine were females. 
 In twenty-eight instances the deaths were pre- 
 mature. 
 
 Taken alone, the facts thus supplied are of 
 little value. Fortunately, however, they admit 
 of being compared with the tables of mortality 
 at different ages of the whole population of 
 London. What, then, at the same ages, are the 
 relative proportions of deaths of Jews to the 
 deaths of the whole population ? 
 
 The answer to this question is that the vitality 
 of the Jews in London contrasts, as elsewhere, 
 favourably with that of the members of other 
 classes of the communit}^. In the earlier periods 
 of life, viz., under five years, the favourable 
 comparison is not so peculiarly marked as in 
 Frankfort, but it is indicated. The rate of 
 mortality stands in the relation of forty-four of 
 the Jewish to forty-five of the whole population. 
 
JEWISH VITALITY IN ENGLAND. 29 
 
 In the meridian of life, viz. from thirty-five to- 
 forty-five years, the contrast is better marked; 
 for now the rate of mortality stands at the rate 
 of five of the Jews to eight of the other classes. 
 But it is at the more advanced ages of life that 
 the contrast comes out with special force. At 
 eighty-five years and upwards the number of 
 Jews that died were 2 to 0'8 of the whole of the 
 community; that is to say, the Jews who had 
 passed fourscore years were nearly three to one, 
 when compared with their neighbours of dif- 
 ferent faiths. It is worthy of notice that in the 
 Jewish, as in other classes, the longevity of the 
 women exceeds that of the men. Eleven Jewish 
 women passed over ninety years of age, to five 
 men ; and fifty -three women died between eighty 
 and ninety years of age, to twenty-two men of 
 the same age. Between the ages of sixty and 
 seventy years the balance was a little in favour 
 of the men : eighty-nine men died within that 
 period of age, to eighty-three women. 
 
 It is further worthy of remark, that in the 
 younger ages of life the Jewish male mortality 
 was in advance of the female. Thus of males 
 over ten and under twenty, the deaths in the 
 three years were as thirty-six males to twenty- 
 four females, and from five to ten years tho 
 deaths were as fifty males to thirty-five females. 
 
 Of the Jews themselves, from whose history 
 
30 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 the returns that are before us have been ob- 
 tained, nothing can be urged to show that they, 
 more than others, derived special advantages 
 from what is popularly called civilised progress. 
 Those of them who lived in foreign towns were 
 mainly of the poor of those towns ; and amongst 
 the two thousand five hundred and sixty-three 
 who died in London, and the facts of whose 
 deaths are given in Dr. Asher's tables, no fewer 
 than two thousand and forty-eight, or close upon 
 sixty per cent, of the whole, were denizens of 
 the east, north-east, and east central districts of 
 the great city. It cannot be presumed that any 
 of these were under special privilege, that they 
 should live so much longer than their fellows. 
 Neither can their greater vitality be presumed 
 to occur because they were Jews ; for the inha- 
 bitants of Montreux were not Jews, and the 
 people of Monmouthshire, to whom I have re- 
 ferred, were not Jews ; yet both these presented 
 a similar good vitality, a vitality which contrasted 
 forcibly with that of other contemporary classes. 
 
 From all the facts above related two great 
 inferences may be drawn. The first of these is, 
 that civilisation, when it lifts man out of the 
 savage state, adds to health of life and to length 
 of days. The second is, that civilisation, when 
 it gives to civilised man more privileges than he 
 
JEWISH VITALITY IN ENGLAND. 3; 
 
 deserves or requires ; when it ministers to his 
 passions and perverts his freedom ; when it forces 
 him to extremes of labour ; when it promotes 
 premature marriage and excessive growth of 
 population, then civilisation itself lapses back 
 into practical barbarism, and nature, maintaining 
 her unswerving and wise course, pursues her 
 way even with death on her wings. 
 
Y. 
 
 NATIONAL HEALTH. 
 
 WE English, as an insular people, take a just 
 pride in that great national property called 
 the navy. Our grandparents learned, from one 
 of the popular school catechisms of their day, 
 that "the founders of the English nation, having 
 been cut off by sea from the rest of the world, 
 became mariners, at first from necessity; but 
 what at first appeared an inconvenience turned 
 out in the end so much to their advantage, that 
 they were at last acknowledged by all nations to 
 be the undisputed lords of the ocean." One of 
 our powerful morning papers has lately in other 
 words repeated the same. " Were we to publish 
 every morning the declaration that the very 
 existence of Great Britain depends upon her 
 fleets, it would be the iteration of a truism, but 
 the most useful one that could be got by heart." 
 For my part I think, with all respect to the 
 ancient and the modern writer, that there is 
 
NATIONAL HEALTH. 33 
 
 another national interest which has, or ought to 
 have, precedence even over that which attaches to 
 the fleets. I mean the life that yields the force of 
 the fleet. Of what use is it to give outward pro- 
 tection to the island, to surround every inch of it 
 with walls of iron, unless the inner, the force of 
 life, the force of life which lies behind these 
 bulwarks of the sea, be carefully and effectively 
 preserved ? Our national strength is vital ; it is 
 in our homes before it reaches our ships ; it is 
 in ourselves, not in our cannon, which are but 
 the thunderous mouthpieces of it. If it be 
 not maintained, all external protection will be 
 of little ultimate value in the face of opposing 
 nations that shall learn to combine, with the 
 acquirement of civilised progress, an advance in 
 healthiness and productiveness of life in human 
 forms. Before such developing prowess, mental 
 and physical, all dead resistance, whatever its 
 weight, whatever its bulk, will be of poor avail 
 unless it be vitalised in proportion to its weight 
 and bulk. A whale with a harpoon in its back 
 gives up its mighty strength to half-a-dozen 
 men in a cockle-boat, whom it could lift into the 
 air with a frisk of its tail if its vitality were 
 not ebbing away through the small wound. 
 
 Our present condition and position as a nation 
 depend entirely on our national health, and on 
 the endurance and progressive force of our 
 
 D 
 
34 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 national vitality. "Weak communities, criminal 
 communities, beget their like; strong commu- 
 nities, moral communities, beget their like ; and 
 weaker and wickeder, or stronger and better, are 
 the steps onward, according to the direction 
 primarily taken. Health is necessary, in short, 
 to make health. This is the first principle in the 
 primer of the physician. 
 
 To have health we must first make it. It 
 comes, we say, by nature ; it departs also by the 
 same channel. It is correct to say that it comes 
 naturally from the observance and application of 
 certain rules which we have learned ; but it also 
 goes naturally whenever those rules are broken 
 or disobeyed. If a man eat animal food that is 
 free of animal parasites, it is natural that the food 
 should build up his muscles, and help to sustain 
 his life. If a man eat animal food infested with 
 parasites, it is natural not only that the food 
 should build up his muscles and sustain his life, 
 but that the parasite he has taken into him should 
 develop and increase within him, should live on 
 his vital organs, and kill him outright. Ergo, 
 he who would subsist on animal food and pre- 
 serve his health must learn something beyond 
 the experience that animal food will sustain him. 
 He must learn, in addition, to avoid food con- 
 taining parasites. He must also, by continuance 
 of the same acquirement of precepts of health 
 
NATIONAL HEALTH. 35 
 
 and other rules of pure art derived from liuman 
 experience, learn many other truths ; but the 
 example I have given will suffice at this moment 
 for the argument. 
 
 I employ this illustration and the argument it 
 is intended to enforce because I want at once to 
 impress on the mind that health, national and 
 individual, is something to be acquired by learn- 
 ing, and that it does not come to man by any 
 royal road, as a gift that asks no labour before it 
 is bestowed. The poets have, I know, put before 
 us their visions of Saturnian reigns ; of universal 
 health and happiness in some favoured regions ; 
 of richness, peace, and splendour now unknown. 
 Such poetic visions I am the last to despise. 
 They are the expressed and beautiful associations 
 of finely attuned souls, whose wishes were fathers 
 to their thoughts, and whose faiths in human 
 progress were the wings of their wise and bene- 
 ficent desires. But the hard facts in the history 
 of human life on the planet, as they have been 
 passed down to us in reliable readings, offer no 
 evidence of the mortal elysium of the poet in any 
 recorded history. The chapter of the life of the 
 universal man, as it is so far written, is the pic- 
 ture of the man fighting with the elements, and 
 being slain by them, yet having wisdom to 
 conquer them when he has learned wisdom. A 
 picture of a fight with difficulties for dear life ; 
 
36 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 of a fight to learn how to win; of a fight in 
 which the knowledge of to-day has been torn 
 down by the ignorance of to-morrow ; of a fight 
 followed by long waitings for new men and new 
 lights ; of a fight with ebb and flow of success 
 from century to century. 
 
 Such has been the struggle of the world of life 
 towards knowledge of life. Such, with diminish- 
 ing tension, must the struggle still remain until 
 all the world is vanquished by knowledge and 
 that application of it which we call wisdom. With 
 a few exceptions, which indeed hardly amount to 
 exceptions, and which if they did would faith- 
 fully prove the rule, the rule has been that in the 
 transition of man from the savage into the civil- 
 ised state his health and strength and power 
 have become developed and improved. He has 
 gained experience and knowledge, and he has 
 learned to apply his knowledge with advantage 
 to the progress of his physical existence. The 
 surest and soundest proof of this is that the civil- 
 ised secondary man has everywhere conquered 
 the savage primitive man. He has conquered 
 because he has possessed more power, more skill, 
 more means. In other words, because he has 
 been physically greater, mentally greater, socially 
 greater, all of which influences indicate that the 
 conquering man is healthier than the conquered. 
 The standard of comparison may be rude or 
 
NATIONAL HEALTH. 37 
 
 refined, but it is present in some one or other 
 degree. 
 
 Owing to the contact of knowledge and wisdom 
 with ignorance and superstition; owing to the 
 fact that knowledge and wisdom, commencing in 
 small centres, have had to conquer all the world, 
 so far as they have conquered; and lastly, 
 owing to the fact that knowledge and wisdom 
 have themselves been reached by devious ways 
 sometimes combined, and even then very feeble; 
 often alone, and then all but extinguished it has 
 followed that the science of preserving health, 
 through art, has been slowly perfected has not, 
 indeed, until our own time been worthy the 
 name of a science. 
 
VI. 
 
 MODERN PROGRESS AND HEALTH. 
 
 ideal moments we may be allowed to con- 
 template the existence of conditions in 
 which communities shall live in perfection of 
 sanitary splendour. It is allowable to picture to- 
 ourselves days of peace, knowledge, wisdom, and 
 plenty, when all possible advances, as they to us 
 appear at this time, shall be realised ; when 
 premature death shall be looked upon as an 
 accident, death induced by ignorance or neglect 
 as homicide, and misery arising from want as so 
 hideous a social deformity, " that to be hated 
 needs but to be seen." 
 
 These days are, I fear, afar off. That they are 
 possibly near is indicated by the circumstance 
 that some of us can in the extreme distance see 
 them, and describe, in a feeble manner, what they 
 are likely to be. When they come, as they will, 
 they will not perchance be perfect, but will open 
 the view to other vistas which new eyes will then 
 
MODERN PROGRESS AND HEALTH. 39 
 
 strain to discover also afar off. For still will 
 remain those who, repeating the words of a civi- 
 lisation ages before ours, will say, " I gave my 
 heart to seek and search out by wisdom concern- 
 ing all things that are done under heaven : this 
 sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to 
 be exercised therewith." 
 
 While, then, we anticipate the future and hope-* 
 fully set up our standards of excellence, we must 
 not walk as in a dream, but rather work wakefully 
 to set forth the future within the present, so that 
 all changes leading to what may be considered 
 Utopian results may come by such natural foot- 
 steps that to the beholders they shall steal with- 
 out perception of the radical transformations they 
 will accomplish. "We must work, in fact, remem- 
 bering the aids we can call into the labour of 
 reformation ; the characters of mind that have 
 to be drawn into the labour ; the demonstrations 
 of good that have to be made clear and repeated ; 
 the prejudices that have to be removed, and the 
 hopes that have to be engendered. He is no 
 sanitary reformer of the true school of reform 
 who cannot comprehend all these points of view 
 in the great discussion on the argument sanitas 
 sanitatis, 
 
 The advances which have been made in 
 the appreciation of sanitary matters have been^ 
 in this country, of the most certain and satis-* 
 
40 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 factory kind during the life of the passing 
 generation. A little more than a quarter of a 
 century ago I, then one of a very small body 
 indeed of sanitary scholars, was struggling 
 to establish the first Journal of Public Health 
 in this country. The effort was abortive. No 
 publisher would touch the work, and so few 
 subscribers would assist, or promise me assist- 
 ance, I shrank from the project for a time in 
 despair, to be dismayed still more on seeing a 
 similar attempt by an esteemed colleague and 
 friend, the late Hector Gavin, come to grief. At 
 last, after three years of preliminary labour, I 
 ventured, in 1854, to bring out the first number 
 of the Journal of Public Health and Sanitary 
 Review. Backed in the enterprise by the council 
 of the Epidemiological Society of London, who 
 gave me their valuable Transactions for publica- 
 tion, and in return purchased a certain number of 
 copies of the Journal, I commenced with some 
 advantage, and I think the Journal, as I look at 
 it now with a more practised eye, was fairly con- 
 ceived. The motto I invented for it, " National 
 health is national wealth " a motto which has 
 since passed into a proverb, and been ascribed to 
 Benjamin Franklin and other authors, but which 
 was original, has been itself of some little 
 service. The Journal was ably sustained by its 
 contributors, and as on the list of contributors 
 
MODERN PROGRESS AND HEALTH. 41 
 
 the name of nearly every then known sanitary 
 reformer in England was enrolled, it may be 
 some time of use, historically, on the record that 
 has yet to be written of the progress of sanitary 
 science in this country. 
 
 Since the period of which I have spoken the 
 changes of public opinion that have taken place 
 on matters of sanitary science are so great as 
 to be startling when they are recalled. The 
 tabooed subject is the subject of the day now. 
 Every household circle is full of it ; the legisla- 
 tive chambers are charged with it; the press 
 finds it one of the most taking, as it is certainly 
 the most useful, of subjects of debate; the 
 medical profession which, with a noble self- 
 sacrifice, has always been foremost in the work of 
 sanitation is moving in its behalf with a zeal 
 that might reanimate Hippocrates himself; and, 
 best proof of all, poor authors and students, and 
 shall I say enthusiasts on the subject, like myself? 
 find they have at last a hearing and a success in 
 their labour. 
 
 Never did Shakespeare write a thought more 
 perfect in its truth than when he said 
 
 " Teach thy necessity to reason thus, 
 There is no virtue like necessity." 
 
 The saying has been most faithfully exemplified 
 in the history of sanitary science in England. 
 
4i HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 The necessities of the Crimean campaign formed 
 the means by which the progress of sanitary 
 work was made sure amongst us. The principles- 
 had been taught long before. The great philo- 
 sopher, Lord Chancellor Bacon, had proclaimed 
 them in terms so remarkable, they ought never to 
 have been forgotten ; and all through the second 
 quarter of the present century there was a 
 struggle on the part of men of science to bring 
 the national mind to a correct comprehension of 
 what was needed. The Crimean disasters were, 
 however, wanted to create the deep impression, 
 and to quicken the national heart to steady and 
 effective work. 
 
 At this moment we are so fully alive to the 
 risks our forefathers have in their ignorance 
 accepted, and are so eager to make our genera- 
 tion a better foundation for future generations,, 
 that the prominent danger lies in proceeding too 
 rapidly in what is considered to be, but is not 
 proved to be, reform of national health. All 
 intended reforms, to be safe in their course, must 
 be gradual in their development must grow, as 
 the solidest and finest trees grow, and like them 
 must probably fall out of leaf for a while, that 
 they may renew their life after repose' from active 
 growth. Such reforms must be founded on 
 actual knowledge, and must be understood by 
 the masses in the order they are set forth. This 
 
MODERN PROGRESS AND HEALTH. 43 
 
 statement, which holds good in a general sense, 
 is specially true in relation to sanitary inquiries ; 
 for so intimately is each step in the art of pre- 
 serving health mixed up with social questions of 
 various kinds, that a few false moves, or imprac- 
 ticable and perhaps unscientific attempts hastily 
 made by amateur sanitarians for the purpose of 
 doing something^ may merely do harm ultimately 
 to the cause they were intended to support. 
 
 I make these observations because it is obvious 
 to me, and to many others who, like myself, are 
 by education and occupation specially devoted 
 to the pursuit of sanitary knowledge, that the 
 efforts which at the present are being made by 
 the Parliament and by many public bodies are 
 undertaken without regard to system, and with- 
 out any definite or comprehensive object. The 
 elements of the sanitary question are few in 
 number, but they lie much deeper than is gene- 
 rally supposed. Many recent and notable health 
 measures are but temporary in their character, 
 and scarcely calculated to affect the great ques- 
 tions at issue, either for evil or for good. 
 
 There is a strong feeling abroad at this 
 moment that legislative enactments are capable 
 of doing service in the preservation of health 
 and the suppression of disease. I do not deny 
 that a decision in a law court may occasionally 
 check or remove some real or supposed cause of 
 
44 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 disease. But I doubt the correctness of the 
 principles of coercion, and more than doubt the 
 general competency of all the men upon whom 
 may devolve the duty of inflicting fines and 
 penalties on those adjudged guilty of breaking 
 the law. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE ART OF HEALING. 
 
 FEOM wounds inflicted on man, in his battles 
 with the elements and forces of nature sur- 
 rounding him, and in his battles with his fellows 
 or with the lower orders of creation, the means 
 for the saving of life first assumed practical 
 form. In the earliest stage of the contest the 
 men who, in their might, fell from disease were 
 smitten. They were felled by an unseen hand. 
 The catastrophe was a mystery which could only 
 be penetrated by mysterious learning. Thus 
 arose those learned men who, entrusted with 
 the ministrations of the art and mystery of 
 healing, became the ministers of health. Thus 
 appear the primitive healers who seek not to 
 arrest the hidden hand that struck the mysterious 
 blow, but to cure the injury the blow r has inflicted. 
 They enter into secret communion with nature, 
 01XH9, for means of cure, and they invent the art, 
 the cfrvatKi}, the physic. In time they are the 
 physicians. 
 
46 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 For many ages the physician remains as he 
 originated, the would-be repairer of the rents and 
 scars caused by the accident disease. Of necessity 
 he learns much that is useful, much that is 
 beyond all praise ; and in the inspired sentiment 
 of ancient Greek art, the same art virtually as 
 that which gave us the all but speaking figures 
 of stone and marble, he is sublimed into im- 
 mortal form, and " because he cultivates a rude 
 and as yet vulgar science with a little more 
 subtlety, is received into the number of the 
 gods." 
 
 The physician in this character of the curer is 
 indeed a useful servant of mankind. He is the 
 learned historian of disease, and in unbroken line 
 hands down priceless records of the course of 
 disease. He is the expounder of the scholastic 
 readings of his brotherhood. He observes and 
 writes down the details of different diseases with 
 a care that has no perfect parallel. He seeks 
 amongst all the recesses of nature for remedies 
 against the diseases he has witnessed. He finds 
 a few remedies, in the finding lights upon things 
 he was not looking for, and founds new sciences. 
 The elements, minerals, and plants he touches have 
 properties and qualities which perforce arrest his 
 attention. He submits them .to fire for purifi- 
 cation ; they yield him products that are entirely 
 new. He subjects them to gentler heat for 
 
THE ART OF HEALING. 47 
 
 sublimation ; they yield him in condensation 
 other new products which were not before extant 
 in nature. He is a true necromancer now, a 
 professor of the Idmia, or concealed art ; and he 
 gives chemistry to the sciences. Those plants in 
 which he seeks for hidden healing virtues cannot 
 pass long before his eyes, nor pass often through 
 his hands, without telling him that they have 
 relationships towards each other which look 
 something like the relationships of families of 
 men, or of animals. Therefore he begins to 
 classify the plants, and the general name of the 
 plant, /3oraj/>7, becomes the name of a science. A 
 bit of the substance we now call amber, picked 
 up on the sea -shore, when it is subjected to 
 friction, attracts light bodies, like straw, if they 
 are brought near to it. A bit of iron ore, dug 
 up near the town in Turkey in Asia that is now 
 -called Manisa, once the town of Magnesia, attracts 
 iron and confers its own power to other iron. 
 The wonderful ore, called from the place whence 
 it was derived, Magnes, becomes in his hands a 
 -specific instrument, a magnet, and from the study 
 of the magnet springs the science of magnetism. 
 Our physician looks into these mysterious phe- 
 nomena. The properties of the substance on the 
 sea-shore, ^XeKrpov (electron}, as it was originally 
 called (amber, as we now call it), came under his 
 survey, with the result of his finding that the 
 
4 8 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 same properties extend to glass and other bodies 
 which, being rubbed, attract it in like manner. 
 To all these substances he applies an original 
 name; he calls them, after electron, electrics; 
 he classifies the phenomena altogether under the 
 term electrical ; and, generalising upon the whole, 
 inaugurates the science of electricity. 
 
 In dealing with the delicate organs of the body 
 he has to manipulate parts which lie directly 
 under the hand ; so chirurgery x ei P> tne nan( * j 
 epyoi/, work surgery is added to his labour. 
 He invents skilful instruments for this handicraft, 
 and refines the mechanical arts. He dissects the 
 bodies of the dead to learn the animal organism ; 
 unclothes the body to the skeleton; separates 
 and reconstructs the bony framework; founds 
 anatomy ; and when the time comes for finding 
 in deep chambers of the earth the preserved 
 skeleton remains of animals long since dead or 
 even extinct, he has prepared the way for another 
 study which, indeed, he originates the study 
 of ancient living things, paleontology. His eyes 
 turn to the heavenly bodies to discover, as in a 
 book mysteriously opened to him, the destinies 
 of men. Anon he begins to read the motions of 
 the wandering fires, and his aid is brought to the 
 cultivation of the astronomy of the learned world. 
 In a later day he endeavours to comprehend 
 the functions of living organs in men and ani- 
 
THE ART OF HEALING. 49 
 
 mals, to determine the relationships of man to his 
 lower life-mates, of man to man, of life to life, 
 and straightway biology is raised into a special 
 place in scientific systems of thought. Later 
 still he strives to grasp the organic changes which 
 the body undergoes in disease, and in this direc- 
 tion collects a library of facts which, yet unar- 
 ranged, wait for a reading that shall yield a rich 
 harvest of knowledge to the generations which 
 are still to follow his and ours. 
 
 It would, indeed, be hard to magnify the skill 
 and learning of the healer, rendered, as both 
 have been in such great and varied ways, through 
 the ages that have run their course. But he has 
 been the healer purely, and not until these last 
 days, almost our days, the preserver of health. 
 The omission has been his misfortune rather 
 than his fault. He has moved with the world 
 in which he has lived, influenced by its views, 
 guided by its discoveries, fulfilling its require- 
 ments. 
 
 Men altogether have only recently commenced 
 to look at themselves in their national as distinct 
 from their individual characters. Men altogether 
 have but recently commenced to look at anything 
 antecedent to the actual phenomena presented to 
 their senses. So in respect to health they have 
 thought only of their own particular sufferings, 
 and in respect to disease they have considered 
 
50 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 merely the symptoms they have been obliged to 
 witness. To perceive the fact that the national 
 interests cover the individual, and that he who 
 is striving to improve the health of all his 
 brethren is doing the wisest thing to improve 
 his own; to perceive the fact that whenever 
 disease appears it has come into appearance 
 through a well-defined series of causes, many of 
 which are recognisable and removable; these 
 are the modern perceptions of a few minds, which 
 have to be communicated to the many. 
 
 The physician, whom I have traced from his 
 origin, trying to cure diseases with one hand 
 and inventing new sciences with the other, has 
 had enough to do to keep on his laborious way. 
 He might be pardoned if he had been led, rather 
 than had been the leader, in the science of pre- 
 vention of disease, and in teaching the national 
 aspect of the question of sanitation. For pro- 
 fessions, like persons, are greatly influenced by 
 professed habitudes of thought. It is the busi- 
 ness of the physician to cure the evils which the 
 world has inherited or acquired. Why should 
 he go into the questions of cause ? The ques- 
 tions raised may be political. Is he to be a poli- 
 tician ? They may be social. Is he to interfere 
 with the daily life of his patients, turn their 
 homes upside down, criticize their eating and 
 drinking, find fault with their clothing, instruct 
 
THE ART OF HEALING. 5: 
 
 them in their working, and guide them in their 
 amusements? Far better were his hands em- 
 ployed in curing diseases with one hand and in- 
 venting new and different sciences with the other, 
 as in the olden time. This is the self-interested 
 argument, cutting like a two-edged sword, one 
 edge for the fortune, the other for the art of the 
 healer ; a fortune that may be moderately envied, 
 an art in the cultivation of which there is much 
 that is fascinating to the inventive, courageous, 
 and, above all, ambitious mind. All profit, all 
 honour, to him who, having a disease under his 
 care, cures or seems to cure it ! No fortune, no 
 honour, to him who waits to cure a disease which 
 science, forestalling herself, has said shall not 
 exist to be cured. 
 
YIII. 
 
 THE ART OF PREVENTION. 
 
 T1HE physician, descending through the long 
 line of history I have, by so light a stroke 
 of the pen, indicated, has been true to the greater 
 interests of the world in which he has been cast. 
 So soon as the advancement of learning and 
 popular prejudice gave to him liberty of action 
 he began to study the national as well as the in- 
 dividual health. He began then to look at causes 
 of disease ; to balance the value of vitality against 
 mortality ; to dare to tell his fellows, " You would 
 not want me to cure you if you would learn how, 
 by a few rules, simple when they are learned, 
 and sources of unknown happiness when they are 
 practised, to keep yourselves well." 
 
 This is the message of the physician, as he now 
 stands on the stage of the world, to the men and 
 women and children before him. 
 
 It would be difficult to say who amongst the 
 healers was first to begin to write the letters of 
 
THE ART OF PREVENTION. 53 
 
 this message. Some of the inspired amongst them 
 of all ages have, like Virgil, sung of the grand 
 days of universal health and happiness that were 
 to come. Others of them have taught, by ex- 
 ample, a perfect regimen. Of these the illus- 
 trious Galen was the great example. Galen, who 
 in his youth was feeble, but who lived to a good 
 old age, learned early in life so to govern him- 
 self that he allowed nothing to disturb the 
 serenity of his mind, and never raised a hand 
 to correct a slave. He carefully studied what 
 aliments and exercises best suited himself, and 
 adhered to these ; he taught his followers never 
 to degrade themselves to the level of the brute 
 creation by eating and drinking whatever pleased 
 them, or by indulging their sensual appetites. 
 He tried to teach all persons he knew, whether 
 they were wise on the subject of physic or igno- 
 rant of it, how they might, by the careful manage- 
 ment and purity of their lives, so live that physi- 
 cians and remedies would be to them alike un- 
 necessary. In later days the Arabian schools of 
 physic had their teachers of regimen ; and since 
 the revival of letters there have arisen at intervals 
 such men as Arbuthnot, Hoffman, Huf eland, 
 Haygarth of Chester, and Cheyne, who, follow- 
 ing the thought of Plato, have entertained the 
 belief that the very existence of physicians in a 
 republic is a proof of the vice of the people. 
 
54 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 One other idea has also filled the minds of all 
 these advanced scholars and masters, an idea in 
 which they and many others not less eminent 
 have joined with one accord, viz. that health 
 and happiness are synonymous terms. They have 
 taught that he who fears to limit himself to those- 
 wants and methods which keep his body in health, 
 lest by so limiting his desires he should lose- 
 some pleasure in which he thinks his happiness 
 is involved, is a deluded man ; that he who trusts 
 to the health of his body, and thereby of his- 
 mind, for his serenity of life, and for the full 
 development of the pleasures that are to be found 
 in life, is the wisest of the wise, and the happiest 
 of the happy. 
 
 Step by step the mind of the healer became 
 opened to such new thoughts, and as the change 
 occurred new views offered themselves to his com- 
 prehension, which led him into details as decidedly 
 practical as any that related to the older subject 
 of cure. An enlightened Italian physician (and 
 it is wonderful how indebted the world is to the 
 Italian schools of physic), one Eamazzini, com- 
 menced a century and a half ago nay, nearer two 
 centuries ago to study the effects of the labour 
 of artisans on the health and vital value of the 
 labourer. He specially studied the kind of labour 
 that is carried on in flax-working, and defined the 
 evils of that occupation with a degree of accuracy 
 
THE ART OF PREVENTION, 55 
 
 which has not been surpassed. He was followed 
 by many more in the same line of research, and 
 in the present century, through the further exer- 
 tions of Thackrah and other observers, we have 
 arrived at a very clear idea of the influence of 
 industrial labour on health and life. The know- 
 ledge that has thus been brought forth has cul- 
 minated during the present year in the production 
 of a series of statistical facts, collected under the 
 direction of Dr. William Farr, from which the 
 relative values of life in sixty-nine well-defined 
 occupations have been compared by a certain 
 standard of general life, and results have been 
 obtained which are unexampled of their kind. I 
 shall have occasion to draw special attention to 
 these results in a future chapter. 
 
 From the Italian physician, Eamazzini, there 
 dates largely another advance in the project of 
 preventive medicine. To him we owe an early 
 suggestion for making observations on the rela- 
 tion of weather and season in connection with 
 diseases, and particularly with diseases which 
 take the epidemic or spreading type. Before 
 the time of Eamazzini, other men had touched 
 on this subject. Hippocrates himself must be 
 credited with much that is ingenious and useful, 
 and our own English physician, Sydenham, who 
 flourished in the time of the Commonwealth, must 
 be remembered. But Eamazzini gave the direc- 
 
56 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 tion to progressive thought, and even organized a 
 society for securing the continuance of his design. 
 In the past fifty years the Ramazzinian mode of 
 investigation has been marvellously developed. 
 Learned societies, such as the Epidemiological 
 and Meteorological Societies, both groaning 
 under viciously hard names, by the way, have 
 been founded, and a varied number of useful 
 truths have been elicited. Three examples of 
 these are sufficiently curious and important to be 
 noticed. It has been discovered that the body of 
 the living man begins to lose in weight at a 
 certain season of the year, and begins to gain in 
 weight at another season. It has been discovered 
 that certain diseases show a maximum or mini- 
 mum of mortality at particular seasons. It has 
 been discovered that with a given fall of tempera- 
 ture of the air, a proportionate number of persons 
 die according to the period of their ages, the 
 deaths doubling in number, under the same 
 degree of exposure, with each addition of nine 
 years of life amongst those who have passed 
 thirty years of age. 
 
 The progress of the preventive system of meet- 
 ing diseases has been advanced by yet another 
 medical means. I refer to the accidental observa- 
 tion and application of observation by men of 
 genius and courage, who have been educated in 
 the ranks of medicine. 
 
THE ART OF PREVENTION. 57 
 
 Among these men of genius, who have thus 
 observed and learned, the first place must be given 
 to Jenner. He observed that the process of vac- 
 cination prevented the communication, and there- 
 fore the spread, of small-pox. We in this day 
 are, happily, quite unable to estimate the value 
 of Jenner's discovery directly or indirectly. It 
 stayed directly the ravages of the most loathsome 
 disease that was ever known. It stayed indirectly, 
 in proportion as it stayed the disease itself, all the 
 many and terrible secondary consequences which 
 follow small-pox, such as deafness, blindness, 
 affections of the bones and joints by which the 
 body was crippled, eruptive diseases of the skin 
 and fearful disfigurements of feature and form, 
 with, in some instances, development of those 
 organic and fatal changes to which the names of 
 struma and consumption are applied. In countries 
 where vaccination has been thoroughly carried 
 out the disease, small-pox, may be said to have 
 become all but unknown ; and it is to be hoped 
 that in time the disease may be entirely abolished, 
 and that the preventive measure which has so 
 singularly controlled it may pass, if not out of 
 memory, out of practice. 
 
 In the study of other great pestilences, such as 
 typhoid fever and cholera, physicians of modern 
 times have made many advances towards arriving 
 at preventive means ; but from none has so happy 
 
58 HEALTH AND VITALITY. 
 
 a discovery been elicited as that of vaccination 
 for small-pox. 
 
 From another branch of study started within 
 the ranks of physicians has been derived the 
 statistical method of research, which of late has 
 yielded important results. The brilliant Arbuth- 
 not, the accomplished friend and companion of 
 Swift, Hogarth, Pope, and other members of the 
 galaxy of wit and wisdom of the reign of Anne, 
 he to whom Pope wrote, " Yon are fitter to live 
 or to die than any man I know " he in the 
 earlier part of his career wrote to the Eoyal 
 Society an essay, entitled, "An Argument for 
 Divine Providence, taken from the constant Re- 
 gularity observed in the Births of both Sexes." 
 In this paper Arbuthnot showed that there i& 
 nearly an equality in the births of the two sexes, 
 but that as the mortality of males is greater than 
 that of females, so in a slight degree more males 
 than females are born into the world. To illus- 
 trate his point, this learned author included in 
 his paper a table of the births of both sexes 
 occurring in London from the years 1629 to 
 1710. 
 
 From the research thus established by Arbuth- 
 not dates properly a method of numerical calcu- 
 lation, which has largely influenced the modern 
 scholar in his studies of the values of life and of 
 the mortalities which accrue from particular forms 
 
THE AR7 OF PREVENTION. 59 
 
 of disease. The science of vital statistics dates 
 from this communication. 
 
 To the precepts of the wise professors of the 
 healing art must, in justice, be added those of 
 some other men, who are called, par excellence, 
 the philosophers. All the philosophers are in 
 some degree worthy of recognition as promoters 
 of national health. ^Esop's fable of the belly 
 and the members is an admirable sanitary lesson. 
 Plato and Seneca are rich in wisdom on the sub- 
 ject of health. The " Utopia " of Sir Thomas More 
 is charged with splendid precepts for the main- 
 tenance of the universal health, and Lord Bacon 
 is so clear in his methods of research and rules 
 that if his designs had been carried out, the 
 foundations of sanitary science had been safely 
 built upon three hundred years ago. 
 
PART II. 
 
 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
IX. 
 
 VITALIZED AIR. 
 
 "VTOMADIC tribes, living mainly out of doors, 
 JLl or covering themselves in from the rain 
 and wind in canvas tents, take and require but 
 little care in regard to ventilation, since they 
 interfere not with atmospheric laws. But when 
 men began to erect stone walls, to hedge them- 
 selves in from the atmosphere with impermeable 
 barriers, and to pollute their confined dwellings 
 with their own emanations, supreme nature 
 was defied, and the defiants paid the forfeit 
 always visited on such delinquency. Under 
 these circumstances the principle of ventilation, 
 as it is called, was introduced and various ways 
 and means were suggested, by which the atmo- 
 sphere may be made subservient to the designs 
 and life-methods of men who had learned to 
 build. In the early days of architecture, when 
 real stone or wood houses were first built, the 
 necessity for any special attention to ventila- 
 
64 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 tion was uncalled for. In those days ? when 
 light was admitted into the building by means 
 of large open casements, the air went in with 
 light, and was as freely diffused. In the old 
 Eoman house, with its compluvium and numer- 
 ous unbarricaded windows, the ventilation must 
 have been perfect and simple. But when it 
 became the fashion to let in the light alone, 
 and thus to cut off the air from the same 
 entrances, then the evil effects of confined air in 
 houses became a necessity, in the absence of 
 some new means for its free admission and after 
 removal. This inconvenience was felt the more 
 in places where great numbers of people were 
 placed together in one limited place, as on board 
 ship, in the wards of a hospital, the compart- 
 ments of a prison, or even in the closely built 
 streets of a city. What amount of disease, what 
 amount of death, must have ensued for many 
 centuries from absence of pure air, and whilst 
 men were ignorant of the actual value of air in 
 its relation to life and health, it is impossible 
 to say. 
 
 For many ages after the days of the old Eoman 
 literature, little of worth is met with on the vital 
 properties of air and the importance of a free air 
 current. Tor sound instruction on these points, 
 the world had to wait for one whose physiological 
 labours are amongst the most remarkable records 
 
VITALIZED AIR. 65 
 
 of natural science in the beginning of the last 
 century. We may date all our knowledge of ven- 
 tilation from the time of the distinguished Eector 
 of Teddington, Stephen Hales, that is to say, from 
 the year 1733, when Hales' treatise appeared, 
 in which the subject of ventilation of houses was 
 first scientifically considered. "We can scarcely 
 over-estimate the richness of the labours of this 
 remarkable scientific scholar, or the change of 
 sentiment, opinion, and knowledge that came 
 from them. They lie at the foundation of much 
 of our sanitary w r ork, and they have led to studies 
 which, though at the present time seemingly too 
 remote to hold connection, are, when traced back 
 with careful mind, markedly, and I may say sensi- 
 tively, connected with his particular discoveries. 
 The Eector of Teddington shows forth more 
 strikingly from the position in which he was 
 placed in relation to the progress of chemical 
 science in his time. The nature of gases was 
 then not understood ; for although the existence 
 of oxygen gas had been dreamed of and sug- 
 gested by Maow, under the term nitro-erial air, 
 and although the Honourable Eobert Boyle had 
 shown that ammonia exposed to the air gains in 
 weight, as if it seized some other substance from 
 the air which caused the additional weight and 
 became a " fixed air," the nature of this so-called 
 "fixed air" was unknown, and least of all was 
 
66 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 it suspected to be a product of the human body, 
 a something breathed out with every human 
 breath. The analysis of gases was unknown. 
 Yet, by one of those simple series of observations 
 which the fortunate and honest in science make 
 for themselves, Hales demonstrated that the air we 
 breathe is substantial, is a thing. He measured 
 the air we breathe, said that the capacity of the 
 human chest for containing it is two hundred and 
 twenty cubic inches, measured the cubic inches 
 inhaled at each inspiration, and discovered ap- 
 proximately the loss sustained in the lungs by 
 the absorption of some part of the air, the nature 
 and quality of which he could not determine. 
 Further than all this, and most german to our 
 present work, he stated the effects of the re- 
 respiration of expired air, and indicated the 
 dangers that follow upon the operation. " Two 
 gallons of air," he says, " breathed to and fro for 
 two minutes and a half become unfit for respira- 
 tion. "Whence no wonder that the air should be 
 infected and apt to breed distempers in close 
 prisons, where not only the breath but also the 
 plentiful perspiration of many confined together 
 stench the air, and make it apt to breed what are 
 called gaol distempers." In another place he 
 lets us know that he was conversant with an 
 alkaline air in overcrowded rooms which was 
 most deleterious. 
 
VITALIZED AIR. 67 
 
 This essay of Hales was so plain that he who ran 
 might read. It appears incredible that after his 
 disclosures the whole of the ruling mind of this 
 nation was not devoted to the reformation of the 
 unhealthy state of the nation. It is incredible, 
 but too true, that years later the heaven-born 
 statesman, William Pitt, blinded and choked the 
 nation by the reimposition of the window-tax, 
 the effect of which two-edged political folly was 
 to put back sanitation a good fourth of the time 
 that has passed between Hales and ourselves. 
 
 The work which Hales commenced was, how- 
 ever, never lost ; it was held back, but it was not 
 forgotten. The navy was the first to reap the 
 advantage, and the ventilating bellows of this 
 remarkable inventor, called not inaptly the ship's 
 lungs, were extensively introduced into the naval 
 service. Later on, Sir John Pringle introduced 
 the system into hospitals for the sick, and long 
 before the eighteenth century closed the idea of 
 pure air as a part of the necessity of a healthy 
 life was an accepted scientific fact. 
 
 Thus the value of pure air in occupied build- 
 ings became known a century ago. The know- 
 ledge acquired was weakened by war and politics, 
 sustained by science, and favoured by the philan- 
 thropic efforts of such grand men as Howard, 
 who, though unconnected with science, always 
 move with her in her beneficent designs. 
 
68 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 From the purification of the air in ships, hos- 
 pitals, and gaols, and from the results obtained, 
 men began at length to think of the purification 
 of the same necessity of life in their own houses. 
 The advance was crowned by two other disco- 
 veries, (a) By the discovery by Priestley of the 
 true composition of the atmospheric air, and of 
 the nature and qualities of that part of it which 
 he called vital or dephlogisticated air, and which 
 has since been known by the more common name 
 of oxygen gas. (b) By the discovery of Black 
 that the air of combustion, the fixed air of Boyle, 
 the carbonic acid of a later day, is a product of 
 animal respiration and of animal combustion, and 
 is the fatal product which Hales had observed 
 but had not defined. 
 
 "We got into our language from these re- 
 searches the word ventilation, and many plans 
 were quickly tried to render the process of venti- 
 lation perfect. Soon another step was made, for 
 which we have once more to thank immortal 
 Joseph Priestley. He took a living vegetable, 
 a sprig of mint, and placed it in carbonic 
 acid. After a time he found the carbonic acid 
 was removed from the bell jar in which the plant 
 was retained, and in place of it there was another 
 gas, the vital air, oxygen. He inferred there- 
 upon that vegetable life is essential to animal 
 life ; that leaves of trees use up the poisonous air 
 
VITALIZED AIR. 69 
 
 that we exhale, and give us back the vital air 
 we require in which to breathe. A new sanitary 
 work was rendered. It was made a demon- 
 stration that the presence of vegetable life is a 
 necessity for perfect purification of the air on the 
 breathing of which the animal life depends. 
 
X. 
 
 USES OF AIK. 
 
 uses of air to man and his lower earth- 
 JL mates are not easily comprehended at first 
 sight, they are so varied and, to the uninitiated, 
 so subtle. The effect of the ordinary atmospheric 
 pressure on the body is a first essential to healthy 
 life. It is by this pressure, exerted uniformly 
 over every point of the body, that the corporeal 
 framework is the more firmly knit together. We 
 are, as it were, cast in moulds of air. Eemoved 
 to a mountain height, where the atmosphere is 
 lighter and the pressure diminished, the body 
 suffers, to borrow a description from Dr. Speer, 
 " with symptoms (varying in degree and number 
 in different individuals) of vertigo, headache, 
 dyspnoea, constriction of the chest, palpitation, 
 faintness, oozing of blood from the mucous 
 surfaces, increased rapidity of the pulse, nausea 
 and vomiting, thirst, febrile tongue, muscular 
 pain, sense of extreme debility in the lower 
 
USES OF AIR. 71 
 
 limbs, and general prostration of strength" 
 results arising, according to the author, from a 
 threefold source : congestions of the deeper por- 
 tions of the circulatory apparatus; increased 
 " venosity " in plainer words, impurity of the 
 blood ; and " a loss of equilibrium between the 
 pressure of the external air and that of the gases 
 existing within the viscera." 
 
 The symptoms thus induced bear, in the opi- 
 nion of Dr. Speer, a close analogy to those of an 
 ephemeral fever a remark of great importance 
 in a physiological point of view. 
 
 The pressure exerted by the atmosphere on 
 the body is very nicely balanced. If it be in- 
 creased by artificial means as it sometimes is, as 
 in the case of men who are working under pres- 
 sure, the effect of the increased pressure is seen 
 in symptoms of a peculiar kind. The blood in 
 the veins becomes like arterial blood, of red 
 colour. The number of the respiratory move- 
 ments is increased, the pressure on the drum of 
 the ears is painful to bear, the skin acts very 
 freely, and the sense of hunger is greatly increased 
 owing to the rapid waste of the body, while that 
 of thirst is diminished, from the circumstance 
 that more moisture is conveyed into the blood 
 with the compressed air. 
 
 The pressure of the air atmosphere then, of 
 fifteen pounds weight to the square inch, is the 
 
72 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 natural pressure limited within slight variation. 
 It is adapted to the living condition, as it is one 
 of its uses to be so adapted. 
 
 But there is another use to which the ordinary 
 atmospheric pressure extends. Under its in- 
 fluence the lungs are kept charged with air. 
 When the chest is expanded in the act of inspi- 
 ration, the pressure of the atmosphere causes the 
 lungs to fill with air and to follow up the expan- 
 sion of the walls of the chest. During the act of 
 expiration, on the other hand, the entrance of 
 external air into the lungs is in a great measure 
 prevented for the moment, and the external 
 air itself becomes the recipient of the expired 
 gases. 
 
 Thus the mechanical effects of atmospheric 
 pressure on the body are most important, and the 
 effects of extreme variations of pressure are well 
 mapped out by certain striking symptoms. How 
 far the effects of those lesser variations of pres- 
 sure which occur at ordinary levels, and which 
 are indicated by ordinary barometrical changes 
 how far these exert a physical influence on the 
 body, is yet a question open to an extended series 
 of observations and experiments. 
 
 A second important use of the atmospheric air 
 relates to its influence on the animal temperature 
 in a physical point of view. As the heat made 
 in the body passes off from it at every point by 
 
USES OF AIR. 73 
 
 radiation, it commingles, to use a common term, 
 with the atmospheric medium in which the body 
 is encased. Thus, if the external atmosphere be 
 cooled far below the level of the body, then the 
 radiation of the animal heat is so vigorous that 
 an arrest of vitality, more or less marked accord- 
 ing to the degree of cold, becomes necessarily 
 manifest. A great variety of physiological 
 changes in this case supervenes. Nutritive acts, 
 which are dependent for their continuance on 
 a full development of heat, are impeded; the 
 great chemical changes of respiration, the absorp- 
 tion of oxygen, and the evolution of carbonic 
 acid, at first increased, are afterwards reduced ; 
 internal congestions follow, and the circulation 
 fails in power. Lastly, the soft structures, under 
 the extreme of cold, shrink ; the capillaries con- 
 tract merely, in all probability, from the loss 
 of heat ; and the whole of what in the aggregate 
 sense may be called the vital forces are, in a 
 greater or lesser degree, checked in their course. 
 "When the temperature of the external air is 
 raised towards a level or above that of the body, 
 the due radiation of heat is checked. Then the 
 reverse of the above conditions obtains : the 
 nutritive and destructive changes of tissues are 
 accelerated, the muscles are relaxed, the capilla- 
 ries easily dilate, and the secretions are profuse 
 from the skin, the lungs, and the kidneys. But 
 
74 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 this exalted condition of body can no more be 
 tolerated than can the opposite, for any length of 
 time. The chemical forces of life are here too- 
 actively engaged ; they must be brought back to 
 steadier play, or they will stop altogether. 
 
 The happy medium for equalising the tem- 
 perature of the body is the atmosphere. "We 
 instinctively perform something for ourselves in 
 this respect in the use of clothes, of which we- 
 put on more or less as sensation tells us. But it 
 is our air- garment, or mould, which does most. 
 If this naturally retains an equality of warmth 
 -60 to 70 Fahr. we are comfortable ; if it 
 capriciously change about from 32 or less up to 
 80 or more, we must put it under some certain 
 rules : we must confine it in sections, in rooms 
 where we live, and artificially warm it, when it 
 is too cold ; we must give it free vent, lower its 
 temperature, and make it flow in a brisk current 
 through our rooms when it is heated and close. 
 
XI. 
 
 AIR AS A FOOD. 
 
 THEEE is another use which the air around 
 us plays in regard to the men and animals 
 who live in it, as at the bottom of an immense 
 air lake or sea. The scientific world nowadays 
 recognises air to be a food, as much a food in its 
 way as beef and potatoes in their way. The old 
 saying about the chameleon 
 
 " Stretched at its ease the beast I viewed, 
 And saw it eat the air for food " 
 
 is thus no poet jingler's fancy, but a fact. Air 
 is food, the first food of man and everything that 
 lives. The chief sustaining element of the air 
 inspired in breathing is oxygen, which forms a 
 fifth of the whole of the atmosphere. The 
 nitrogen, which forms the remainder of the sea, 
 and is usually said to be the mere diluting 
 medium of oxygen, is, however, not altogether 
 inert, for a small portion of it taken in by each 
 
76 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 inspiration is made use of, or, at all events, does 
 not return in expiration. In an experimental 
 research I once made on the subject of artificial 
 respiration, I found that the average quantity of 
 air received into the lungs of a healthy adult 
 man at each ordinary inspiration is fifteen cubic 
 inches. This is but a small portion of that 
 which he is capable of receiving, for his chest 
 has a capacity for two hundred and twenty-five 
 cubic inches, and he has still a reserve portion 
 in store a bank of air. Before the expired air 
 leaves the lungs, the products of waste which 
 are to be cast off from the blood are diffused into 
 the air with which the lungs are steadily filled. 
 This provision is admirable, in that it keeps the 
 interchange of pure air for impure air going on 
 in the lungs in one unbroken current, places the 
 command of the respiratory act in a partial 
 degree under the will of the individual, and 
 prevents mishaps which might arise from a tem- 
 porary suspension of respiration from becoming 
 immediately fatal. 
 
 The lungs in health are thus always charged 
 with air. This air, carried to the extreme rami- 
 fications of the air-tubes, and thence into the air- 
 cells, of which there are in the human lungs as 
 many as six hundred millions, is brought into in- 
 direct contact with the blood, which is circulating 
 round the lungs from the right to the left side 
 
AIR AS A FOOD. 
 
 77 
 
 of the heart. I say into indirect contact, because 
 the air-cells are lined with membrane on their 
 part, while the blood which plays over them is 
 itself also enclosed in plexuses of vessels, almost 
 infinitely minute, so that there is an intervening 
 membranous screen between the air and the 
 blood. Here, in this fine but expansive net- 
 work of air-cells and blood-tubes, do the inter- 
 changes of air and blood take place through the 
 membranes. Here the blood returning from all 
 the body, through the right side of the heart,, 
 gives off its gaseous products of combustion. 
 Here the same blood is subjected to the absorp- 
 tion of oxygen, the small quantity of nitrogen 
 already spoken of, and some amount of water. 
 The oxygen, if not the nitrogen, is food, and thus 
 the process [of respiration is a process of alimen- 
 tation. Going round with the blood to all parts 
 of the body, this oxygen supports all the acts of 
 nutrition, helps to build up new, assists to 
 remove old tissues. The chemical phenomena of 
 life are, in fact, described in the term oxygena- 
 tion. 
 
 There is yet one other important fact to be con- 
 sidered in relation to air and man ; namely, the 
 liberation of animal heat. We have seen that 
 the atmosphere is the grand external msdium for 
 regulating the temperature of animal bodies. It 
 is also the grand medium for supporting the tern- 
 
7 8 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 perature of these bodies. The process of animal 
 heat making is again a process of oxygenation, 
 not specially carried on in the lungs, it is to be 
 understood, but in every part of the body where 
 oxygen enters into combination with tissue so as 
 to give rise to a new combination. 
 
 Thus in all parts of the body where the blood 
 brings the oxygen there is set up a slow process 
 of combustion with generation of heat, and with 
 sustainment thereby of the natural animal warmth. 
 The little bodies called blood corpuscles, which 
 float in myriads in the blood, seem to be the bearers 
 of the oxygen. They fix it in the lungs and carry 
 it away into the extreme parts of the circulation. 
 There it is used up in the process of combustion, 
 and combines with carbon to form a compound 
 gas called carbonic acid. As this new gas is 
 formed it is also mainly fixed, as I found by* 
 experiment, by the red corpuscles of the blood, 
 and is carried back through the veins to the 
 lungs to be given off into the external air, 
 during expiration, in exchange for oxygen that 
 is taken in by inspiration. 
 
 In the experiments which I have made on 
 the power of the blood to take up and fix oxygen 
 and carbonic acid, I discovered that for the blood 
 properly to take up or absorb oxygen it is neces- 
 sary for it to be first charged with carbonic acid. 
 When it is so charged and is brought into con- 
 
AIR AS A FOOD. 79 
 
 tact with air it immediately gives up the carbonic 
 acid and absorbs the oxygen. As the change of 
 gases occurs there is an instant change in the 
 colour of the blood. From being dark, almost 
 black, in colour, it becomes of bright vermilion 
 red; and this change is always taking place 
 within the body so long as the body is alive and 
 in health. 
 
 If under any adverse circumstances the changes 
 of air and blood cannot freely take place ; if the 
 carbonic acid be retained in the body ; or if, when 
 it is exhaled by the lungs, the lungs in inspira- 
 tion do not take in air properly charged with 
 oxygen then the whole surface of the body be- 
 comes of dark colour, the breathing is oppressed, 
 and the muscles are convulsed ; the consciousness 
 is lost, the temperature falls, and death quickly 
 takes place if the absorption of oxygen be not 
 speedily resumed. Hence the immense import- 
 ance of breathing at all times a pure and natural 
 air. If even the air do not contain so much car- 
 bonic acid as to produce the serious symptoms I 
 have above described, if it only contain from one 
 to two parts in the hundred diffused through air, 
 it is still hurtful : it stops vital action, it causes 
 headache and nausea, impairs the appetite, and 
 reduces the powers of both the body and the 
 mind. 
 
XII. 
 
 DIFFUSION IN AIE. 
 
 WE have seen that the air, by the pressure it 
 exerts on the living body and by the mode 
 in which it affects the animal temperature, pro- 
 duces the most important effects on life. We 
 have now to consider another property of it : its 
 power of removing the gases and vapours which 
 exhale from the body by virtue of what is called 
 the law of diffusion. From the lungs at each 
 expiration, for example, fifteen cubic inches 
 of impure air are yielded, or about as much, 
 says Dr. Neil Arnott symbolically, as would 
 make up the bulk of a full-sized orange. At 
 the moment of expulsion from the chest by 
 expiration, the expired air is heated to nearly 
 the temperature of the body, viz. 98 Fahr., it 
 passes into the atmosphere, floats up in it, be- 
 comes diffused, and is at last by wide-spreading 
 brought to nought. 
 
 As, then, the heated vapour from the breath 
 
DIFFUSION IN AIR. 8 f 
 
 escapes, it passes away and fresh air is inspired. 
 Why the air thus thrown off does not come back, 
 in part at least, at next inspiration, direct into 
 the lungs of the individual who casts it off, is 
 due to u diffusion." 
 
 When two liquids of different densities are put 
 together say oil and water they do not re- 
 main long in the happiness of a united pair. The 
 oil, taking advantage of the density of the water, 
 floats to the top and makes for itself a very com- 
 fortable water-bed, where it reclines uncon- 
 taminated, as all may see. But if two gases of 
 different densities, such as carbonic acid (a heavy 
 gas) and hydrogen (a light gas), be mixed to- 
 gether, they continue mixed as free gases, be it 
 observed, but commingled freely. Nay, if a jar of 
 light gas be inverted over a jar of heavy gas, so 
 that the two gases are brought simply into com- 
 munication, the two at once agree to unite in 
 the most friendly fashion. The heavy gas rises, 
 the light gas descends, and in the end there is 
 a complete admixture. 
 
 The discovery of this tendency on the part of 
 one gas to diffuse into another gas was made by 
 Dalton, who pushed his argument by demonstra- 
 tion so far as to lay down a scientific rule to the 
 effect that gases of different kinds and densities 
 offer no resistance to each other, but run into each 
 other as they would into a vacuum. The labours 
 
82 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 of Professor Graham have since shown that the 
 diffusion process takes place in different gases 
 with different degrees of rapidity, and that gases 
 are not absolutely vacuums to each other. But 
 the final result is the same as though they were, 
 since it has been proved that gases do, in fact, 
 rush into a vacuum with velocities corresponding 
 to the. numbers which have been found to express 
 their diffusion volumes, i.e. with velocities in- 
 versely proportional to the square root of the 
 densities of the gases. 
 
 Of the cause of this mutual diffusion of gases 
 we are not so clear. There is yet another great 
 law to be discovered in this direction. But it is 
 sufficient for our present purpose to know the 
 fact that no gaseous matter can be set free, 
 whether from the animal body or from aught 
 else, without being at once freely diffused in the 
 great ocean of the atmosphere as though prac- 
 tically it were being spread through a great 
 vacuum. 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the magni- 
 ficence of meaning implied in this grand natural 
 law. This great aerial sea, forty-five miles deep 
 each way from any point of the earth's surface, 
 and into which we insignificants can but raise 
 ourselves with the help of bricks and mortar 
 some few poor hundred feet nay, into which 
 our madcaps who try to pierce heaven from a 
 
DIFFUSION IN AIR. 83 
 
 gas-bag cannot penetrate more than a mile or so 
 this great aerial sea, how competent it is for 
 the end had in view ! how capacious a chamber 
 it is for the distribution of coal-smoke, human 
 breath, volcanic vapours, and gaseous poisons 
 innumerable ! 
 
 The winds must not be forgotten. The winds, 
 great mechanical agitations of the great atmo- 
 sphere in the great chamber, are always mixing 
 up everything on a large] scale, as if some enor- 
 mous maelstrom were perpetually at work in 
 the universe ; but all in order, all according to 
 the first law Order. The wind movements, 
 however, and all the effects of admixture spring- 
 ing out of them, must be carefully distinguished 
 from the diffusion process ; that is to say, there 
 must be no relationship of cause and effect in- 
 troduced between them none such exists. The 
 diffusion process is a fact of itself; it takes place 
 in air in a state of rest, as well as when such 
 air is in a state of motion. 
 
XIII. 
 
 OZONIZED AIR. 
 
 CJCHONBEIN", a German physicist, discovered 
 O that oxygen may assume a new form, to 
 which he gave the name of ozone. In general 
 terms the word refers to a gas possessing a 
 pecnliar odonr. It is a negative word, conveying 
 no accurate idea of the composition of the sub- 
 stance and, perhaps, this is an advantage to 
 science rather than the contrary, at least for the 
 present time the word, that is to say, is mean- 
 ingless, and might, from its derivation, oew, "to 
 smell," apply to any gas that is odorous. But 
 because it is meaningless as a definition, it pledges 
 itself to no theory or hypothesis as to the ele- 
 mentary construction of the substance it desig- 
 nates. When that constitution is discovered, and 
 all chemists shake hands over it in cordial agree- 
 ment, it will be good time to change the name 
 if that be desirable, and let the designation 
 define the substance as it really is in its essence. 
 
OZONIZED AIR. 85 
 
 The circumstances under which ozone may be 
 presented are to a considerable extent known. 
 "When an electrical machine a common frictional 
 machine is set in motion, and sparks or flashes 
 are taken from the positive conductor, ozone is 
 developed, and its characteristic odour is readily 
 detected. When water is decomposed by elec- 
 tricity, ozone appears, with oxygen, at the posi- 
 tive pole; in fact, according to one view, the 
 oxygen is simply in an active state, ozonized. If 
 oxygen, nitrous oxide gas, or carbonic acid gas 
 be placed in a glass jar, and electrical sparks be 
 passed through the gas, ozone is developed. 
 Ozone may also be obtained by gently heating 
 the end of a glass rod, and then immersing the 
 said end in a jar through which rectified ether is 
 diffused in vapour. 
 
 A ready way of making ozone is to take sticks 
 of common phosphorus, scrape them until they 
 have a metallic lustre, place them in this con- 
 dition in a large bell jar, and half cover them 
 with water. The air in the bell jar is soon 
 charged with ozone, and a large room can be 
 readily supplied with air in the ozonized state by 
 this process, if the air in the jar be made to pass 
 into the room in current. In this way ozone is 
 sometimes diffused into the sick room. 
 
 To make ozone on a large scale, an appara- 
 tus invented by Siemens is the best. A cylinder 
 
86 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 of glass is covered neatly on its surface with 
 tinfoil, in the same manner as a Ley den jar. 
 Then within this cylinder a smaller cylinder, 
 also coated with tinfoil, is introduced and fixed 
 with cork. The two free ends of the large 
 cylinder are closed with corks well coated with 
 sealing-wax varnish, and each cork is perforated 
 so that a small wooden or glass tube may be 
 inserted. There is thus formed a chamber of 
 glass lined with tinfoil, and if a bellows be 
 attached to one of the small tubes, and air be 
 driven from the bellows, it passes through this 
 chamber and can be collected as it escapes at the 
 opposite end. To ozonize the air that may be 
 sent through this chamber, it is now only neces- 
 sary to discharge electrical sparks through the 
 chamber while the current of air is making its 
 way. To effect this, the coating of tinfoil on the 
 inner and the coating of tinfoil on the outer 
 cylinder are each armed with a fine platinum wire. 
 These wires are connected by their free ends 
 with the poles, one wire to one pole, the other to 
 the opposite pole, of a large induction coil. The 
 coil being set in action by the power derived 
 from a Grove's battery, electrical discharges are 
 made in the chamber of the cylinder, and the 
 air is richly ozonized. The silent discharge of 
 the coil is better than the spark discharge. 
 Such are some of the methods by which ozone 
 
OZONIZED AIR. 87 
 
 is artificially produced; and however produced 
 it, appears to have the same properties. It is 
 therefore assumed to be the same substance as 
 derived from all these sources, and it is now 
 believed to be condensed oxygen. 
 
 On dead matter that has become putrid, ozone 
 acts with great vehemence as a deodoriser or 
 purifier. This it effects by decomposing the pro- 
 ducts which emanate from the putrefying body, 
 and the effects are the same in the most offensive 
 compounds. 
 
 The first important fact I would like to 
 impress, is that the substance called ozone ener- 
 getically destroys the putrid emanations of 
 decomposing animal substances, and, even after 
 they are long dead, restores to the dead matter 
 certain of its properties which, though in truth 
 they are always physical, are vulgarly called 
 vital. "We might turn this fact to some great 
 account in the matter of decomposing animal 
 food. If the butcher were a scientific man, he 
 could at little expense restore to wholesome fresh- 
 ness and purity a portion of the changing flesh 
 which now, at bad seasons of the year for preser- 
 vation, he is obliged to cast away. 
 
 By some grand process ozone is produced in 
 the atmospheric sea which surrounds our planet. 
 It is estimated to exist naturally in the propor- 
 tion of one part of ozone to ten thousand parts of 
 
88 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 air. I cannot vouch, for the entire accuracy of 
 this computation, because the amount, according 
 to our present mode of estimating it, seems to 
 fluctuate, and no sufficient number of experi- 
 ments have been made in different portions of 
 the world to allow of a correct average being 
 determined. "We must take one part in ten thou- 
 sand as an approximate, not an actual value. 
 
 The natural process leading to the production 
 of ozone in the atmospheric sea is not as yet 
 understood. At first electrical storms were con- 
 ceived to be the means of production. Then Pro- 
 fessor Dove advanced the idea that the ozone is 
 generated in the upper equatorial currents of air, 
 and is by these diffused over the planetary sur- 
 face with the north and south winds. And again 
 Dr. Moffatt, whose labours in this department of 
 science cannot be overestimated, considers that 
 ozone is connected with the phenomenon of 
 phosphorescence, and that, in short, it is pro- 
 duced in nature at large as we have seen it 
 produced in the laboratory as a result of phos- 
 phorous oxidation. Of all these theories, that of 
 Dr. Moffatt is the most simple, and is perhaps 
 best supported by observation. 
 
 "When we know the two facts that ozone puri- 
 fies decomposing organic substances by breaking 
 up the offensive deleterious products of decompo- 
 sition, and that it exists naturally in the air we 
 
OZONIZED AIR. 89 
 
 breathe, we might infer that it fulfils some 
 useful purpose in the universe without specu- 
 lating rashly. But we have no occasion to 
 speculate at all, for we find as a positive fact, 
 sustained by the most perfect evidence, that 
 ozone is usefully employed, and that in truth it 
 is a great purifier of the impure air of city and 
 town. It is now proved that the ozone in air, 
 after it is diffused through town and city, is 
 no longer to be detected there by the most 
 delicate tests for its presence. Hence it is said 
 to be lost in towns. In other words, it is used 
 up in the process of destroying those exhaled sub- 
 stances which pass from the bodies of men and 
 animals, and which escape from the organic 
 debris that necessarily accumulate in and about 
 every human habitation. 
 
XIY. 
 
 USES OF OZONE. 
 
 THE condensed oxygen, called ozone, as it 
 is the great purifier of the dead earth, 
 so perchance it is the physical purificator of 
 the living animal. The light shines doubtfully 
 here, but the direction of it is to show that when 
 oxygen gas is brought into contact with the blood 
 in the living lungs, it is in part transformed into 
 ozone, and that the subtle active agent is doing 
 its work more secretly, but as certainly, within 
 the tissues of the organism as in the world with- 
 out. 
 
 The physiological effects of ozone are destroyed 
 by heat, and are obscured or prevented by ex- 
 treme cold. In experiments to show the effects 
 of ozone on animal respiration, I found that a 
 temperature not lower than 65 Fahr., and not 
 higher than 75, should be sustained. 
 
 There is a condition of atmospheric oxygen in 
 which that gas exhibits an opposite condition 
 
OF OZONE. gr 
 
 to its ozonized condition. There are different 
 methods of proving this, which I have not space 
 to describe, but I may state that in some 
 experiments on the reinhalation of air many 
 times over I was able to reduce oxygen to such a 
 negative state that it failed to support life. The 
 act of purifying such oxygen from carbonic acid 
 and other tangible impurities had no effect in 
 rendering it better fitted for the support of 
 healthy life, but ozone at once restored to it 
 active power. 
 
 In this negative oxygen animals die as if 
 under the influence of a narcotic. In it the 
 destruction of the products of organic decom- 
 position is greatly impeded, and the presence 
 of such products speedily renders it intolerably 
 offensive ; dead animal tissue rapidly putrefies in 
 it, and wounds in the bodies of living animals 
 become sanious, dark, and unwholesome. 
 
 We may gather from what has gone before a 
 few facts bearing on hygienic measures, general 
 and special. "We may learn that as ozone is used 
 up in crowded localities, and as its presence is 
 essential for the removal of the products arising 
 from decomposing organic remains, no mere 
 attention to ventilation, however important that 
 may be, can suffice to make the air efficient for 
 supporting healthy life unless the air be ren- 
 dered active by the presence of ozone. Hence it 
 
92 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 is an absurdity of the worst description to build 
 hospitals for the sick in the midst of the crowded 
 localities of the poor, and to ventilate them with 
 air that has swept its way over a sea of ammo- 
 niacal compounds derived from the living and 
 the dead, unless pains be taken to charge them 
 with ozonized air. Human dwellings built on 
 the borders of lakes or pools charged with 
 organic debris, or built near manure-heaps or over 
 sewers, or on ground saturated with putrefying 
 substances, become necessarily the centres of the 
 fever type of disease ; not by necessity, as is 
 vulgarly supposed, because the inhabitants are 
 conscious of a " smell," but because the air they 
 breathe is reduced in active power, and poisons 
 are being generated around them to which they 
 are constantly exposed, and before which they 
 fall a prey. 
 
 In time we shall take care to conserve ozone 
 where it should be conserved, to supply it like 
 light in places where it cannot be always secured 
 naturally, or to neutralise it if, like the Eoman 
 centurion's soldiers, it comes when we do not 
 want it. 
 
 In ozone another generation may actually see 
 an article of commerce, and even now an " ozone 
 company" might prove itself not merely a use- 
 ful, but, as a sequence, a paying concern. Such 
 a company could deodorise, disinfect, and give 
 
USES OF OZONE. 93 
 
 sea air to every household that required it. The 
 " supply" could be as manageable as coal gas 
 and as cheap as water. With due precaution, 
 the lieges might make use of the agent as 
 safely in their households as men of science 
 make use of it in the laboratory. 
 
XY. 
 
 OZONE AND DISEASE. 
 
 II THEN air containing an excess of ozone is 
 T T breathed for some minutes it produces, 
 first, a sense of irritation of the nose and throat, 
 with sneezing, and soon a dull heavy pain in the 
 head, and headache more or less severe. After a 
 time there is a watery discharge from the nostrils 
 and a free secretion from the back of the throat. 
 When the inhalation is over the symptoms 
 gradually subside, and I have never known any 
 bad effects follow, although the headache will 
 remain for five or six hours. These symptoms 
 are very decided, and have been experienced by 
 Schonbein, Scoutetten, Wood, myself, and many 
 other observers. As a class of symptoms they 
 are, without doubt, identical with those which 
 characterize nasal catarrh, or common cold. I 
 do not believe that any of my learned brethren 
 in physic would hesitate for a moment in pro- 
 nouncing a person who was suffering from ozone 
 
OZONE AND DISEASE. 95 
 
 cold as being affected with common cold, pre- 
 mising that the cause was withheld from his 
 knowledge. 
 
 The inference, therefore, has been drawn that 
 when common cold is the prevailing disease 
 there is an excess of ozone in the air, and that 
 the symptoms are due to such excess of ozone. 
 
 On this particular point the light we have 
 shines doubtfully ; the inference is fair and 
 reasonable, but the actual proofs are not as yet 
 afforded. The position is as follows. 
 
 A disease identical with catarrh can be ex- 
 cited by the inhalation of an air containing an 
 excess of ozone. It has been shown, especially 
 by Dr. Moffatt, that catarrh is common during 
 what are called ozone periods, that is to say, when 
 ozone is freely present in the air. But catarrh 
 is sometimes present in a general form when, by 
 the ordinary tests, ozone cannot be shown to be 
 present in excess. 
 
 The theory, therefore, is not perfect in all its 
 parts. It may be imperfect because our present 
 tests for ozone are not sufficiently accurate; it 
 may be that the test we employ is sometimes 
 interfered with in its action by the presence of 
 other bodies foreign to the atmospheric air. The 
 test itself consists of a paper saturated with 
 solution of iodide of potassium and starch. 
 When this paper is exposed to ordinary air it 
 
96 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 undergoes no change; when it is exposed to 
 ozonized air the potassium is oxidized, and the 
 iodine being set free combines with the starch, 
 forming iodide of starch. The iodide of starch 
 strikes a dark blue colour, and the depth of the 
 colour struck on the paper gives the theoretical 
 degree of ozone present in the air. Schonbein 
 and Moifatt each prepared test-papers, with scales, 
 for comparing degrees of intensity. 
 
 The test being made more accurate, it is pos- 
 sible, and indeed probable, that in time ozone 
 will be proved to stand to catarrh in the posi- 
 tion of cause to effect. Nay, I have thought 
 that local currents of ozone may probably be 
 generated from the friction of air in its passage 
 with violence through narrow channels, as when 
 there is produced what is commonly called 
 draught; and certainly an ozone paper colours 
 more quickly in a draught than it does in a 
 calm air. But, after all, these facts bearing on 
 the connection of ozone with catarrh may be 
 singular coincidences only. It is hard to think so 
 lightly of them, but it would be unsafe to think 
 more. 
 
 Speculation as to the influence of ozone in the 
 production of disease has been carried much 
 further by some authors. It has been argued 
 that croup, diphtheria, quinsy, bronchitis, inflam- 
 mation of the lungs, and pneumonia stand to 
 
OZONE AND DISEASE. 97 
 
 ozone in the position of effect to cause. Pre- 
 suming that common cold is really a product of 
 excess of ozone in the air, there can be nothing 
 more reasonable, or more fairly inferential, than 
 that these other allied disorders follow upon the 
 same cause. And, again, there can be no doubt 
 that the disorders are most common and most 
 fatal during the ozone periods, periods when 
 ozone is most active; but, for the same reasons 
 as were given in regard to common cold, the 
 evidence is not decisive. The evidence that has 
 been accumulated ought never to be forgotten 
 by the man of science, and no opportunity for 
 extending it and improving it ought to be let 
 slip ; but it cannot be accepted in any positive 
 sense at this moment. 
 
 In a paper by Dr. Moffatt, read by him at 
 the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science in 1865, he did indeed somewhat more 
 than anticipate these successes. The paper is 
 entitled, " Phosphorescence in connection with 
 Storms and Disease," and in it he exhibited 
 tables to show that the atmospheric conditions 
 under which the luminosity of phosphorus takes 
 place are those of the south or equatorial cur- 
 rent of air, with a minimum of atmospheric 
 pressure and a maximum of temperature and 
 humidity ; while those conditions under which 
 non-luminosity takes place are the conditions of 
 
 H 
 
98 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 the north or polar current, namely, a maximum 
 of pressure and a minimum of temperature and 
 humidity. The atmospheric conditions of ozone 
 and non-ozone periods are, he insists, the same as 
 those of luminosity and non-luminosity of phos- 
 phorus. Phosphorus becomes luminous and 
 ozone periods commence on the approach of 
 storms, and if a storm sets in during a luminous 
 or ozone period, the luminosity increases in 
 brilliancy and the ozone in quantity. 
 
 Moifat also showed tables which he had pre- 
 pared from observations on the luminosity of 
 phosphorus, on ozone, and on the prevalence of dis- 
 eases in connection with the system of meteoro- 
 logical telegraphy instituted by the late Admiral 
 Fitzroy. From these it appeared that all the 
 periods of luminosity commenced with the setting 
 in of the atmospheric conditions, of the approach 
 of which cautionary telegrams gave warning. Of 
 diseases, 80 per cent, of apoplexy, epilepsy, and 
 sudden death occurred on the days on which 
 phosphorus became luminous. 
 
 The atmospheric conditions which lead to those 
 storms are, he says, invariably accompanied by 
 diseases of the nervous, vascular, and muscular 
 systems. During the two years, one hundred 
 and forty-three cases of those diseases came 
 under his notice, of which 54*5 per cent, took 
 place on telegram days, and 45'5 per eent. on 
 
OZONE AND DISEASE. 99 
 
 other days similar in a meteorological sense to 
 those on which the telegrams were issued, 
 differing only in degree. 
 
 Although storms are accompanied by diseases 
 of some kinds, they are, nevertheless, he main- 
 tains, of great benefit in a sanitary sense. They 
 carry with them a supply of nature's deodorising 
 and disinfecting agent ozone. As far as he 
 had opportunities of observing, he had come to 
 the conclusion that cholera disappears with the 
 setting in of the equatorial or ozoniferous current, 
 as was the case at Newcastle in 1853, and in the 
 London epidemic. During a cholera epidemic 
 the barometric readings are high, a calm prevails, 
 and there is no ozone. 
 
 In conclusion, Dr. Moffatt asks whether 
 seeing the intimate connection there is between 
 periods of the luminosity of phosphorus and ozone 
 periods, and of non-luminosity and non-ozone 
 periods, and knowing that ozone is formed by 
 the action of phosphorus on moist air we may 
 not reasonably look to phosphorescence as the 
 chief source of atmospheric ozone ? 
 
XVI. 
 
 DEVITALISED AIR. 
 
 WE have seen that the air we breathe may be 
 rendered impure by the presence in it of 
 the products of breathing. "We have seen that 
 the air may be changed in quality by the influ- 
 ence of electrical discharge, and may possibly 
 become injurious to health. There is yet another 
 class of facts about the air which are newest of 
 all, and which deserve to be mentioned on that 
 account if on none other. To explain this set of 
 facts I must trace the progress of research that 
 led to them. 
 
 Many years ago the late Sir Benjamin Brodie 
 and Mr. Broughton conducted a remarkable series 
 of experiments on the effect of inhalation of 
 oxygen gas in its pure form. The experiment- 
 alists named wished to determine what would be 
 the effect of oxygen gas on animal bodies if the 
 gas were breathed undiluted. "Would the animal 
 life be sustained for a longer or a shorter time in 
 
DEVITALISED AIR. 101 
 
 the pure oxygen ? Would the combustion of the 
 body be quickened in it? To arrive at a cor- 
 rect conclusion they placed living warm-blooded 
 animals in chambers charged with simple oxygen, 
 and beneath the chambers they placed, under a 
 false perforated bottom, an alkaline solution, in 
 order to absorb the carbonic acid which the 
 animals produced in breathing. To the great won- 
 der of the observers, they witnessed the fact that 
 after a time the animals, inhaling what Priest- 
 ley, the discoverer of oxygen, very properly 
 called it, " vital air" that the animals inhal- 
 ing this vital air, instead of living more actively 
 than they would live in an equal proportion of 
 oxygen diluted as it is in the atmosphere, became 
 languid and drowsy, and finally died in a state of 
 sleep. When the observers removed the oxygen 
 from the jar in which the animals had died, they 
 found that the gas would support the com- 
 bustion of a taper precisely as when it was freshly 
 made, and they also found that it showed no 
 evidence of the presence of carbonic acid gas. 
 From these experiments, therefore, it was ac- 
 corded that oxygen gas in a pure and simple 
 state is a narcotic poison, and as such it was set 
 down in every text-book that treated on the sub- 
 ject, for many years. 
 
 In the early part of my career I was led from 
 the study of anaesthetic vapours to go over this 
 
loz AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 ground, which had been so singularly opened. 
 I thought it possible that oxygen might be used 
 so as to make it actually a sleep producer, but 
 I started also with the idea in my mind that 
 probably there was some error in the original 
 experiments, that the whole of the carbonic acid 
 produced by the animals in the oxygen had pos- 
 sibly not been removed by the experimentalists, 
 and that a small remaining quantity of the known 
 narcotic (carbonic acid) was after all the cause of 
 the phenomena that had been observed. I there- 
 fore commenced to experiment in a different 
 manner. 
 
 Instead of constructing a chamber with a false 
 bottom, and with absorbing fluid underneath, 
 I so constructed the apparatus that from a 
 very large store of pure oxygen a current of 
 the gas should steadily and continuously pass. 
 In plain words, I ventilated a room perfectly 
 with pure oxygen instead of common air. In 
 such a room I found that for weeks life could 
 be sustained, and that no narcotic symptoms 
 were developed. I also found that if the tem- 
 perature of the oxygen were maintained at 
 summer heat, the combustion of an animal body 
 in the gas was increased that the appetite was 
 made voracious, and yet that the excess of food, 
 did not prevent wasting. 
 
 Clearly, then, it occurred to me that the first 
 
DEVITALISED AIR. 103 
 
 experimenters were wrong, as I had suspected, 
 and that carbonic acid gas was in their case 
 the cause of the sleep. 
 
 But now a new light came on the subject which 
 changed the view and gave a much more im- 
 portant reading, a reading that bears manifoldly 
 on our present study, and others allied to it. I 
 was not a rich experimentalist, and I found that 
 to ventilate a good-sized experimental chamber 
 for several weeks with oxygen was a process too 
 costly for my means. So I devised this expedient. 
 I made a large store, eighty gallons, of oxygen 
 in one reservoir, A, and by water suction I drew the 
 gas gradually through the chamber into another 
 reservoir of the same size, B, letting the place of 
 the gas from reservoir A be taken by water let in 
 from a tap. As the oxygen entered the chamber 
 from A it was pure ; as it passed out on its way 
 to B it carried with it the carbonic acid that 
 had been produced by the animals living in the 
 chamber. In its exit from the chamber, in its 
 course to B, the gas was stopped and purified : it 
 was passed through sulphuric acid to remove 
 ammonia, it was passed through potassa to remove 
 carbonic acid, and then it was passed through 
 lime-water; and until it passed through lime- 
 water so clearly as to leave no trace of evidence 
 of carbonic acid it was not admitted into the 
 reservoir B. It was also tested in various ways 
 
104 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 in order to see if its physical qualities were those 
 of pure oxygen. 
 
 When this purification was quite perfect the 
 oxygen from B was repassed through the chamber 
 into A with the same precautions as before, and 
 I expected the same results as followed the 
 process of ventilating with freshly-made oxygen. 
 The expectation was not fulfilled. To my 
 surprise, after a few passages of the oxygen gas 
 from the reservoirs through the chamber it 
 ceased to support the active life of all warm- 
 blooded animals. Frogs continued to live in it 
 unaffected, but other animals passed into the 
 same torpid, narcotized state as Sir Benjamin 
 Brodie had discovered in his research. 
 
 A further and very prolonged inquiry on this 
 new basis of observation showed me that oxygen 
 gas in contact with oxygen that has been 
 breathed loses some quality which destroys its 
 power of sustaining natural life. It may be 
 made to resume its activity by treating it with 
 electric discharges ; it may be raised to activity 
 by increase of temperature ; but without such 
 treatment it is practically inert for vital pro- 
 cesses, though a taper will burn in it with the 
 usual brilliancy. 
 
 In this deteriorated oxygen I found also that 
 dead organic substances underwent more rapid 
 decomposition. 
 
DEVITALISED AIR. 105 
 
 Still further, I learned that the presence in 
 oxygen gas of various vapours and products of 
 decomposition interfered with the vital action of 
 oxygen in the same way. I have no doubt 
 that every one of those useful narcotic vapours 
 which we employ in order to suspend sensation 
 while painful operations are being performed 
 effects the same change that, namely, of arrest- 
 ing the vital action of oxygen gas. 
 
 Whenever we bring into the air we breathe any 
 agent which reduces the activity of the oxygen, 
 we subject ourselves, though we may not by any 
 sensual perception be conscious of the fact, to 
 an influence which depresses our vitality. By 
 the old this depression seems to be felt less 
 severely than might be expected. By the young 
 it is intensely felt, and much of the feebleness of 
 the young in crowded localities is, I believe, due 
 to this special cause of deterioration of air. 
 
XVII. 
 
 DAMP, DARKNESS, AND COLD. 
 
 WE have learned by careful research in 
 modern times that the air may be dete- 
 riorated and made imperfect for the due sustain- 
 ment of life by other causes than those already 
 described. The presence of excess of moisture 
 in the air is one of these causes. "We recognise 
 this cause under the term of damp, and when we 
 say that the air of a house or of a place is damp, 
 we at once express our knowledge of its un- 
 healthiness. This is an old fact, but it has lately 
 been much elucidated. "We know now that damp 
 air causes rheumatism, neuralgia, and pulmonary 
 consumption. 
 
 "We have made out more definitely of late the 
 power of the sun to purify the air by various 
 direct and indirect ways. We have learned the 
 part which light plays in vegetation how, acting 
 upon the vegetable life, the chemical rays play 
 the part of perpetual chemists to the world, de- 
 
DAMP, DARKNESS, AND COLD. 107 
 
 compose the carbonic acid in the leaf of the plant, 
 fix the carbon for the plant, give up the oxygen 
 for the uses again of man. But it is not, I 
 think, generally understood how refined this- 
 process is, and how it is contravened sometimes 
 by ignorant human ingenuity, or how potent it 
 is for good when it is not crossed in its working. 
 Let me give two illustrations of these truths. 
 
 I have recently been studying the effects on 
 vegetation of those noxious vapours which are 
 given off in the air from some chemical manufac- 
 tories. I refer specially to those vapours and 
 gases which escape from alkali works, and which 
 so effectually destroy vegetation, viz. chlorine, 
 hydrochloric acid, and sulphurous acid. In ex- 
 perimenting on the action of these gases on 
 plants, I noticed amongst other effects that in 
 their presence the chemical changes of the plant 
 tinder the influence of light were reduced in 
 activity. In explaining this fact to Mr. Norman 
 Lockyer, he suggested as the reason that the 
 presence of the gases named probably cut off the 
 part of the sunbeam, the chemical rays, which 
 cause the decomposition in the leaf. On testing 
 this theory by experiment, the result came out as 
 predicted. Mr. Loekyer was good enough to 
 make a series of experiments for me to witness 
 with him, in which it came out clearly that on 
 passing the electric beam through atmospheres 
 
io8 AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 containing the gases named, the chemical rays 
 were intercepted or cut off with more or less of 
 decision, according to the admission of the gases 
 into the air-tube through which the light passed. 
 
 Let me by a second illustration show the 
 effect of light in purifying. A distinguished 
 native physician of our Indian empire, Dr. Go- 
 paul Chunder Eoy, sent me for experiment some 
 cobra poison. As it came fresh to hand it was 
 found to be exceedingly fatal to animal life. 
 Soon a portion of it which had been left on ivory 
 points in a bottle was observed to have lost its 
 poisonous power, while other points in a bottle 
 wrapped in paper in a drawer remained active. 
 This led me to test directly the action of light 
 on this poison, and to find that sunlight so 
 changed it, even in a few days, when the light 
 was intense, as to destroy its poisonous properties 
 altogether. 
 
 Such facts as these serve to impress on the 
 mind, in thinking of improvements in houses and 
 towns, what a necessary process is the purifica- 
 tion from day darkness, and how important it is 
 to let in the sun, the whole sun, and nothing but 
 the sun. They also show, on the one hand, how 
 easy a thing it is to destroy, or rather to cut off, 
 a part of the sunbeam, and how bad a thing it is 
 to cut off such a potent agency as that which 
 will destroy an organic poison like cobra poison, 
 
DAMP, DARKNESS, AND COLD. 109 
 
 and by analogy such poisons as smallpox, scarlet 
 fever, and typhus. 
 
 One further truth has come out of late re- 
 search. I refer to the influence of an equable 
 temperature of the air on health and life. The 
 wave of cold that passes from time to time over 
 our houses is so decisively and sharply destruc- 
 tive to life in certain ages as to kill by a kind 
 of geometrical progression. If on persons thirty 
 years of age it produces an increase of mortality, 
 the fatal effect doubles with every nine years of 
 life. If it kill one person who has reached 
 thirty, it kills two of thirty -nine, four of forty- 
 eight, eight of fifty-seven, sixteen of sixty-six, 
 thirty-two of seventy-five, and sixty-four of 
 those who have attained to eighty-four. 
 
 Here, then, are some modern data for sanitary 
 improvements and their relationships to life. 
 These are the facts which sanitary science has 
 gathered within this last hundred and fifty years, 
 and mostly within the last twenty-five years. 
 
 Pure air, pure water, purity from damp, 
 pure light, equable temperature. These are the 
 five fingers of the right hand of health. Every 
 builder ought to know them, every parent ought 
 to know them, every child ought to be told of 
 them, and the reasons on which they are based. 
 
 They are little known, and yet it is true 
 that in questions relating to health, knowledge 
 
no AIR AND LIFE. 
 
 has immeasurably exceeded practice. If for the 
 next twenty years not another new fact were 
 added to our present knowledge, if during the 
 whole of that time our energies were devoted 
 to the direct application of the knowledge that 
 has been obtained respecting the air and its 
 uses, I doubt whether the capital of present in- 
 formation would be fully utilised. 
 
PART III. 
 
 ALIMENTATION. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 HEALTH AND ALIMENTATION. 
 
 HEALTH and Alimentation go so closely hand 
 in hand, we may recognise in some charac- 
 teristic series of healthy conditions the qualities 
 of food on which they are sustained. We may 
 recognise equally well from the evidences of cer- 
 tain forms of disease that either deficiencies of 
 foods or unnatural kinds of foods are present in 
 the diets of the diseased. 
 
 Buckle, in his desire to prove that all natural 
 characteristics are due to a few simple physical 
 laws, has dwelt unjustly on the influences of 
 foods as determinators of such characteristics. 
 He held it possible, "by the application of a few 
 physical laws, to anticipate what the food of a 
 country will be, and therefore to anticipate a 
 long train of ulterior consequences." Hence he 
 assumed that a particular food was natural to a 
 particular community placed on special parts of 
 the earth, rice to the natives of India, bread to 
 
 i 
 
1 1 4 ALIMENTA T10N. 
 
 men of these northern climes. In the view that 
 the qualities of a people are determined largely 
 by the qualities of the foods on which they sub- 
 sist, the distinguished author of the " History of 
 Civilisation" was right. In the view that each 
 part of the Dearth specially provides the best foods 
 for the inhabitants of that part, he was general- 
 ising too far. To a considerable extent it is true 
 that in each portion of the world the people 
 living on that portion find in the products of it 
 all that they require, but not according to any 
 particular design bearing upon that particular 
 people ; because, when all the facts are examined, 
 it is found that such food as is really the best for 
 one people or one race is the best for all people 
 and all races. A community that is confined too 
 severely to any one food is never a healthy com- 
 munity in the strict sense of the term, and a 
 community that is truly healthy may safely be 
 accredited with the possession of such a variety 
 of alimentary substances as would sustain all the 
 rest of the world with equal completeness. 
 
 The errors that have crept into the arguments 
 on these subjects are due to other errors of a 
 physiological and local character, from which 
 such great observers as Buckle himself are not 
 altogether and at all times free. For example, 
 Buckle, from the premise that in India rice takes 
 the place which in England is held by bread, and 
 
HEALTH AND ALIMENTA TION. 1 1 5 
 
 is the essential article of diet to the millions of 
 India, has argued that rice therefore is the natural 
 food of those millions, and has founded upon this 
 assumption the generalisation I have quoted. 
 But the premise was incorrect, and therefore the 
 conclusion; for it is physiologically, impossible 
 for any human being to exist on rice, seeing that 
 rice cannot yield muscular substance, and, as Mr. 
 Cornish has most ably demonstrated, it is not 
 true that rice is the essential article of diet to 
 the millions of people who form the bulk of the 
 Indian population. 
 
 The true scientific position of the question is 
 that to form the healthy man anywhere and 
 everywhere, the same qualities of food are re- 
 quired for him anywhere and everywhere ; and 
 when differences arise from differences of quality, 
 they are not to be accepted as special results of 
 natural selection for the particular welfare and 
 health of a people, but as physiological variations 
 resulting from varieties of food which may be 
 very good or very bad, or indifferently good or 
 bad, according to circumstances, and certainly 
 without reference to such physical provision as 
 Buckle has assumed. An East Indian may exist 
 largely on rice because he cannot get other food ; 
 a Eussian, for the same reason, may exist on rye 
 bread ; a Norfolk labourer on Norfolk dumpling ; 
 a Scotsman on oatmeal cakes. But because these 
 
1 1 6 ALIMENT A T10N. 
 
 foods are or may be to those who eat them the 
 foods natural to their countries, it is not to be 
 assumed that they are all-sufficient, or that they 
 supply what is sufficient to maintain the most 
 perfect standards of health. 
 
 I introduce the subject of alimentation in its 
 relation to the national health with the above 
 remarks, for the purpose of enforcing the principle 
 that food has now to be considered in the first 
 instance from a physiological point of view. The 
 best method for feeding the people has always 
 been a great political question. Plague, pesti- 
 lence and famine, battle and murder, have in the 
 most solemn manner been classed together, and of 
 all these calamities famine perchance has most 
 terrified the rulers of mankind. The time has 
 come when the question of food supply must pass 
 through the hands of the teachers of science 
 before ever it reaches the hands of the politicians. 
 It is the duty of men of science to show what is 
 food in the most simple and necessary sense of 
 the word. It is their duty to study what is 
 sufficient quality of food and what is sufficient 
 quantity. It is their duty to study, further, 
 Avhat is over-sufficient, what is under- sufficient, 
 and what are the evils of over- sufficiency and of 
 under-sufficiency. 
 
 In a reformed world the understanding of the 
 food question will be simple enough. In the 
 
HEALTH AND ALIMENTATION. 1 1 7 
 
 course of the present century science in the most 
 wonderful manner of exactitude has discovered 
 the elementary organic parts of the animal body, 
 and has so analyzed the outside sources of those 
 parts, from which the wasting body is supplied, 
 as to know the precise value of all foods which 
 are in common use. 
 
 By the first of these studies it has been 
 found that the constitutional structure of the 
 body is made out of a very few principles. 
 Of water, which forms seventy-nine per cent, 
 of the blood, eighty per cent, of brain, eighty 
 per cent, of muscle, ten per cent, even of bone, 
 and which is the fluid menstruum and only 
 natural fluid menstruum of all the substances that 
 are in solution. Of albumen. Of fibrine, which 
 forms the solid part of the muscles. Of gelatine, 
 which is found in bone, tendon, and cellular 
 tissue. Of fat. Of phosphate of lime, which 
 forms the earthy and resistant base of bony sub- 
 stance. Of chloride of sodium (common salt), 
 and other saline substances which, existing in 
 the blood, add to the specific weight of that fluid, 
 and perform some secondary offices in the secre- 
 tions. And, not to enter too far into detail, of 
 the metal iron, which in the corpuscles of the 
 blood makes them, as it were, into a metallic 
 chain running through the whole circuit of the 
 blood in all the minute ramifications. 
 
1 1 8 ALIMENT A TION. 
 
 By the second of these studies it has beeir 
 found that all the constructive materials of a 
 living body are made ready for the body outside- 
 itself, and that, with the exception of a portion 
 of the water and of some saline substances, the 
 materials for the body are made in the vegetable 
 kingdom. The vegetable world is discovered to- 
 be the grand laboratory of nature in which, in 
 line of continued experiment, with the sun as tho 
 furnace and source of energy, the products neces- 
 sary for the animal life are elaborated and are so 
 prepared that they are all but ready for use. 
 One food which the animal itself more perfectly 
 elaborates out of what it receives from the vege- 
 table supplies, I mean the secretion on which 
 the mother feeds her young, and which may be 
 accepted as the typical and, when it is taken 
 from a healthy source, the perfected food, milk, 
 is the only exception to this rule. 
 
 Scientific inquiry has made these simple truths 
 as clear as clearness can be, and, extending the 
 observations from the particular to the general, 
 has further shown that in all climes and under 
 all conditions the elementary facts of construction 
 are the same. Each living animal of the same 
 construction requires the same materials for con- 
 structive purposes. The quantities of materials 
 respectively may vary according to climatic 
 necessities, more oleaginous food being required 
 
HEALTH AND ALIMENTATION. 119 
 
 in one locality, more muscle-forming substance in 
 another; but the qualities remain in all cases 
 fixed by an arbitrary rule of nature, from which 
 there cannot be divergency of action with per- 
 sistency of health. 
 
XIX. 
 
 ESSENTIALS OF FOODS. 
 
 rjlHE course of investigation lias led to the 
 JL demonstration that the ultimate resolution 
 of food within the body, during which and by 
 which resolution the body is animated and sus- 
 tained with animation, is traceable through what 
 are termed technically the animal excretions, the 
 excretions of the lungs, the skin, the kidneys, 
 the bowels. Those products which the vegetable 
 world elaborates by its chemistry resolve accu- 
 rately, within the animal, into new products 
 which approach at last to the earthy substances 
 that in turn give food to the plants. Only the 
 water remains unaltered: that coming to plant 
 and animals alike from its primitive sources, 
 continues as water and unchanged in chemical 
 quality, though the medium in which all the 
 changes of other substances take place, so ac- 
 commodates itself to form of structure that it 
 becomes, by combination, solidified in muscle, 
 
ESSENTIALS OF FOODS. i z i 
 
 brain, bone, and sinew, fluid in the blood and 
 secretions, vaporous in the breath. 
 
 Given, therefore, a fixed diet, the ultimate 
 products of the animal sustenance will be formed 
 upon it. The products due to the resolution of 
 the fat-making materials will be evolved from 
 the lungs as carbonic acid. The products due to 
 the resolution of the muscle-making materials 
 will be evolved by the kidney in the form of a 
 salt known as urea. The products also will be 
 eliminated according to the supply of the mate- 
 rial from which they are formed. An excess of 
 animal food will, for example, lead to an excess 
 of urea in the renal secretion, and if the body be 
 kept at rest the amount of urea secreted will hold 
 a definite relation to the amount of animal 
 muscle-forming matter that is consumed in the 
 food. 
 
 Still more, we now read by the light of science 
 that during the process of improper feeding cer- 
 tain internal changes of the body take place, 
 which, though unseen while the body lives, are 
 as definite as any of the changes of an external 
 character that are visible in shape and form. 
 From excess in the use of some foods extreme 
 changes occur in the blood-vessels, by which the 
 vessels are charged with fatty substance, and are 
 thereby weakened or obstructed. By excess in 
 other foods the minute muscular fibres are made 
 
122 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 to undergo degeneration, and the central muscle* 
 of the circulation, the heart, is reduced in its- 
 power and impeded in its functions. By other 
 excessive uses of foods, visible or objective- 
 changes of the body are induced, such as obesity, 
 eruptive conditions of the skin, and diseases as 
 distinctive as that once terrible chronic plague of 
 our naval forces, sea scurvy. 
 
 The diminution of food, the limitation of qua- 
 lities of foods apart from quantities, leads, in 
 its way, to special deflections from the standard 
 of health of the most striking character. The 
 extreme reduction of foods, and especially of 
 muscle-forming foods, leads to the development 
 of the contagious malady or plague called famine 
 fever. The reduction of the inorganic bone- 
 forming structure, phosphate of lime, leads to 
 the development of a disease of the bones in 
 which they, from suppleness, bend and give a 
 misshapen skeleton. 
 
 Thus, without the introduction of any inju- 
 rious foreign substances into foods and drinks, 
 and under the head of foods I include all that is 
 capable of sustaining the body, be it in the shape 
 either of food or drink, there may be induced 
 by feeding certain definite changes in the animal 
 body, which changes invariably follow the error 
 that is committed according to fixed rule, and 
 which afflict alike, when they are in operation,, 
 
ESSENTIALS OF FOODS. 123 
 
 men of every race, of every clime, and of every 
 age. 
 
 In studying the effects of alimentary substances 
 on the national health it is necessary, therefore, 
 to consider in the first place the essentials of 
 foods, what are wanted and what are not wanted. 
 If we extract from them any part of what is 
 wanted, the health is not maintained ; if we put 
 into them anything that is not wanted, the 
 health is not maintained; if we give the right 
 things in excessive quantities, the health is not 
 maintained ; if we give the right things in in- 
 sufficient quantities, the health is not maintained. 
 
 Suppose we divide these essentials of food into 
 their respective parts ; they then present them- 
 selves before us in five groups. There is first 
 and foremost the water, which we have seen 
 makes up so large a part of the body as water 
 simply and in its purest form. Secondly, there 
 is the muscle-forming food, called sometimes, 
 because the element nitrogen enters into it, nitro- 
 genous food, or, because it assumes in the organism 
 the colloidal or jelly-like state of matter, colloidal 
 food, or, because it has been assumed to be de- 
 rived from albumen, albuminous food. Thirdly, 
 there is the saline, or, as it is sometimes desig- 
 nated, mineral food, of which the lime salt in 
 bone is the most striking example. Fourthly, 
 there is the metallic constituent, of which the 
 
* 24 ALIMENT A TION. 
 
 iron present in the blood is the marked element. 
 Lastly, there is the hydro-carbon class of foods 
 the foods which, burning within the body, sus- 
 tain the necessary animal temperatures, and 
 which have their best representatives in rice, 
 potatoes, and arrowroot, and other starchy sub- 
 stances, sugars, fats, and oils. 
 
XX. 
 
 PREPARATION OF FOODS. 
 
 BY a process of learning, by an experience in 
 some sense scientific, yet standing apart 
 from professed science as we moderns know it, 
 man in the course of civilisation lias arrived at 
 the art of preparing foods so as to retain all 
 their bases and basic properties. But though he 
 has thus learned an art, and discovered various 
 methods by which to divert and delight the 
 palates of those who depend upon it, his labour 
 has been too sensual to be wise and too crude to 
 be economical. The refinement of culinary art, 
 so far, has consisted in getting together more 
 than sufficient of all the bases, in making the 
 mess delightful to the sense of taste, and in leav- 
 ing the system of the man who feeds on it to work 
 out the problems of application and elimination. 
 By this ignorance in art, or want of scientific 
 direction, the health of the most civilised com- 
 munities has been injured, sometimes fatally 
 
iz6 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 injured, by plenty. By the same ignorance the 
 health has been injured, sometimes fatally 
 injured, by famine in the very midst of plenty, 
 if the plenteousness could but have been seen 
 and judiciously applied. 
 
 At the present hour throughout the whole of 
 our communities these great errors of art in 
 relation to food are in active existence. The 
 sensual appetite rules the roast, and proclaims its 
 determination to be gratified at all costs. The 
 rich man feasts on his mixed incongruous foods 
 and drinks, as if his body were made solely to be 
 the servant of his luxurious desires. The poor 
 man takes his common fare half cooked, as if it 
 required no preparation, and no consideration 
 except its plentifulness and the convenience with 
 which it can be obtained. The poor, like the rich 
 man, goes in for quantity, and, when his means 
 allow him, for luxury too. In some mining dis- 
 tricts, when times are good and wages are high, 
 the working miner looks on his luxuries for the 
 stomach as the great objects of existence. He 
 must have everything in season, and, not content 
 with that supposed advantage, must force the 
 natural gifts out of their season, and on the 
 earliest of the forced viands, from the fields, from 
 the gardens, from the herds, must indulge his 
 trained appetite to the full bent of its depraved 
 capacity. 
 
PR EPA RA TION OF FOODS. 1 2 7 
 
 It is a peculiarity of Batural ordinance that the 
 provisions of nature seem to be in excess of every 
 necessity. I say seem to be, because the excess 
 cannot really be greater than is necessary, though 
 to our limited appreciation of the universal 
 system it appears so to be. Thus the multiplica- 
 tion of life on the planet is so rapid in all forms 
 of life, that were it not for the balance of death in 
 thousands of premature ways our small globe 
 would soon be overstocked, and would cease to 
 find sufficient sustenance for its inhabitants. In 
 like mode man seems in many things to imitate 
 the instinct of nature, and to provide himself 
 always, if he can, with more than he requires. 
 The fact is most strikingly evidenced in the case 
 of feeding. There is scarcely a man or woman to 
 be found who docs not, when the opportunities 
 are present, consume more food than is possibly 
 requisite for the healthy sustainment of life and 
 activity. The fable of the belly and the members 
 is the truest of histories. To the wants of the 
 digestive organs all other organs must contribute ; 
 hands and feet, eyes and ears, brain and nerves 
 must labour, primarily, for the insatiable stomach, 
 that first master which, in turn, proves the first 
 minister to their necessities. 
 
 It is not to be presumed that anything will, in 
 essence, modify this natural primary craving. It 
 is not to be wondered at that everv measure 
 
228 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 which, tends to satisfy this craving should be 
 considered amongst the most beneficent and re- 
 markable, and that the politician who gives the 
 cheap breakfast and takes the tax off the loaf, or 
 the agriculturist who makes two blades of corn 
 grow where one has grown before, should be the 
 most popular and the most honoured of men. 
 It would be as foolish to unite against these in- 
 stinctive habits and desires after food as to unite 
 against life itself and its continuance. At the 
 same time, as we are all endowed with reason as 
 well as instinct, as we have an outside not less 
 than an inside nature, which outside nature, like 
 the clothes we wear, or the manner we assume, 
 or the thoughts we speak, show the wisdom with 
 which our existence is tinctured, it cannot be 
 useless to train the instinctive desires into some- 
 thing that is within control it must be useful 
 to learn to what extent we may exceed necessity 
 and bring upon ourselves and ours the injury 
 that ever follows upon extravagance. 
 
XXI. 
 
 MODERN COOKERY. 
 
 IN no department of life, as it at present exists, 
 is the correction of instinct by reason more 
 urgently required than in the matter of alimen- 
 tation. At no period in the history of this nation 
 have happiness and comfort so prevailed as in 
 the present age. In no age have the people been 
 so well provided with food, so well clothed, so 
 well housed, so well educated. And yet it is 
 true that, in the matter of feeding, nothing could 
 be systematically worse than the systems which 
 still prevail : the errors lie on every side. 
 
 Altogether there is an exaggerated importance 
 attached both to eating and drinking. Every- 
 body seems as if he carried about with him a 
 spoon with something in it to put into somebody 
 else's mouth. " "Won't you take something?" is 
 the first expected word of common hospitality 
 and good-nature. If a great event of any kind 
 has to be signalised, it must be distinguished by 
 
 E: 
 
1 30 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 what is characteristically called a feast, which 
 means the supply of certain articles of food and 
 drink beyond what is taken in the ordinary rule 
 of life, and beyond what is in any rational point 
 of view commendable. If a friend be invited to 
 dinner, the immediate object is not to give that 
 friend what will be good for him and for his 
 health, but what may be doubtful for him and 
 extravagant for the giver. In the exuberance of 
 generosity he is asked to eat what is no longer 
 food, but so much money which he cannot digest, 
 and which would not help him if he could. If a 
 man praises his cook, and asks a friend to come 
 to his table because he has at command the best 
 chef in the world, he does not speak of that chef 
 as of a man who understands the relation of food 
 to the wants of the body, and who can make 
 the simplest supplies of nature applicable to the 
 readiest and easiest building up of the bones, the 
 muscles, the brain, the senses. He speaks of an 
 artist who can spend the largest amount of 
 wealth in ministering, in the greatest number 
 and varieties of modes, to the sense of taste 
 an artist who can induce the visitor to wreak 
 the worst vengeance on his stomach and other 
 oppressed organs, which, being overtaxed, make 
 all the body feel with them the weight of the 
 taxation. 
 
 From this point of view of alimentation, the 
 
MODERN COOKERY. 131 
 
 art of cooking has but one object, that of making 
 a huge excess of food find agreeable entrance 
 into the body. 
 
 There is another mode in which the art of 
 Booking food is degraded. Amongst the working 
 masses, in their everyday life, the food that is eaten 
 loses more than half its value by the faults pecu- 
 liar to its preparation. You see the working or 
 labouring man going to laborious duties, which call 
 for the best and most perfect adaptation of food, 
 so that the force that the food can supply may 
 be all converted into working force, and there is 
 the precious food, the compressed energy of the 
 man for his labouring hours, tied up in a hand- 
 kerchief, with little regard to its cleanliness or 
 to the place where it is to be stored until it is 
 required. If you look at the mode in which 
 that food has been cooked, it will strike you, in' 
 nine cases out of ten, that the ready digestion of 
 it is beyond any human possibility. The bread 
 will be dry, hard, and probably coarse; the 
 animal food either partly cooked or cooked to 
 dryness ; the pastry thick, heavy, cold ; the 
 cheese, if as a supposed luxury cheese be pro- 
 vided, dense, or soft, or acid, or of strongest 
 flavour. To the whole will probably be added 
 one or two cold potatoes, which at their best 
 were hardly boiled that is to say, were boiled 
 hard that they might hold together. 
 
1 32 ALIMENTATION, 
 
 Physiologically speaking, a meal of this kind, 
 prepared as I have stated, and prepared in a man- 
 ner I have copied from direct observation, loses 
 more than half its value. If it contain all the ele- 
 ments necessary for nutrition, it is digested with 
 difficulty and labour, and the force expended on it 
 by the stomach, and which ought to be expended 
 in muscular labour of the limbs, is so much labour 
 utterly thrown away. Neither is the mischief 
 finished here. The laboured digestion brings on 
 what is commonly called indigestion ; the stomach 
 and J intestines are distended with flatus ; the ner- 
 vous surface of the alimentary canal is rendered 
 irritable, and the mind thereupon is disturbed; 
 hard work becomes annoying work, and after a 
 time the body generally suffers in its nutrition, 
 owing to the persistent nervous irritation to 
 which it has been subjected. 
 
 Thus in the richer and in the poorer classes of 
 our society the errors in the preparation of food 
 are all-pervading. In the one class the aliment- 
 ary organs are injured by satiety and luxurious 
 excess ; in the other the alimentary organs are 
 injured by the t extra labour and irritation to 
 which they are daily exposed. 
 
 The same mistakes extend through the middle 
 classes of society, though not to so extreme a 
 degree ; for here is found occasionally the house- 
 wife who can cook decently, and who, from the 
 
MODERN COOKERY. 133 
 
 necessity for economy, learns in a practical rule- 
 of-thumb way the kind and character of food 
 that best suits those under her charge, and the 
 cheapest and most efficient modes of preparation. 
 If in the above observations I have seemed 
 to speak too extremely on the follies that are 
 extant in the methods of administering to the 
 sense of taste, it certainly has not been with the 
 intention of decrying that artistic preparation of 
 foods which tends to make them agreeable to the 
 sense. The first requirement in the preparing 
 of alimentary substances for the table is so to 
 prepare them that they shall be presented in a 
 form best fitted to be assimilated, and in a form 
 best fitted to sustain the wants of the body, with- 
 out excess on the one hand or deficiency on the 
 other. Such a process represents the science of 
 preparing food for the table, but it does not in- 
 terfere with the art that would, in a moderate 
 .and simple manner, please the sense or senses. 
 To set forth foods in a mode that is pleasant 
 to the eye is harmonious and healthful, and to 
 make them so that they shall be pleasant to the 
 palate is still more healthful. The science and 
 the art, in fact, go well together. The evil begins 
 when the art is allowed to override the science, 
 and when the senses are gratified at the expense 
 of the whole body. Against that system I 
 protest, and that alone. 
 
XXII. 
 
 QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS. 
 
 IE faults of the gravest kind are to be found in 
 the systems of preparing substances for 
 alimentation, faults equally serious are to be 
 detected in the qualities of substances that are 
 prepared for and are used by the community as 
 foods and drinks. 
 
 The fact has already been noticed, that within 
 the body the fluid which makes up the mass of 
 the soft tissues, holds the soluble saline matters 
 in solution, and acts as the menstruum of the 
 colloidal substances, is simple pure water. The 
 entirety of all the mechanism of the organic parts 
 in their individual and in their united capacities 
 rests on this arrangement. The specific weight 
 of the blood, the specific weight of the fluid 
 secretions, and the important relative balance of 
 weight between the blood and the secretions, rests 
 on this arrangement. The proper suspension of 
 the colloidal albumen and fibrine in the blood in 
 
QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS. 135 
 
 conditions ready for their application for filling 
 up the waste of the solid tissues, rests on this 
 arrangement. Any process that interferes with 
 the proper relationships of the water of the blood 
 to the tissues interferes with the natural uses of 
 the water, and leads inevitably to a perversion 
 of function which proclaims itself, with more or 
 less of intensity, as a disease. 
 
 The supply of water for maintaining the vital 
 purposes is derived from what we drink as fluid 
 directly, or from what we take in combination 
 with solid foods, all of which hold in them a 
 quantity of water. Some animals, those which 
 subsist on moist vegetable food, find in such 
 food itself sufficient water for their wants ; but 
 man requires a certain small measure of water 
 over and above that which is conveyed by foods. 
 In a natural state of living the quantity for a 
 full-grown man need rarely exceed twenty-four 
 fluid ounces in the twenty-four hours, and I 
 know one individual who, though he leads a 
 moderately active life, confines himself to twenty 
 ounces of fluid in the period named. The 
 quantity is of importance, but it is of greater 
 moment still that the quantity shall be unalloyed, 
 that the design of nature shall be carried out in 
 all its perfection, and that the blood shall carry 
 no other fluid mixed with its structure into the 
 membranes and tissues, than the one fluid water. 
 
136 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 Let the water be overcharged with saline matters, 
 such as common salt (chloride of sodium), or 
 with soluble organic substance, and speedily the 
 injurious effects of the admixture are developed. 
 Unfortunately in many, I might indeed say in 
 most, of our water supplies some or other of 
 these foreign agents are present, and a consider- 
 able amount of disease is produced by them. 
 But their effects are small compared with the 
 admixture of another foreign and injurious thing 
 which enters into the drinking water of the large 
 majority of our community, which, under an 
 utterly erroneous impression respecting it and its 
 uses, is considered too often to be a necessary 
 addition, but which is, in truth, an unnecessary 
 pollution. The foreign agent I now refer to is 
 the liquid called alcohol. 
 
 The errors in qualities of solid food are of less 
 moment than the formal and singular error in 
 relation to drinks, to which special reference has 
 just been made, and yet they are sufficiently 
 numerous. They spring in some instances from 
 subservience to mere taste. In other instances 
 they are due to ignorance. In a certain large 
 number of instances they are the effect of neces- 
 sity. The result as a whole is, that in the midst 
 of the wildest and most useless extravagance 
 there occurs, what must needs be the conse- 
 quence of extravagant indulgence, a large amount 
 
QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS. 137 
 
 of disease and of premature death from excess ; 
 a large amount of disease and discomfort from 
 misappropriation of food that ought to be better 
 applied; a large amount of miserable health, 
 deformity of person, crime, and occasionally death 
 itself, from direct privation of the aliments that 
 are necessary for the maintenance of life. 
 
 From a view of all classes of society it is seen 
 to be impossible that any of them can be at this 
 stage of our national existence properly sustained 
 by food. Those of us who, as physicians, have 
 under our observation the more affluent classes, 
 are drawn to the conclusion that amongst those 
 classes a much larger quantity of alimentary sub- 
 stance is consumed than can possibly be of ser- 
 vice, and which being of no service is a cause 
 of injury to the digestive organs, and equally to 
 the muscular organs, which by interposition of 
 fatty matter are impeded in their motion. The 
 discomfort, the languor, the debility which occur 
 from one of these induced evils alone I mean 
 the deposit of fat around the heart are of a kind 
 which none but the physician can properly com- 
 pute. 
 
 For these and other reasons there is springing 
 up amongst the members of the medical pro- 
 fession a truly wise system of prescribing not 
 only abstinence in regard to alcoholic drinks, but 
 abstinence also in diet : reduction of quantity, 
 
138 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 and more accurate selection of those articles of 
 diet which are absolutely requisite. 
 
 In the affluent classes we see the errors of 
 excess : the too corpulent body ; the distended 
 stomach ; the slow and uncertain muscular move- 
 ment ; the easily wearied breathing ; the feeble 
 and readily fainting* heart ; the sleepy brain. 
 By a ridiculous use of words the physician, when 
 he directs these sufferers to let themselves down 
 to a natural proportion of food and drink, is 
 accused of prescribing a starvation treatment 
 which, indeed, is the only remedy, and which is, 
 as a rule, a success beyond expectation when it 
 is faithfully followed. 
 
 Amongst the less affluent classes, but amongst 
 those who know nothing of what is actual want, 
 we begin to notice errors in the matter of selec- 
 tion of food. The affluent have at command so> 
 much of everything, they feel no necessity to 
 make selections. The needier man needs to 
 select, but not appreciating the need looks com- 
 monly on quantity as the thing to be obtained, 
 and buys what is cheapest and most abundant. 
 He exhibits the same prevailing fault, desire for 
 excess, which desire is greatly increased in com- 
 munities where large masses are congregated toge- 
 ther in densely populated cities and towns. So 
 marked is this fault in relation to the use of animal 
 food, that during the cotton famine I computed, 
 
. QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS. 139 
 
 that if throughout the whole population of Eng- 
 land the average quantity of fresh animal food 
 used by each person was seven and a half ounces- 
 per day, the average proportion to each inha- 
 bitant of London was twenty-two ounces. 
 
 It may fairly be concluded that much of the 
 excessive amount, in the large and wealthy 
 centres, is not actually eaten, but is practically 
 thrown away or misapplied. That a gross excess 
 is consumed there can be no reasonable doubt r 
 and I fear that since the period of the cotton 
 famine, our increase of wealth has added to rather 
 than reduced the evil. 
 
 In the midst, however, of increasing luxury 
 amongst the upper and middle classes of society, 
 one disease is 5 I am bound to say, markedly 
 decreased. I refer to the disease known as gout. 
 Every practising physician who can carry back 
 the recollections of disease for thirty years, as I 
 can, must be struck by the remarkable limitation 
 of this malady, this special malady of luxurious 
 living. A right-down case of acute genuine gout, 
 such as I remember to have seen as a very ordi- 
 nary phenomenon indeed in the early days of my 
 career, is an exceptional phenomenon now. This 
 decline of one of the most common and most 
 painful of human evils can, I think, be traceable- 
 only to one circumstance, the departure from the 
 custom of indulging in deep potations of port and 
 
ALIMENTATION. 
 
 -other rich, strong, sweet wines. Considering 
 that gout is a disease which once induced by 
 indulgence becomes hereditary, it is remarkable, 
 and hopeful as remarkable, to witness that such 
 a brief abstinence from one national custom 
 should have been followed by such signal and 
 good results. I think there is no reason to doubt 
 that if total abstinence from all spirituous drinks 
 were to become as universal as total abstinence 
 from those drinks of the vinous class which 
 specifically induce gout, not only that disease, 
 but many others which have their origin in the 
 use of alcohol, and which descend in line, would 
 be equally reduced, and in two or three genera- 
 tions effectually wiped out. 
 
 Amongst the lower classes of our communities 
 the question of health and alimentation is pre- 
 sented to us in a somewhat different light. "We 
 see in the deformed weakly children of the very 
 poor evidences of deficiency of the foods out of 
 which the skeleton is built, and from which also 
 the brain substance and nervous material should 
 be supplied. We see in these examples the 
 effects of food too watery and too exclusively 
 formed of the bread-and- water type. We see in 
 the women of these classes nervous enfeeblement 
 from excess of tea and from subsisting on bread, 
 or bread and butter, unmixed with better and 
 varied sustaining foods. We see, again, too com- 
 
QUALITIES OF DRINKS AND FOODS. 141 
 
 monly in the men, the bloated enfeebled condi- 
 tion induced by excessive indulgence in beer, 
 coupled with the persistent indigestion incident 
 to the consumption of badly selected, badly pre- 
 pared foods, of the animal and vegetable series. 
 
 Fortunately we know that these conditions 
 are not a necessity, are not truly due to the 
 want of food, but to the want of knowledge. 
 There are few men now out of the workhouses 
 so poor but that they can get as much food, and 
 as good food, as the persons who are incarcerated 
 in our prisons. And certain it is that prison fare>. 
 though it may not be so palatable as the free 
 man at little extra cost could easily make it, is, for 
 all essential purposes, a good alimentary sustain- 
 ment, and one towards which every member of 
 the community might incline with benefit to his 
 health and with certain addition to his wealth. 
 
 The best rules to remember in respect to 
 qualities of foods and drinks are, briefly, as 
 follow, (a) That pure water is the only natural 
 beverage, and that under ordinary circumstances 
 the adult man or woman does not require more 
 than twenty-four ounces of it as a minimum and 
 forty as a maximum in twenty-four hours. (V) That 
 of solid food, animal and vegetable combined, the 
 same number of ounces, minimum and maximum, 
 is also sufficient, (c) That of solid food not more 
 than one-third need to be of the animal muscle- 
 
H2 ALIMENT A TION. 
 
 feeding class, leaving the vegetable starchy and 
 oily or heat- supply ing substances to make up the 
 remaining two-thirds, (d) That the foods should 
 be cooked so as to be freed of their rawness, without 
 being reduced to tenderness or shreds or hard- 
 ness by over-cooking, (e) That the foods should 
 be themselves pure and of healthy origin. (/) That 
 the division of food by meals should be into three 
 periods, in times of equal length and of about 
 five hours' duration, (g) That the gratification of 
 the gustatory sense should be made secondary to 
 the actual requirements of the body for its ali- 
 ment, should, in fine, be kept as neutral as 
 the taste of the young child who feeds on the 
 most natural and at the same time the most 
 neutral of all foods, milk. 
 
 If these rules were remembered and acted 
 upon, without divergence into feasts for indul- 
 gence or fasts for repentance, the national health 
 would make an advance towards the develop- 
 ment of a race constructed for an enjoyment of 
 happiness which the imagination of the poet has 
 as yet alone conceived. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 ABSTINENCE FROM ALCOHOL. 
 
 I ADVOCATE that every person should abstain 
 from alcoholic drinks. On four points relat- 
 ing to this advocacy I am more frequently ques- 
 tioned than on any other. The points refer to 
 digestion with and without alcohol ; feebleness of 
 the circulation; feebleness of the body; and, 
 the trial of total abstinence. A short reading or 
 two on these subjects is in place here, and though 
 it expresses views which are not commonly held, 
 may, I hope, be useful. 
 
 The common idea that alcohol acts as an aid to 
 digestion is without foundation. Experiments 
 on the artificial digestion of food, in which the 
 natural process is very closely imitated, show 
 that the presence of alcohol in the solvents em- 
 ployed interferes with and weakens the efficacy 
 of the solvents. It is also one of the most definite 
 of facts that persons who indulge even in what is 
 called the moderate use of alcohol, suffer often 
 
H4 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 from dyspepsia from this cause alone. They 
 acquire the morbid feeling that they cannot take 
 food in the absence of stimulants. In some in- 
 stances they are led to take more fluid and less 
 solid food than is natural, and in other instances 
 they take more of both kinds than can be healthily 
 assimilated and applied. Thus the use of the 
 stimulant leads to flatulency after meals, to 
 tendency to sleep, to indolence of mind and body, 
 and to disturbed rest. In fact, it leads to the 
 symptoms which, under the varied names of 
 biliousness, nervousness, lassitude, and indiges- 
 tion, are so well and extensively known. 
 
 From the paralysis of the minute blood-vessels 
 which is induced by alcohol, there occurs, when 
 alcohol is introduced into the stomach, injection 
 of the vessels and redness of the mucous lining of 
 the stomach. This is attended by the subjective 
 feeling of a warmth or glow within the body, and 
 is followed by an increased secretion of the gastric 
 fluids. It is urged by advocates of the use of 
 alcohol that this action of it on the stomach is a 
 reason for its employment as an aid to digestion, 
 especially when the digestive powers are feeble. 
 At best, the argument suggests only an artificial 
 aid, which it cannot be sound practice to put 
 permanently in place of the natural process of 
 digestion. In truth, the artificial stimulation, if 
 it be resorted to even moderately, is in time dele- 
 
ABSTINENCE FROM ALCOHOL. 145 
 
 terious. It excites a morbid habitual craving 
 for a stimulant, and it excites over-secretion of 
 stomach and acidity. In the end, it leads to 
 weakened contractile power of the vessels of the 
 stomach ; to consequent deficiency of control of 
 those vessels over the current of blood ; to organic 
 impairment of function ; and, to confirmed indi- 
 gestion. 
 
 On these grounds alone I infer that alcohol is 
 no proper aid to digestion. I know from daily 
 observation that when it is felt to be a necessary 
 aid it is doing actual mischief, the very feeling 
 of the necessity being the best proof of the injury 
 that is being inflicted. Lastly, on this head, it is 
 matter of experience with me that, in nine cases 
 out of ten, the sense of the necessity, on which so 
 much is urged, is removed in the readiest manner 
 by the simple plan of total abstinence, without 
 any other remedy or method. "When, in excep- 
 tional cases, total abstinence fails, other remedies, 
 as a rule, also fail, and the indication is supplied 
 that the natural functional activity of the diges- 
 tive organs is irrevocably destroyed. 
 
 The effect of alcohol on the circulation of the 
 blood is to quicken the circulation. The heart 
 beats more quickly after alcohol is imbibed ; the 
 vessels of the minute circulation are dilated, and 
 at the same time are reduced in their contractile 
 power. A moderate degree of cold applied to the 
 
146 ALIMENT A TION. 
 
 vessels of the body produces the same effects, and 
 hence cold and alcohol go hand-in-hand together 
 in inducing torpidity and general failure of vital 
 activity. During the time when the heart 'is 
 beating more quickly, and the blood is coursing 
 more rapidly through the weakened vessels oft the 
 vital organs, a flush or glow is experienced which, 
 in time, becomes 'a sensation, if not of pleasure, 
 at least of excitement. By continued use of 
 alcohol, the vessels lose their control, and the 
 heart fails in its power unless the stimulation be 
 renewed. At last the sense of want of power 
 and of languor, when the stimulant, is withheld, 
 is transformed into what is conceived to be a 
 natural necessity. The weakened stomach yearns 
 first for what is called its stimulant, and then the 
 languid body craves, in response, for the same. 
 But the rapid course of the circulation leading 
 to the increased action of the vital organs is, 
 after all, the rapid running out of the force of 
 the body. It. is like the rapid running down of 
 the timepiece when the pendulum is lifted. The 
 running down demands, in turn, the more frequent 
 winding up ; and, the result is premature wearing 
 out and disorganization of those organic structures 
 on the integrity of which the steady maintenance 
 of life depends. 
 
 During these unnatural courses of the circu- 
 lation under alcohol, the degrees of structural 
 
ABSTINENCE FROM ALCOHOL. 147 
 
 change which occur arc most serious. The 
 minute blood-vessels are rendered feeble, irre- 
 gular in action, untrue to their duty. The mem- 
 branes of the body become changed in structure. 
 The organs that are most necessary for life, such 
 as the brain, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, 
 organs which are failures unless their membranes 
 and their vascular parts be kept intact, lose their 
 powers for work, and from their defects disease 
 in tangible form is organically developed. 
 
 Another cause of feebleness from alcohol, in- 
 directly connected with the circulation, is the 
 change to obesity which alcohol produces. It is 
 one of the effects of alcohol to check the natural 
 process of oxidation in the body, and for this 
 reason, as I have experimentally proved, it re- 
 duces the animal warmth. The influence of this 
 repression does not end here. Under it there is 
 an impaired nutrition, and in many instances a 
 great and unnatural increase of fat in the body, 
 what physicians call fatty change or fatty degene- 
 ration. In the beginning of this change it is 
 usual that the fatty substance is laid up outside 
 and around the vital organs, or beneath the skin, 
 where it is stored away in great abundance. In 
 later stages, and occasionally from the first, the 
 fatty particles are deposited within the minute 
 structures of organs, in the muscular structure of 
 the heart, or in the substance of the brain or 
 
i 4 8 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 kidney. The fatty degeneration, in this manner 
 induced, is, of necessity, a permanent cause of 
 feebleness, of premature decay, and, not un- 
 frequently, of sudden death. 
 
 The view that alcohol is demanded in order to 
 keep up a feeble circulation is opposed to reason 
 and to practical knowledge. It is a yiew that rests 
 altogether on the feeling or appetite of the person 
 who, on his or her own experience, defends it. The 
 very fact that such personal experience is felt is 
 an indication that the alcohol is inflicting injury, 
 and that abstinence from it is absolutely de- 
 manded. 
 
XXIY. 
 
 DEBILITY FROM ALCOHOL. 
 
 THE same argument that applies to feebleness 
 of the digestive process and to feebleness of 
 the circulation, in relation to the use of alcohol, 
 applies also to that general feebleness of the 
 body which is commonly referred to when per- 
 sons say they are not strong enough to do with- 
 out alcohol. I have found by direct experiment 
 that the effect of alcohol is to reduce the mus- 
 cular power, and that even during the excite- 
 ment which alcohol produces, in the stage of 
 excitement there is no actual increase of power, 
 although there may be great muscular dis- 
 turbance and apparent excess of motion. The 
 strongest men and women living are those who 
 do not take alcohol in any form ; and the ex- 
 perience of persons who fairly try abstinence is, 
 that more work and better work, whether the 
 work be mental or physical, is performed without 
 alcohol than with it. 
 
ISO ALIMENTATION. 
 
 The general evidence on this point is most 
 conclusive, and, if I might venture to state my 
 own individual experience, I would say that 
 the evidence is as surprising as it is satisfactory. 
 I have worked actively while indulging in a 
 moderate measure of alcohol daily. I have 
 worked actively while abstaining altogether. 
 In a word, I have made direct personal expe- 
 riment on the subject ; and I am bound to state 
 that the work that can be done during entire 
 abstinence is superior in every respect, in re- 
 spect to amount, in respect to readiness of effort, 
 in respect to quality, in respect to endurance, 
 and in respect to mental ease and happiness, 
 to that which can be done during times of mode- 
 rate indulgence in alcohol. 
 
 Alcohol does not give strength, does not main- 
 tain strength, and its use cannot truthfully be 
 defended on the ground that the body is not 
 strong enough to do without it. "When any one 
 feels that he or she requires alcohol to maintain 
 strength, the evidence favours the suspicion that 
 that person is in danger of collapse from the 
 action of the very agent on which reliance is 
 falsely placed. 
 
 I have only one more observation to make on 
 this head, an observation I have once before 
 made, but which I venture to repeat. It is that 
 the strongest of our domestic animals, and the 
 
DEBILITY FROM ALCOHOL. 151 
 
 most useful of them, work from morning to 
 night, and do all the work that can fairly be 
 expected from flesh and blood, yet require no 
 alcohol, and if they are trained to the use of it 
 they simply fall into feebleness and uselessness. 
 If we could by a grand destructive experiment 
 treat our domestic animals with alcohol as human 
 beings are treated with it, the value of the lower 
 animals would at once decline, and in time we 
 should have none that were edible, none that 
 were workable, none that were tameable. 
 
 The long-continued habit of taking alcohol 
 engenders an appetite for it which, it must be 
 confessed, is a very powerful influence in its 
 support. To forget and to overcome this appetite 
 faculties are required of which many persons are 
 deficient, viz. strength of will and determination. 
 In some instances even courage is demanded as 
 well as strength of will, in order to vanquish the 
 desire engendered by the habit. But when the 
 will is strong enough for the effort, the success of 
 total abstinence is certain. It is probable that so 
 long as any alcohol remains in the body, the desire, 
 I may say the urgent desire, for more of it is 
 severely felt. After a sufficient time for its com- 
 plete elimination from the tissues the appetite 
 grows feebler, and at last it ceases altogether. 
 The habit is buried and forgotten, and, this result 
 reached, the new life that is realised is unen- 
 
152 ALIMENTATION. 
 
 cumbered by a desire that is as useless as it is 
 masterful when it is allowed to have its sway. 
 Then the idea that the abstinence produces illness 
 and enforces a return to the stimulant entirely 
 passes away. 
 
 An error often committed by temporary ab- 
 stainers from alcohol is, that ailments to which 
 they become subject after they commenced to 
 abstain, and which might have occurred with 
 equal certainty if alcohol had been persisted in, 
 are caused by the abstinence. It is especially 
 necessary to warn those who are beginning to 
 abstain from this error. There is no evidence 
 whatever that I can discover in favour of the 
 supposition that any disease occurs from or is 
 dependent on total abstinence. I have myself 
 never seen disease induced in such manner, 
 and whenever I have entered carefully into the 
 study of symptoms that have been assigned to 
 the cause named, they have afforded no proof of 
 actual disease. They have been purely subjec- 
 tive symptoms, and have indicated nothing more 
 than the will, or the idea, or the inclination of the 
 person who has complained of them. The best 
 evidence on the point now under consideration is, 
 however, afforded in the effects of enforced absti- 
 nence on those alcoholics who, under hospital, 
 workhouse, or prison discipline, are rigidly and 
 peremptorily debarred from alcohol. I have 
 
DEBILITY FROM ALCOHOL. 153 
 
 failed, so far, to obtain a single instance of the 
 origin of any known and definable disease from 
 the process of enforced abstinence. No one, I 
 believe, has ever pretended to write out the 
 history of a disease induced by that process. On 
 the contrary, the generally expressed opinion is 
 that enforced abstinence promotes health, and 
 that it tends, when the appetite for the stimulant 
 is subdued, to promote the after-sobriety of pro- 
 fessed inebriates more effectively than any other 
 measure that has been tried for the prevention of 
 intoxication. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 HABITATIONS. 
 
XXV. 
 
 PRIMITIVE HABITATIONS: CAVE, CASTLE, AND 
 CLOISTER. 
 
 THE construction of human habitations has 
 progressed towards its present and still im- 
 perfect state under the pressure of various neces- 
 sities, of which health has not been one of the 
 foremost. It is true that the rudest savage 
 who builds a hut to protect himself from the 
 cold, or who puts up a tent of leaves to keep out 
 the wet and obstruct the heat of the sun, is in 
 some sense consulting his health as well as his 
 comfort; but this cannot be considered as his 
 object in construction, or at best it must be 
 accepted as an object of a secondary character. 
 
 As we ascend in civilisation we find the ideal 
 of construction improving for set purposes, and 
 in a truly scientific and artistic manner, when 
 the ends had in view are remembered. But, 
 again, the science and the art were not intro- 
 duced because the possession of health was in the 
 
1 58 HABITATIONS. 
 
 scale, but rather because the possession of power 
 was the prime consideration. In European deve- 
 lopment of civilisation political advancement held 
 the first place with nations and families, and 
 their residences had consequently to be formed 
 by the circumstances of their existence. 
 
 It is only when a nation is settled in power, 
 safe from external resistance to hostile forces, 
 perfectly free within itself, obedient without 
 demur to its own self-imposed and wise laws, and 
 so far enlightened that it can begin to look criti- 
 cally on itself and its history, it is only under 
 such fortunate circumstances that new and impor- 
 tant practical improvements can be carried out. 
 
 "We at the present period of English, or I 
 had better say British, life are so favourably cir- 
 cumstanced ; but it is really the first time in 
 our history, and it is therefore no cause either 
 for wonder or for fault-finding that we are as we 
 are that we retain amongst us the elements of 
 barbaric ages, and that by association we cling 
 to them. 
 
 In the primitive times all was rude, offen- 
 sive, defensive, mystical. The first men had 
 to protect themselves from the inclemencies of 
 the weather, or the still worse dangers arising 
 from inveterate and powerful human foes. They 
 concealed themselves thereupon in natural hid- 
 ing-places in caves and recesses of the earth. 
 
PRIMITIVE HABITATIONS. 159 
 
 After a time they ventured forth, and built well- 
 guarded and fortified places above ground. Anon 
 they built places for worship of the great Powers 
 from which they sprang, and to whom they felt 
 their homage and adoration a reasonable service. 
 
 These influences extend even to this day. Our 
 modern buildings spring from the three sources, 
 the Cave, the Castle, and the Cloister, and all 
 progress is traceable through them. 
 
 In Nottingham we find a series of caves like 
 to underground vaults and cellars, in which the 
 primitive inhabitants found protection and secrecy 
 from the external killing forces of nature, as well 
 as from human foes. Snottingha, a cave, as 
 the Saxons defined it, was the home probably of 
 some feeble race which they overthrew, and 
 which was strongly centred in what we now call 
 Nottingham and in many other localities. These 
 timid cave-holders vanquished, their great con- 
 queror must have his place above ground as well 
 as below. He may have his caves and dun- 
 geons still out of sight, his secret passages and 
 ditches of water, but he must build above ground 
 for protection from enemies without rather than 
 from, enemies within. Therefore he ignores all 
 laws that tend to internal health, knowing none. 
 In time, as his people increase, they must be 
 hutted out of the walls of the fortress, and live 
 about in a walled city. The walls and gates 
 
160 HABITATIONS. 
 
 enclosing the narrow streets and huts are again 
 for protection ; the cellars and underground com- 
 munications are for retreat or protection. 
 
 And still another element enters into this more 
 ambitious building project the idea of strength 
 and durability. The place must not only resist, 
 it must by its massiveness remain a monument 
 for ages of the name and greatness of the founder. 
 
 Gradually the cave- dwelling ceased as such, 
 but the construction of all our important central 
 towns was, and in many instances is still, based 
 on the walled or protected principle, a principle 
 utterly unscientific in a sanitary point of view, 
 but scientific enough for the purposes for which 
 the design was laid out in the first instance. 
 With the stirring events of the great revolution 
 in this country the original intention of the 
 fortified castle ceased to exist: the thunder 
 of Cromwell laid these centres of disease in the 
 dust, and the idea of construction of buildings, 
 both in masses of towns and isolated houses, 
 underwent a certain modification. The modifica- 
 tion was imperfect, and to this day it clings 
 to the mind of the builder. Protection, dark- 
 ness, underground passages and vaults, strength 
 and durability for ages, these are ideals which 
 still stop the way. 
 
 The cave and the castle thus played their im- 
 portant parts in sanitary, or I had better say, in 
 
PRIMITIVE HABITATIONS. i6r 
 
 insanitary, history. In time the cloister followed. 
 The objects of the builders in this case were 
 threefold, mercy, luxury, and artistic beauty ; 
 objects which, grandly carried out, were a fine 
 political set-off to the hard and stern lessons- 
 taught by the lord of the stronghold. 
 
 "When the great king or earlder-man built his 
 castle, he built for protection from enemies of 
 human kind rather than for protection against 
 those hidden enemies, mysterious pestilences and 
 hereditary diseases. He had to herd up his 
 armed retainers within his thick walls in large 
 numbers. He had to let his slaves live out in 
 such surrounding huts as they by rude instinct 
 could rudely build. 
 
 The sons of the Church who erected the mag- 
 nificent churches and cathedrals and abbeys 
 built in perfection of taste of construction, but 
 with little care in respect to health. The spots 
 selected for their residences were spots well 
 selected for protection from bleak winds, for 
 shelter of woods, for choice of springs of water, 
 for running streams, for forest glades, and for 
 easy foundations of highway and road. But here 
 the conditions for health ceased. There were no 
 provisions against dampness of air, closeness of 
 air, impurity of air, impurity of water. Half the 
 conditions of health were reached ; the rest were 
 left untouched. 
 
1 62 HABITATIONS. 
 
 It would be unfair, in reviewing the work of 
 the first builders of human habitations, to criti- 
 cize them too keenly by the light of modern 
 science. They built from necessity, and it were 
 hard to scold them if they did not discover 
 what we have but just learned, viz., that in a 
 town or in a house there are certain internal 
 necessities for health which are as important as 
 external situation, and which cannot be neglected 
 without incurring the certain penalties of disease 
 and excessive mortality. The first builders 
 raised their various shelters and houses to meet 
 the variations of seasons, to keep out wind and 
 rain, to give protection from the heat of the sun, 
 or to fulfil some such other general service. To 
 learn how to ventilate, how to warm, how to 
 light, how to drain, how to secure a pure water 
 supply, was a process or series of processes 
 which could not be made matter of practice in 
 scientific form until science had shown the object 
 and value and plan of those arts. 
 
 With all their necessary shortcomings in re- 
 spect to sanitary requirements, the ancient archi- 
 tects were far less culpable than their masters, 
 the politicians, who determined to a large extent 
 both principles and practice. The original neces- 
 sity for erecting fortified cities, with their high 
 walls, surrounding moats, narrow streets, closed 
 gates, and central castle, created a stern defiance 
 
PRIMITIVE HABITATIONS. 163 
 
 to all the natural and domestic requirements for 
 health. The necessity, however, created a method 
 which became an example, so that when more 
 peaceful times were reached the plans of the city 
 were laid out after the old system, and included 
 many of its vices. These bad plans remain to 
 the present hour in many instances, and much of 
 the labour of the sanitarian has to be expended 
 in correcting them. 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the dangers 
 and miseries which have followed and have been 
 dependent on the fundamental errors of the 
 walled town and city. In such centres the great 
 plagues of the world have found their grand 
 resting-places. In the streets of these places the 
 poor miserable rickety, scrofulous, consumptive 
 pale children of the earth have been reared. In 
 the streets of these places the crimes of the 
 massed communities have been engendered toge- 
 ther with the diseased perpetrators of them. 
 Disease and crime have nourished each other. 
 
XXYI. 
 
 SANITARY RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 TO the castle and the cave may be traced many 
 of the errors in the construction of houses 
 in great cities and towns, I mean errors in re- 
 spect to the sanitary value of these houses as 
 human habitations. To the cloister must be 
 traced most of the errors pertaining to many 
 private mansions in retired country places. To 
 the castle and to the cloister may also be traced 
 the plans, and until quite recently the errors, of 
 most of the great public buildings intended to 
 act as corrective or as benevolent institutions. 
 
 In imitation of the castle, public buildings 
 such as gaols have taken the character of the 
 castle, with the result that when great plagues 
 affected and infected great communities, they 
 found in these public places their centres. Out 
 of the gaol stepped the black assize. The 
 prisoners poisoned in their cells poisoned in turn 
 the officers of the courts of justice, and innocent 
 and guilty alike were swept away. 
 
SANITARY RECONSTRUCTION. 165 
 
 To what extent ignorance on these subjects 
 prevailed a few centuries ago is shown by a 
 practice which is hardly yet extinguished. 
 It was believed during those darker times that 
 the odour which rises from the plant known 
 as rue is a preventive of contagion, and so 
 before my lord judge there was laid a bunch 
 of that innocent plant, on which his lord- 
 ship might regale, through his sense of smell, 
 whenever he desired. The rue, it was assumed, 
 stood between the fever- stricken wretch in the 
 dock and his lordship on the bench. Within 
 present memory the custom has remained of 
 placing the rue on the bench for his lordship ; 
 but the charm is dispelled. 
 
 The castle, as we have seen, was not the only 
 building from which the habitations of mankind 
 took their origin by the process of imitation. 
 The cloister was to some extent also in fault. 
 The cloister became the model of the asylum for 
 the insane, and the asylum for the insane became 
 in turn the model of the hospital for the infirm ; 
 of many of the almshouses for the poor left by 
 the benevolence of the rich ; of many of the 
 workhouses built, after the passing of the Act of 
 Elizabeth, for the maintenance of the poor ; of 
 many public buildings used as manufactories ; 
 and in most cases of hospitals for sickness and 
 pest-houses. 
 
166 HABITATIONS. 
 
 The faults of sanitary construction on the- 
 cloister system were fewer than were those of 
 the castle and its miniature successor the gaol \ 
 but they were nevertheless manifold. They led 
 to the introduction of small windows, of close 
 corridors, of damp underground passages, of one- 
 sided window ventilation, of narrow fireplaces,, 
 of low ceilings with heavy beams in the crevices 
 of which the dust of ages could accumulate, of 
 thick walls, and of bad roofings. 
 
 "With these forms of construction there was, 
 it must be admitted, a certain picturesqueness> 
 of effect and a quaint homeliness that is not 
 without its charm, and it is only candid to say, 
 indeed, that to many the picturesqueness and 
 the homeliness have a very distinct charm. 
 The feeling, from associations of an historical 
 kind, and due probably to some distant heredi- 
 tary liking, extends to almost all if not to all 
 English people. 
 
 It is unfortunate that feeling and health do- 
 not go hand in hand in this matter, and that 
 the cloister system was not a sanitary system. 
 It did not provide for sufficient air, for proper 
 admission of air, for circulation of air. It did not 
 provide for proper warming, nor for the exclusion 
 of damp. It did not provide for the due admis- 
 sion of light. The deficiencies in these respects- 
 alone were fatal to healthy construction. These 
 
SANITARY RECONSTRUCTION. 167 
 
 were deficiencies of internal construction. To 
 them were added others which were external. 
 The cesspool for the reception of the sewage was 
 placed too near the source of the running stream, 
 or well, or lake from which the institution 
 received its water supply. The walls of the cess- 
 pool were made of porous material, or in some 
 cases were made merely of the earth in which 
 the pool had been sunk. The water supply was 
 little cared for ; if the water were sparkling and 
 cold it was considered perfect, and the idea of 
 organic impurity was never dreamed of. That 
 source of disease, organic impurity of water, 
 remained to be discovered by a philosopher of 
 our own age, a Yorkshireman who practised in 
 London, whose name was John Snow, who was 
 once my own familiar friend, and whose life I 
 have written, but whose great and useful work 
 will probably not be duly recognised for many a 
 later day. 
 
 "Wherever we travel in England even in this- 
 time we read, if we look at the public and private 
 buildings, the history of the pre- scientific age, or 
 I had better say of the pre-sanitary age. The 
 occasion has come when with the breaking up of 
 much that has been cherished in other depart- 
 ments of social life, we must break up also the 
 old and long-cherished plans which the ancient 
 masons, noble representatives of a noble craft as 
 
1 68 HABIT A TIONS. 
 
 they were, planned and established to last a 
 long time, but not as they thought for ever. 
 
 In the present day the grand problem before 
 the nation is the reconstruction of the habitations 
 of the people in cities, towns, and villages. 
 There is at present a fair knowledge that con- 
 struction as it progresses is imperfect, and that 
 the results of new construction are, as a rule, 
 bad. No man is quite satisfied with his domi- 
 cile. This house is too dark ; that is sufficiently 
 lighted in so far as windows go, but is badly 
 arranged in regard to its windows as ventilators. 
 This house is too close, that is too draughty. 
 This is damp, that is dry but intensely cold. 
 This has an abundant water supply but no bath- 
 room; that has a bathroom but a deficient 
 supply of water. This has good drainage but no 
 effective traps ; that has bad drainage, trap it 
 as you will. This has no soft-water cistern ; 
 that has one, but the water in it soon decom- 
 poses, is always of greenish colour, and is of 
 little use. This has no hot-water supply ; that 
 has, but the supply is constantly out of order. 
 
 These are the complaints which the physician 
 daily hears, and for which up to the present 
 time he has been able, in the general con- 
 fusion which prevails, to provide few remedies. 
 It is as though all people were becoming alive to 
 the necessities and the requirements of a healthy 
 
SANITARY RECONSTRUCTION. 169 
 
 habitation, but that the knowledge was creeping 
 in by instalments and at irregular intervals, so 
 that no perfect system of a uniform kind can be 
 obtained. 
 
 For my part I have never yet seen a single 
 model private habitation, nor an approach to a 
 series of such habitations. Eeal advancements 
 lie entirely in the future. First we shall have 
 model houses and a small model town ; then, as 
 the general intelligence advances, there will be 
 radical imitative reforms, which will progress 
 with unusual rapidity. 
 
 With the full impulse that will come from 
 a more perfect appreciation of sanitary require- 
 ments, most of our English villages will have 
 to be reconstructed altogether; pulled down, 
 stick and stone, except the church and such 
 antiquities as deserve to be specially retained, 
 replanned into streets and gardens ; redrained 
 and rebuilt in accordance with a perfect system 
 of construction. By these means much ground, 
 now useless, will be saved; much money fool- 
 ishly expended in maintaining badly planned 
 highways will be saved ; many plans for giving 
 happiness and recreation to the people will be 
 secured ; and health will be improved up to its 
 natural standard. 
 
 These advantages will show such a singular 
 economy, resulting from the wholesale system 
 
i yo HABITATIONS. 
 
 of improvement, that the economical argument 
 alone on behalf of the system will carry the 
 day. Even that persistent village nuisance and 
 source of fever, the farmyard, will undergo the 
 necessary radical changes, to the pecuniary ad- 
 vantage of the farmer, as well as to the advan- 
 tage of the health of his neighbours. 
 
 There are three directions in which to begin to- 
 move in the work of reformation in the habita- 
 tions of the people. The first of these consists in 
 the erection of model houses and towns de novo. 
 The second consists in adopting a thorough 
 system of remodelling what now exists and, for 
 various reasons, must exist. The third consists 
 in adding to the houses of the working classes 
 accessory buildings in which the labour of the 
 day may be carried on away from the rooms 
 where their meals are taken and their hours of 
 sleep are passed. 
 
XXYII. 
 
 A SANITARY MODEL I THE MODERN GAOL. 
 
 THE builder of model habitations, knowing and 
 skilful though he may be, can never by his 
 subtlety and skill meet those causes of disease 
 and death which spring from atmospheric varia- 
 tions and from those social and self-imposed 
 influences to which reference has already been 
 made. His work, notwithstanding, will be of 
 greatest value if it but fulfil its legitimate object, 
 viz. that of removing the causes which admit of 
 being mechanically separated from the whole 
 existing series of causes. He will in this way, 
 with comparative ease, reduce mortality to a 
 certain rate lower than exists now, although he 
 will still have to meet not only the uncon- 
 trollable nature, but that equally difficult ob- 
 stacle, human free-will, which, when it is opposed 
 to progress, and even to the welfare of him who 
 wills, is an opposing force as uncontrollable as 
 any one of those which nature directly imposes, 
 
172 HABITATIONS. 
 
 in voice of storm, or wind, or drought, or deluge. 
 Of the four hundred and twenty thousand per- 
 sons who die in England and Wales in a year, 
 two hundred and ten thousand die from causes 
 humanly preyentible, and preventible in greater 
 part by the mechanical means of prevention 
 which are now under our contemplation. 
 
 What can be effected by vigorous sanitary 
 measures, carried out in all their entirety, is best 
 indicated in the results of modern prison life. 
 In past days the gaol or prison was the focus of 
 disease. I have seen a history of gaols the pages 
 of which hardly admit of being read, so terrible 
 are the records of fostered disease. Diseases 
 were generated in the gaols as if for experiment, 
 and were propagated from them as if for the 
 same purpose. Now all these conditions are 
 changed. 
 
 The modern gaol is a place of spotless purity 
 in a sanitary point of view. The large corridors 
 are charged with the purest air. The tempera- 
 ture of the air is rendered equable beyond any- 
 thing that is found in the private dwelling. The 
 atmosphere is not only pure and equal, but free 
 of damp. The water supply is plentiful and 
 wholesome. The walls of the buildings are kept 
 cleared of dust, and the floors so pure that 
 literally one might eat from them as from a clean 
 dish. The drainage is, in most instances, so 
 
SANITARY MODEL : THE MODERN GAOL. 173- 
 
 good that all excreted and refuse matter is carried 
 off in detail, and accumulation of it in part or in 
 whole is impossible. Thus, we may say, the 
 sanitary work of the architect is complete. In 
 the sick hospital such work is often abominable ; 
 in the workhouse it is very imperfect ; in the 
 model prison it is perfect. 
 
 The sanitary metamorphosis of the gaol is de- 
 cisive. Into common habitations there could be 
 easily extended, with every additional artistic re- 
 finement, the architectural sanitary reforms that 
 now exist in prisons ; but the process of sanitary 
 reform would be liable to interruption from the 
 disturbing influence of freewill, and the strict 
 analogy from results would not be manifested. 
 
 In the prison we see also what is the effect of 
 enforced individual discipline combined with the 
 external sanitary safeguards. The prisoner is 
 obliged to make the sun his fellow-workman. 
 He is compelled to take long hours of rest if 
 not of sleep, and very soon he finds all the hours 
 pass fairly in sleep. He is deprived of those so- 
 called luxuries, alcohol and tobacco. He is made 
 to take regular muscular exercise. He is fed on 
 the simplest yet on sufficient fare. He is pro- 
 tected from inclemency of season. And, finally, 
 he is under constant medical supervision, so that, 
 if he be seized with any serious illness, he is 
 treated immediately with the proper remedies. 
 
174 HABITATIONS. 
 
 Taking him all in all, the modern prisoner in 
 one of our model prisons is a wonderful subject 
 of observation for physiological and sanitary 
 purposes. So uniform is his physical wear and 
 repair, that in an immense establishment like 
 that at Wakefield he and all his colleagues obey 
 the vicissitudes of season with such exactitude, 
 that they begin to lose flesh in September^ and 
 begin to gain flesh in April, with a precision of 
 movement as regular as the movements of the 
 seasons themselves. 
 
 The results on the disease and mortality of the 
 gaol population are as remarkable as the results 
 of a chemical demonstration. The great epidemics 
 of gaol fever are exorcized. The presence of an 
 epidemic disease is so rare that it ranks after the 
 style of an accident, such as a fire or the bursting 
 of a cistern. As a result the mortality is so re- 
 duced that in our military prisons it has positively 
 fallen, as Mr. Chadwick has shown, to below five 
 in the thousand annually. In a word, in respect 
 to health of habitations, the models of them are 
 now found in the cells of the imprisoned criminal 
 classes. The criminal taken from his home in 
 one of the crowded passages of Liverpool or 
 Glasgow is placed, after he is cast into prison to 
 work out his sentence, in a position where the 
 chances of living are as seven to one better than 
 they were in his old and fatal haunt. 
 
SANITARY MODEL : THE MODERN GAOL. 175 
 
 We cannot expect to secure out of the prison 
 all the advantages for health that exist in the 
 prison. "We must not expect them for many a 
 long day. When freewill is educated to be 
 guided by knowledge and reason, and when it 
 becomes resolute in the masses to do of itself 
 what is found to be best, the rule of self-obe- 
 dience to the right will bring all things into 
 order, and will discover the ease with which 
 liberty wears the yoke of discipline. Then, as 
 every person will systematically take part in 
 suppressing the conditions which favour disease, 
 the suppression will be a light task. Now the 
 conditions leading to disease are like those which 
 lead to a fire in cities built of wood, in which 
 people live who, ignorant of combustible sub- 
 stances, distribute them carelessly, and wonder 
 at the conflagrations they chance to excite. 
 
 The great sanitary work of the day in this 
 country, and in all civilised countries, is to find 
 the best mode of placing the people of large 
 communities in habitations which shall be as 
 healthy as the prisons, and which shall at the 
 same time supply what the prisons necessarily 
 fail to supply, those objects of beauty in nature 
 and art which tend to make the home a garden 
 of delight and the town a centre of intelligence, 
 social happiness, and educational progress. It is 
 a gigantic task to contemplate. Whoever passes 
 
1 7 6 HABIT A T10NS. 
 
 over the railway highways of London and other 
 large towns, and sees in the houses beneath how 
 the denizens of the place are packed in their 
 close rooms, so that the caged birds in their 
 cages hanging at the windows seem happier and 
 freer than their masters, reads the task. Who- 
 ever rides through our rural districts and sees 
 the thatched hovels and huts in which the agri- 
 cultural populations are housed, the thatch a 
 nest of the seeds of pestilences as it is of the 
 eggs of the sparrows, reads the task. "Whoever 
 thus passes and observes and thinks must needs 
 appreciate the greatness of the required labour 
 that shall reform such a system as exists, and by 
 the process physically regenerate those who, born 
 to suffer the life that is granted them, find in 
 premature death their kindest fate. 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 IDEAL OF A MODEL CITY. 
 
 I DO not urge, as some have supposed, that 
 the perfection of sanitary science in con- 
 struction of dwelling-houses will bring forth all 
 the ends to be accomplished by sanitary science. 
 This would indeed be Utopian in the wildest 
 sense of that term. If, by the perfection of 
 building, we could exclude the poisons which 
 cause the contagious diseases, and damp, and 
 darkness, and confined air, and the fine particles 
 of dust in the air which enter the lungs to keep 
 up constant irritation, and water that contains 
 injurious products if we could carry out these 
 exclusions, we should indeed soon make marked 
 advances in health. 
 
 If at the same time we could introduce all 
 the best methods for insuring cleanliness of 
 person and raiment, could give the best oppor- 
 tunities for outdoor and indoor recreative acti- 
 vity, and could establish the best places for pre- 
 
 H 
 
178 HABITATIONS. 
 
 paring healthy and nutritious foods and drinks ; 
 then the duty of the builder might be considered 
 as completed, and the duties of the physician and 
 legislator might be considered as about to re- 
 commence on a sound foundation. 
 
 "Were, however, these reforms each and all 
 carried out, there would still remain those causes 
 of disease and mortality which spring from social 
 influences, from worry, grief, anxiety, irritation, 
 and the reel of the passions. There would still 
 remain those great external atmospheric varia- 
 tions which from the first of man's existence 
 on the planet, and all through his career, have 
 influenced him in his course. There would still 
 remain the last grand cause of death, the wearing 
 out of that physical organism by which, through 
 a limited series of years, the man has been iden- 
 tified on the earth as an independent living re- 
 sponsible being. 
 
 In the ideal of a model City of Health, 
 Hygeia, I have pointed out the details that are 
 necessary for every model building or series of 
 buildings in which human beings are to live in 
 due enjoyment of health. In that imaginary 
 city I have sketched forth the improvements 
 which have to be carried out de novo. These 
 include chiefly the following details : 
 
 The living space is assumed to be so arranged 
 that not more than twenty-five persons are 
 
IDEAL OF A MODEL CITY. 179 
 
 lodged on an acre of ground. That is calculated 
 as the densest population that could be safely 
 housed. The houses in which the population 
 reside are so planned that each acre of land can 
 receive five houses, and each house can receive 
 a family of five persons. The houses are built 
 three, or at most four, stories high, and each 
 story is confined to fifty feet in height, by 
 which means the great evil of tall, overshadowing, 
 densely packed human warehouses is prevented. 
 The houses are built on solid arches of brick- 
 work, so that where in other towns there are 
 areas and kitchens, there are here subways 
 through which the air flows freely, and down 
 the inclines of which all currents of water are 
 carried away. 
 
 The streets of the city, wide and, owing to 
 the lowness of the houses, well lighted and 
 thoroughly ventilated, are laid also on arch- 
 ways, and beneath each of the main streets is 
 a railway by which all the heavy traffic of the 
 place is carried on. The streets are planted on 
 each side with trees, and in many places with 
 shrubs and evergreens. They are paved with 
 wood set in asphalte; and the side pavements, 
 which are everywhere ten feet wide, are of light 
 grey stone. The pavements have a slight in- 
 cline towards the streets, and the streets have an 
 incline from their centres towards the margins 
 
180 HABITATIONS. 
 
 of the pavements. The streets are washed every 
 day, through side openings, into the subways, 
 the washings being conveyed with the sewage 
 to a destination apart from the city. Thus the 
 streets everywhere are dry and clean, free alike 
 of pools and open drains. 
 
 The spaces at the backs of the houses are 
 gardens, which gardens are common to all the 
 houses, so that children have good playgrounds 
 at home. The gardens are planted with trees 
 and evergreens, but nothing is wanting to give 
 facilities to the children for healthful exer- 
 cise and play. Practically the houses stand in 
 gardens ; for the streets, with their evergreen 
 foliage and cleanly kept dry walks, are also 
 like a garden with walking-paths and a central 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 The introduction of subways beneath the 
 houses does away altogether with those under- 
 ground caves called areas, kitchens, and cellars, 
 in which, in bad imitation of the primitive cave- 
 dwelling savage men, so many thousands of our 
 industrious people now vegetate. The subways, 
 at the same time, perform an important service. 
 All pipes are conveyed along the subways, and 
 enter each house from beneath. The mains of 
 the water-pipe are carried along the subway. 
 The gas main is carried along the subway. The 
 supplies of gas and water enter from the base- 
 
IDEAL OF A MODEL CITY. 181 
 
 ment of each, house, and are at every moment 
 within the immediate control of the householder. 
 The supplies of water and of gas are constant ; 
 and if there be an escape of either within the 
 house, the owner can separate them at the main 
 from the floor of the entrance-hall, or from a side 
 opening of the wall in that part of the house. 
 Beneath the floor of the subway lies the sewer 
 of the house. The sewers are built of brick, and 
 are trapped from each house. Into each sewer, 
 which is well flushed and ventilated, there are 
 convenient entrances by which they can be in- 
 spected, and through which the workmen can 
 pass to make repairs or remove obstructions. 
 The subway thus becomes a very important part 
 of the construction of the house. It not only pre- 
 vents the house from being charged with damp 
 from beneath, but it leaves a convenient space in 
 which all repairs connected with water supply, 
 gas supply, and sewerage can be carried out. 
 
 The living part of every house begins on the 
 level of the street, and the walls of the houses 
 are built of a brick which is not porous, and 
 which therefore cannot be saturated with water. 
 Some kinds of common brick will take up, as 
 Mr. Chadwick has found, a pound weight of 
 water. A roughly built exposed cottage, during 
 a short season of heavy wet, may take up many 
 tons of water, which water, when the dry 
 
1 82 HABITATIONS. 
 
 weather returns, is carried in vapour into the 
 warm rooms, creating a damp as persistent as in 
 wet weather, and leading to those physical evils 
 from damp of which consumption of the lungs is 
 the most prominent form. To avoid the dangers 
 from this cause, the bricks used are made of 
 glazed substance, and are quite impermeable to 
 water. The bricks are perforated ; at the end of 
 each is a wedge-like opening, and all the open- 
 ings communicate. The walls, therefore, are 
 honey-combed, and into them a body of air con- 
 stantly circulates, which air can be warmed from 
 the firegrates of the house. The walls of the 
 living-rooms are lined with glazed tile, and can 
 be washed down as an earthenware vessel is 
 washed. The colour of the walls is grey, as a 
 rule. The mortar and cement in which the 
 bricks are laid, and all the timbers employed 
 in the buildings, are rendered free of moisture. 
 Sea salt, so common an ingredient of mortar 
 made from sea sand, and so often present in 
 wood that has crossed the sea, and so efficient an 
 absorbent of water, is carefully excluded. 
 
 The most radical improvements in our system 
 of model habitations lie in the arrangements of 
 the roofs and the kitchens. In the houses of 
 the present day the kitchen is at the basement,, 
 while the upper part of the house is carefully 
 sealed down by the roof. The result is that all 
 
IDEAL OF A MODEL CITY. 183 
 
 the close and disagreeable, and it may be foul 
 and dangerous, vapours from the kitchen and 
 lower offices ascend to the upper rooms and pas- 
 sages of the house, just as gases introduced into 
 an inverted bell-jar filled with water ascend to 
 the upper part of the jar, displacing the water. 
 In our model houses the risks from this cause 
 are avoided by placing the kitchen at the top of 
 the house, immediately beneath the roof. The 
 kitchen acts as a ventilating chamber, into which 
 all the air from the lower part of the house is 
 drawn, and through the chimney and ventilator 
 of which the air finds ready exit. Thus the 
 house is kept free of the odours of the lower 
 regions, and is ventilated at all times with fresh 
 air derived from without, and warmed by its 
 passage through the honeycombed heated walls. 
 The position of the kitchen at the upper part of 
 the house is attended with other advantages than 
 those just stated. From the kitchen there is 
 distributed throughout the house a constant 
 supply of warm as well as of cold water. The 
 weighted dishes have to be carried down instead 
 of up -stairs * the light dishes only have to 
 be carried up-stairs. The kitchen is perfectly 
 lighted, so that the least uncleanliness is readily 
 detected. The scullery, which lies off the 
 kitchen, communicates with the dust-bin shaft ; 
 and from every floor of the house a distinct com- 
 
1 84 HABITATIONS. 
 
 munication, by a sliding door, is made with, the 
 same shaft. A sink also exists on every floor for 
 receiving waste water, so that the plan of carry- 
 ing the heavy slop-pail from floor to floor is dis- 
 pensed with altogether. 
 
 Above the kitchen is the arched roof of the 
 house. The roof, which is flat, or nearly so, on 
 the exterior surface, is coated with asphalte, and, 
 being barricaded with a light iron palisading, 
 makes an airing-ground or a drying-ground, or 
 even a garden, according to the tastes or the 
 requirements of the owner. The smoke from 
 the chimneys is collected and drawn away to a 
 central shaft, so that the air is kept clear of soot- 
 dust, and a pure blue sky overhead is obscured 
 only by the curtain of cloud which nature, in 
 her grand designing, sees it wise sometimes to 
 impose. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 IDEAL OF A MODEL HOUSE. 
 
 plan of a model city was confessedly ideal 
 JL in relation to onr present actual position in 
 practical science and art, I mean in relation to 
 the actual present possibility of carrying out the 
 idea. At the same time I studiously avoided, in 
 laying out the plan, all that was, even at pre- 
 sent, impossible. I asked, as each step of the 
 city was figuratively drawn, could an architect 
 do this for me if I gave him the order ? Could 
 a builder find the materials if I gave him the 
 order? Could workmen be found to carry out 
 'che details in every particular ? Moreover, I 
 fixed my mind on the ordinary class of architects, 
 builders, and workmen, and if the answer to the 
 questions I have named above were negative, I 
 threw that part of my ideal design aside as some- 
 thing to be waited for. 
 
 In this way I extracted at last an ideal city 
 which in every detail was strictly possible. 
 
1 86 HABITATIONS. 
 
 The result is that experienced builders say there 
 is no difficulty whatever, save the novelty and 
 the fear of expense, in turning the ideal into 
 the practical, and in producing truly a model- 
 city health a city in which the mortality 
 will be reduced to the lowest possible standard 
 which can be secured by the improvement of 
 human habitations. At the same time, seeing 
 the difficulty of carrying out the scheme in per- 
 fection of detail, and in combination of the per- 
 fected details, I clothed the plan in the garment 
 of an allegory, so that it might exist in the 
 minds of men before it actually existed upon the 
 earth. I expected, and I have no reason to 
 doubt the correctness of the anticipation, that the 
 allegory will remain impressed, as such, on the 
 mind, and I hope it may live until the reality it 
 would foreshadow is an accomplished fact. Then, 
 when there is nothing new in it, it may die, and 
 I am more than content that it should have that 
 distinctive and, I may say, intended destination. 
 
 But while the combination remains unformed, 
 waiting for gradual development out of the 
 details, there is no reason why the details should 
 not be at once considered, with a view to their 
 practical application. I shall therefore proceed 
 to bring forward certain of these, beginning with 
 the dwelling-house. 
 
 It will answer my purpose best to take as a 
 
IDEAL OF A MODEL HOUSE. 187 
 
 dwelling-house one of the better middle class. 
 The large mansions of the superfluous rich will 
 continue, I suppose, much as they are, whatever 
 the improvements of the sanitarian may be. The 
 rooms and halls there which are only meant for 
 state and display are not under the necessary 
 influence of sanitary regulation, and the parts 
 which are intended as residences for the family 
 will adapt to the middle-class level. I may, 
 therefore, leave the half-tenanted mansions to 
 their luxurious fate. I may also, to a large 
 extent, leave out of the plan the dwellings of the 
 poor, not because these ought to be neglected, 
 but because it is of very little use making radical 
 changes in those dwellings until the dwellings 
 of persons who are above poverty are set up as 
 examples of principles and of practice. A few 
 examples of improvement would do more to- 
 advance general improvement than all the sta- 
 tistics that have ever been collected to prove the 
 unhealthiness of existing systems. 
 
 I will suppose a very simple model house; 
 such a house as I would, if I could, build for 
 myself as a residential house in this metropolis. 
 As I proceed to construct I will point out the 
 faults of those parts of our modern houses which 
 I would remove or remedy. As I add new 
 arrangements I will state not only the designs, 
 but the objects of them. 
 
1 88 HABITATIONS. 
 
 In the building of a model house I should 
 commence the reformation from the basement. 
 The basement saps the health of the occupant of 
 the house more than any other deteriorating 
 influence. The basement walls and rooms are 
 the condensing chambers of water, and, be they 
 kept ever so clean, they are ever at fault on the 
 score of dampness. How can it be otherwise ? 
 They are surrounded by the damp earth, the well 
 in which they are planted. Into them all the 
 rain that falls near the house splutters down. 
 The pipes from the house, which convey away 
 water from roofs and closets, find at the low level 
 of the basement their easiest points of leakage. 
 Into this basement the boiler of the kitchen and 
 every boiling pot and kettle discharges its volume 
 of steam. Here vessels containing fluids are set 
 to cool and to let the fluids they hold evaporate 
 while cooling. Here various articles of clothing 
 and linen are put to the fire the live-long day 
 tea-cloths, damp dusters, house-flannels, drying- 
 towels, damp clothes, dripping umbrellas, and 
 wet boots and shoes. Here all the crockery of 
 the house and nearly all utensils are washed, and, 
 partly dried, are set up to dry on the shelf. 
 Here the sinks are deluged and scrubbed, the 
 ablution finishing with a final douse of water, 
 which runs off in great part, but which also in 
 part remains in the stone to pass away by evapo- 
 
IDEAL OF A MODEL HOUSE. 189 
 
 ration. In a word, in this basement, where, of 
 all places in the house, and I might almost add 
 in the world, the process of drying must of 
 necessity be most imperfect, all the wetness of 
 the house is concentrated, and the attempt is 
 made, at the expense of heat, to dry everything 
 by sending up the water at great and unnecessary 
 cost into the rooms of the house that are above. 
 All day this process goes on vigorously. At 
 night, when the basement cools, as it does with 
 much rapidity, the condensation of water from 
 every available source recommences. In the 
 early morning the cold chilly rooms with their 
 dripping Avails are re-heated, and the water is 
 raised into vapour. 
 
XXX. 
 
 A MODEL HOUSE : THE BASEMENT STORY. 
 
 I WAS recently attending a lady who resides 
 in one of the most open parts of the West- 
 end of London. She was suffering from constant 
 neuralgia and rheumatic pain. As I descended 
 the staircase after my visit I put my hand on 
 the mahogany rails of the banister, and found 
 my glove saturated with water. From the top 
 to the bottom that piece of woodwork was in the 
 same state. The walls were equally damp, and 
 from the basement there was ascending a per- 
 sistent stream of water vapour. I ventured here 
 to suggest that the builder was required as 
 urgently as the physician. 
 
 I give this one out of any number of experiences 
 which thoughtful practitioners of medicine daily 
 recognise, yet feel they cannot remedy. A large 
 percentage of preventible disease is due to the 
 one grand cause, damp. Dr. George Buchanan's 
 researches have proved this fact beyond dispute 
 in respect to the disease consumption, and I 
 
A MODEL HOUSE, THE BASEMENT STORY. 191 
 
 begin to think that the theory of a very eminent 
 physician, who some years ago contended that 
 mere dampness was an all-sufficient cause of ague 
 and malarial fever, was pretty near to the truth. 
 
 These great observations are sustained by the 
 smaller which we witness in daily life. The 
 frequent colds, the chilliness, the sense of ex- 
 haustion, the pallid feebleness of tenderly home- 
 bred children, the recurring attacks of toothache, 
 rheumatism, neuralgia, cough, which attend damp 
 seasons, I believe are all induced, or when not 
 actively induced are aggravated, beyond any 
 computation we have yet made, in the houses 
 of great towns, by this process of living over 
 water-diffusing passages and chambers, with an 
 exit shaft into the upper rooms for vapour drawn 
 up from below by the fires above. People who 
 live on piles raised some feet above running 
 water are even better protected. 
 
 The dangers of the basement do not end at 
 this point. The basement is dark, hence it 
 becomes the nest of unperceived abominations. 
 It is the receptacle of the dead organic refuse, 
 and the place where unstopped drains open into 
 the house. The dust of the rooms above gra- 
 vitates into it during the stillness of night, to 
 settle on the foods and drinks that in semi- 
 darkness are carefully stowed away. The food 
 itself undergoes more rapid changes towards 
 
1 92 HABITATIONS. 
 
 decomposition than in the dry and open air. And, 
 owing to the readiness with which all organic 
 decomposing particles are borne in air saturated 
 with water, the dissemination of these particles 
 throughout the house is made a ready way to the 
 conveyance of the poisons of disease. 
 
 I am sorry to say I have not yet done with 
 the basement. To the many other previous 
 faults connected with it, is the most serious, that 
 it is frequently made the sleeping tomb of living 
 men and women. I could take you, my reader, 
 to basements of good houses in this so-called 
 civilised metropolis, where every dark nook and 
 cupboard in the basement, that is available for 
 such a purpose, is the receptacle for a shut- 
 up servant's bed. I could show you where 
 philanthropists and philanthropesses rest every 
 night over these catacombs of sleeping slaves. I 
 have known it offered as a recommendation to an 
 empty house standing to be let that any number 
 of servants could be lodged in the basement. I 
 have seen a house in which sixteen servants sleep 
 in these underground beds, not one of whom can 
 at any season of the blessed year see properly to 
 dress without the aid of artificial light. 
 
 Take in the picture of an unfortunate servant 
 emerging from such dank darkness, in gorgeous 
 array of heavy livery, to attend on the celes- 
 tials , who are encamped in the galleries over his 
 
A MODEL HOUSE, THE BASEMENT STORY. 193 
 
 head : barbaric splendour splendour differing in 
 what respect from the picture of the lord of the 
 castle summoning his retainers from their caves 
 of earth to carry his badge of greatness ? In this 
 respect, that the great lord who confined offenders 
 in the caves beneath him took good care to cut 
 them off from direct communication with himself 
 and his family. 
 
 The first great improvement I should intro- 
 duce into the house is so to remodel it as to 
 stop the basement of the house from becoming 
 a living place, cookery, laundry, bottle-vault, 
 refuse store, larder, servants' bedroom, drain-trap 
 and lavatory. I should turn it to its proper and 
 legitimate use, a real basement, an arched sub- 
 way through which the air can constantly pass 
 and repass, and on which the house can stand 
 firm and dry without any in-door connection 
 whatever with it. 
 
 The area as it now exists is no objection ; on 
 the contrary, it is an advantage. A house stand- 
 ing on a simple basement with an open space 
 before and behind is well placed. The basement 
 itself I should use at the same time for many 
 useful and necessary purposes. It would con- 
 tain three arches, each of which through free 
 openings would communicate with the open air, 
 so that a current of air might at all times pass 
 through and through. One of the arches would 
 
194 HABITATIONS. 
 
 lead to the staircase at the back of the house to 
 form the servants' entrance. In the basement 
 would be placed the closed bin for receiving by 
 an outer shaft all the refuse of the house. In 
 the basement would be a closed tumbling-bay in 
 which the soil pipe of the house, separated by an 
 open air space from the sewer, would discharge 
 itself. Through the basement the water-pipe for 
 supply of the house and the gas-pipes would 
 enter, while two, at least, of the arches might be 
 fitted up with good furnaces or stoves, into which 
 air derived from the upper part of the arch could 
 be drawn and heated and purified, and passed 
 into the upper part of the house. 
 
 Nicely fitted, the basement rooms might be 
 turned into hot-air rooms like the Eoman baths, 
 or to other useful purposes. But about the 
 basement part there would always be this pro- 
 vision, that it could never be entered by a direct 
 shaft communicating and forming a distinct con- 
 nection with the rooms of the house above it. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 A MODEL HOUSE : THE UPPER FLOORS. 
 
 FBOM the modifications required in the base- 
 ment of the house the next change I should 
 introduce would be in the staircase. This change, 
 unfortunately, in all houses, as at present con- 
 structed, would be carried out with great diffi- 
 culty. But in the building of new houses it 
 would be easy, and it should never be omitted. 
 
 In the present construction the staircase of the 
 house is the shaft of the dwelling through which 
 all the products of respiration, combustion, and 
 other forms of volatile impurity, rise from the 
 lower to the upper floors. It holds an open 
 communication with all parts, and while it allows 
 for the diffusion of every volatile impurity and 
 damp, it prevents the possibility of maintaining 
 through the house an equable and agreeable 
 temperature. It is the great source of draughts, 
 and it lessens beyond measure the size, comfort, 
 and arrangement of every floor. "Worse still, it 
 
196 HABITATIONS. 
 
 enforces that all the water-closets shall be in- 
 cluded actually in the living part of the dwelling, 
 one of the most unwholesome and objectionable 
 of all domestic arrangements. 
 
 I should therefore place the staircase in the 
 rear of the house, in a distinct shaft or tower of 
 its own leading straight from the ground floor to 
 the upper part above the level of the house, 
 where it should terminate in a well-lighted 
 turret. I should let it extend downwards by 
 a descending continuous but- open air flight of 
 stairs into the basement. At each floor of the 
 house I should make a communication with the 
 staircase by a door, so that in fact each floor 
 would be distinct in itself, a flat, if you would 
 like to call it so, that can be independently 
 lighted, warmed, and ventilated. 
 
 The staircase shaft communicating with all the 
 house, but standing as distinctly by itself as a 
 street, would turn to most useful purposes. 
 Through it all the ventilating pipes of the house 
 would be regulated. Connected with it would 
 be a smaller shaft for a lift to carry goods from 
 the basement to every floor. From it at the 
 back part, and projecting out into the open air, 
 would be built the water-closets on certain of the 
 floors, and small spare rooms, such as bath-rooms 
 or lavatories, on other floors. The entrance to 
 the staircase would be at the extremity of the 
 
A MODEL HOUSE: THE UPPER FLOORS. 197 
 
 entrance-hall, from which it would be shut off by 
 a door. 
 
 On the special arrangements of the floors of 
 such a model house as I am describing I do not 
 enter at this moment, the general principle of the 
 house for its sanitary purposes being all that 
 concerns me now. I may pass through the 
 ground floor, ascend the staircase to the first 
 floor, pass the door of that, ascend again to the 
 second floor, pass the door of that, ascend once 
 more to the third floor, and there stop. 
 
 In this third floor I make a very decisive change 
 from what is common. Here I would place the 
 kitchen and the servants' offices in the front, and 
 the servants' dormitories in the back. The whole 
 of this floor should serve, as the basement serves 
 at present, for the domestic work of the household. 
 Light, good ventilation, easy exit for all the 
 vapours and gases and odours of cooking, would 
 be readily obtainable. Every part of the process 
 of preparing food would be possible, with as 
 much of absolute purity as is attainable in the 
 most refined chemical laboratory, where perfect 
 purity is the only means for truly successful 
 work. 
 
 By the shaft and lift the kitchen floor would 
 be in instant and easy communication with all 
 the other floors. The trouble of carrying heavy 
 weights up and down stairs would be saved. 
 
i 9 8 HABITATIONS. 
 
 From a spare boiler in the kitchen hot water, 
 and from the cold water tank cold water, would 
 traverse to every floor. Each floor would be made 
 by this means independent ; it would have its own 
 sink and opening into the dust-shaft, and all the 
 inconvenient marches up and down stairs with 
 pails and dust-boxes would be entirely saved. 
 
 I have yet another story into which to invite 
 the reader in this model or remodelled sanitary 
 house for a town or city. I want to show the 
 transformation of that part of the house which is 
 still called the cock-loft ; so called, not as many 
 suppose, because it was the place where that early 
 bird in more primitive times saluted the morn, but 
 because it is the crown or cap of the house. 
 
 This part of the house, I take it, is in large 
 cities the part most misapplied after the base- 
 ment, and some day we shall be considered Goths 
 for the modern manner of constructing. Here 
 it is a pointed roof, to sleep beneath which is to 
 be roasted in summer and frozen, I am speaking 
 from an actual experience when I say frozen, in 
 winter. There it is a long half-flat roof with 
 numerous angles through which, do what you 
 may, water will pour. In short, it is every kind 
 of absurdity which fanciful uselessness can devise. 
 
 In the house I propose I should utilise this 
 space to the best and most healthy and most 
 charming of purposes. Upon a firm, almost level 
 
A MODEL HOUSE: THE UPPER FLOORS, igg 
 
 asphalted roof, the excellence of which I have 
 tested in one of my own houses for twenty-three 
 years, I should raise, in iron and glass, a covered 
 garden equal in extent to the whole area of the 
 house. The house would thus be double-roofed, 
 and from this circumstance alone would be spe- 
 cially warm and dry. In a house thirty feet wide 
 and fifty deep this garden would be of a size 
 actually handsome. Into the garden the stair 
 shaft would finally enter, and here, if from the 
 lower part of the house any emanations passed, 
 they would not be sealed up for the sleepers 
 underneath to feed upon deleteriously, but would 
 be eaten up wholesomely by the living vegetation. 
 Heated readily from the kitchen beneath, this 
 covered garden might have at all times a summer 
 temperature. In it the children could engage in 
 luxurious and healthful play. In it the ladies of 
 the household could find occupation in cultivating 
 those natural beauties of flowers and evergreens, 
 which so cheer the heart through the sense of 
 sight. In it the sterner sex might spend hours 
 of change now unspeakably dull from the mono- 
 tony of one or two rooms of more limited size. 
 In it, in fine, the most agreeable recreative plea- 
 sures would be possible, while with them would 
 go the fact that, with the pleasant and the natural 
 and the beautiful, health was also trained, and 
 happiness, her dependent sister, nourished. 
 
PART V. 
 
 WORK AND PLAY 
 
XXXII. 
 
 HEALTH AND LABOUK. 
 
 rAT man was born to live by the sweat of 
 his brow is a figure of speech the truth- 
 fulness of which remains as perfect now as on the 
 day when it was first spoken. Who tries to 
 break that law wrestles with all the forces of 
 nature and is brought foolishly prostrate. " I 
 will lay up," says the foolish man, " so much 
 wealth out of the present that my children and 
 children's children shall never require to work. 
 They, at all events, shall not be sons and 
 daughters of toil." Under the influence of this 
 sentiment some men work in such disobedience 
 to natural rule, that they themselves die in the 
 middle stages of their life. They would wonder 
 if they could see the folly of the sacrifice. 
 
 To work for his own health and means of 
 subsistence ; to work from the first working 
 times until the close of life ; to work for those 
 who are young and dependent upon him until 
 
204 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 they too can work as he has done for health and 
 life ; to work a little in advance for those of his 
 own who may continue to demand from their 
 own weakness more care and aid ; these are true 
 duties belonging to every man. Pressed far 
 beyond this bound, the effort becomes unjust, 
 and injustice in natural things has its certain 
 rectification. The law is absolute. Man shall 
 live by the sweat of his brow, and no man shall 
 work for another who can work. The surplus of 
 work which a man can expend for more than his 
 own wants is but sufficient for the helpless who 
 rest on him. That is the natural law. 
 
 To the children of the earth, the earth is pre- 
 sented as a garden, and the primitive ideal of the 
 life that is, as a life planted in a garden, is the 
 simplest and truest. " Here," nature tells her 
 children, "here is the great sphere for your 
 labour. It is your property to discover and to 
 conquer, to its utmost bounds of sea and land. 
 Make it, if you will, a garden of richness, and 
 pleasure, and delight, for it is yours also to enjoy. 
 Some of you in this sphere must overlook and 
 govern. Some must teach the ignorant. Some 
 must tend the feeble and sick. Some must make 
 and invent new instruments for the handicrafts, 
 and find new modes of transit from place to place. 
 Some must till. Some must hew the way into 
 the earth, and find new treasures. Some must 
 
HEALTH AND LABOUR. 205 
 
 recreate the created, and bring forth forms of 
 natural beauty on stone or canvas that shall 
 delight the eye and cheer the heart. Some must- 
 be the treasurers and scientific re- distributors of 
 the wealth which the toilers have extracted from 
 the earth. Some must be scribes who watch and 
 score the work that is done for other ages to 
 read. Some must sing songs, or tell tales, or 
 bring up to sight the life of the past, for the rest 
 and delectation of the workers of every class. 
 Some must survey the whole field of labour, 
 and teach from the observation those lessons of 
 morality, of health, of goodness which observa- 
 tion makes known as the best lessons for rules of 
 life, of the life of all. But all must work. The 
 whole generation of labourers, be it ever so 
 great, cannot work so as to lessen the labour of 
 its successor. New knowledge, new labour, new 
 responsibility." 
 
 Still, age on age, there is the garden that must 
 be supervised, weeded, embellished. It dies with 
 its children, it rises again with them. 
 
 An age may be strained in work to the ut- 
 most, and die at its work, and still the next 
 age must strain and die. The garden itself never 
 rests. In steady revolution, in time and space it 
 knows no rest, and allows none. 
 
 That cunning old knave of a gardener there, 
 coming out of the dark grotto, has pillaged the 
 
206 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 earth unjustly, or has pillaged the wallets of his 
 fellows with such infinite skill that he cannot, he 
 thinks, be punished. He has a store securely 
 hidden, so he fancies, which none but those who 
 are privileged to be directed by the insane scroll 
 which he calls his last will and testament can 
 find and use. These happy-born will not, like 
 him, have to work in the garden, but will walk 
 about in it buying its pleasures, its health, its 
 slaves. Fool ! if they be ever so cautious, they 
 cannot battle long against that perpetual motion. 
 If they do, they will clash and be annihilated, 
 or from sense of self-preservation they will fall 
 at last into a gang, and work with the rest. 
 Nay, cunning old man, if you use your hoard to 
 perpetuate yourself in what you consider immu- 
 table materials in marble, in stone you will 
 fail. For they will change also, or be changed. 
 They, too, must be reformed for new work. 
 
 In the garden of life there must be universal 
 work from universal man. Here we start on firm 
 ground. "Without work universal there can be 
 no health universal. Here, again, we start on 
 firm ground, and this is the basis of our argu- 
 ment. "We say soundly enough occupation, or 
 work, is necessary for health. The question to 
 be studied is how near in the present stage of 
 the cultivation of the garden of life have we 
 approached to those measurements of labour, 
 
HEALTH AND LABOUR. 207 
 
 and to those natural and necessary industries 
 which are in accord with a life that is healthy 
 and therewith happy. 
 
 As in this spirit of inquiry we look at the 
 work that is in progress in the garden, we cannot, 
 I regret to say, be satisfied with the prospect. 
 There are a great many idle dashers there in all 
 ranks, who ought to be at work, but who are 
 making collisions simply with those who are in 
 train. There are a great many who are doomed 
 to work who ought not to be in train, owing to 
 their physical weakness. There are a great 
 many who are in train at work that is too heavy, 
 too long, too laborious. There are a great 
 many who are in train at work which is posi- 
 tively injurious to themselves and others, plant- 
 ing poisonous seeds where only wholesome fruits 
 or flowers should grow. In some sections of the 
 garden of life there are many who stand ready to 
 slay, who are trained to fight to the death the 
 owners of other sections if a mere quarrel should 
 arise. In other sections there are great hives of 
 workers fabricating the instruments of death for 
 the slayers. 
 
 Truly the primitive garden, the Paradise, is not 
 yet regained. 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 MORTALITIES AND OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 WHEN we come to the scientific consideration 
 of the relation of work to health, we are 
 led, in the first place, to study the relation of work 
 to life. Health is a detail, life a principal. If we 
 can determine, as a preliminary fact, how the 
 years of life of men following different pursuits 
 in some important sections of labour are modified 
 by the labour, and if we find there are great 
 variations in this respect, then we are enabled to 
 seize from the relative mortalities some leading 
 truths, and by a comparison of value of life to 
 judge of the value of health in different grades 
 of workers. Afterwards we can enter into detail 
 on the classes, and inquire what in particular 
 classes are the particular variations of health, 
 and how far these variations depend on the labour 
 of the class. 
 
 Up to the present time the information that 
 has been obtained on this subject has been 
 
MORTALITIES AND OCCUPATIONS. 209 
 
 extremely small. I mean that information, 
 based on so many carefully recorded observa- 
 tions that the inferences to be drawn from them 
 may be safely accepted, has been small. At last, 
 in this country, under the able designing hand 
 of' Dr. "William Farr, whose labours will be 
 better known as time reveals them, because they 
 are so great, that time is necessary to unroll 
 them, at last, under his hand, we have obtained 
 so much information respecting life and occupa- 
 tion in the part of the garden of the world called 
 England, that a good solid basis is laid for the 
 support of the most valuable records of general 
 structure and of detail. 
 
 "We know now, in respect to seventy well- 
 defined sets of workers in England, what is the 
 value of life under each class. We can set class 
 against class, and without any danger, in this 
 instance, of exciting collision or ill-feeling, can 
 compare one class with another. 
 
 I propose to take the facts respecting occupa- 
 tion and mortality, as they have been drawn up 
 for our study. They lie before me in an original 
 table which, for a course of lectures recently de- 
 livered at the Society of Arts, I was permitted 
 to receive from the Begistrar-GeneraFs office, 
 and the lessons they teach will, I hope, be easily 
 learned from the history I am about to write. 
 
 Our authority sets forth by extracting from his 
 
210 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 returns of mortality, which now are sufficiently 
 perfect for the purpose, the annual death-rate in 
 England and Wales of males aged fifteen years 
 and upwards, who were engaged in seventy occu- 
 pations during the three years 1861, 1862, and 
 1871. He shows (V)The years of life belonging 
 to these different occupations in 1861, 1862, 
 1871. (b) The deaths in each class that were 
 actually recorded in the said three years, (c) 
 The deaths that would have occurred according 
 to a standard rate of deaths derived from the 
 mean rate of all the deaths, (d) The names of 
 each of the seventy occupations, (e) The deaths 
 of the males aged fifteen and upwards engaged 
 in each of the seventy defined occupations, in 
 comparison with the mean deaths per cent, of re- 
 presentatives of all the occupations. (/) Lastly, 
 he gives the annual death rate of the males of 
 the seventy occupations per thousand, living at 
 eight groups of ages, from the age of fifteen 
 years to that of seventy-five and upwards. 
 
 It will be seen by this outline how compre- 
 hensively the information supplied is laid out. 
 In course of time the information will be enlarged 
 upon, and in some details, perhaps, modified. 
 Indeed, it is now put forward with these explana- 
 tions on the face of it. But, approximately, it is 
 so near to the truth, we need not cavil at details. 
 It is the best knowledge yet acquired on the sub- 
 
MORTALITIES AND OCCUPATIONS. 211 
 
 ject upon which it treats, it has been collected 
 with infinite labour, and it calls for grateful 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 As the facts which have accumulated in the 
 manner above described are surveyed, the most 
 striking of all is the disparity in value of life 
 between the representatives of different occupa- 
 tions. Taking one hundred as the standard of 
 deaths of all who are employed in all the occupa- 
 tions named, that is to say the mean of the whole 
 number of deaths equally divided, we discover 
 that some of the classes of the seventy English 
 workers die at the rate of sixty-three as com- 
 pared with the standard ; while others die at the 
 rate of one hundred and forty-three. These 
 are the extremes of the scale, the top and bottom, 
 taking the class that presents the highest vitality 
 at the top, and the class that presents the lowest 
 vitality at the bottom. Between these come 
 varied degrees of vitality amongst the different 
 classes, from the highest to the lowest degree, in 
 forty -five gradations. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 WORK AND LONG LIFE. 
 
 THE workers who stand at the head of vitality 
 are the barristers. The deaths recorded in 
 their class, in the three years from which the 
 observations are derived, were one hundred and 
 thirty-five. The deaths that would have occurred 
 amongst them in the same period, if they had 
 shared the common rate of deaths with all the 
 others would have been two hundred and fifteen. 
 The rate of their deaths was sixty-three, com- 
 pared by the standard of a hundred as the mean 
 mortality. 
 
 The next in order on the list of those who 
 present a high vitality is the class composed of 
 the clergy of the Established Church of England. 
 The deaths in this class were actually one thou- 
 sand one hundred and five in the three years. 
 The deaths that would have occurred amongst 
 them, according to the standard rate, would 
 have been one thousand five hundred and forty- 
 
WORK AND LONG LIFE. 213 
 
 seven. The rate of their deaths, compared with 
 the total of all the deaths of all the classes, was 
 seventy-one to the hundred. The good health and 
 longevity of the clergy has long been observed, 
 both in England and in Switzerland, but that it 
 was so superior in its totality had certainly not 
 before been surmised. 
 
 Under the head of Protestant ministers are 
 placed all the other ministers of England and 
 "Wales who, preaching Protestant principles, are 
 not included under the title of ministers of the 
 Established Church. These are a very slight 
 degree lower in the vital scale. They rank as 
 seventy-five to the hundred. 
 
 Next in order to the ministers come the 
 class of men in trade known as grocers. These 
 yielded an actual mortality, in the three years, of 
 three thousand one hundred and sixty. By the 
 mean standard they would have yielded four 
 thousand one hundred and seventy- three. The 
 rate of their mortality, compared with the 
 standard of the hundred, was seventy-six. 
 
 In another very large group of traders who 
 combine grocers' business with other forms of 
 shopkeeping the same favourable condition did 
 not precisely obtain, but still it was not greatly 
 altered. The deaths were at the rate of seventy- 
 seven. 
 
 After the grocers come a small class of a 
 
2 1 4. WORK AND PL A Y. 
 
 very different order, a class not destined probably 
 to remain always on the books of the statistician. 
 This class is made up of gamekeepers. The rate 
 of their mortality was eighty. 
 
 The large class of superintendent tillers of the 
 soil known as farmers and graziers are the next 
 favoured. Their mortality is eighty-five, as com- 
 pared with the standard of a hundred. They are 
 followed by the civil engineers, eighty-six ; book- 
 sellers and publishers, eighty-seven \ and wheel- 
 wrights, eighty-eight. Next to the wheelwrights- 
 are the silk manufacturers, who rate at eighty- 
 nine, and who are specially worthy of notice 
 because they contrast most favourably, as we 
 shall see in due time, by the side of some other 
 workers in textile manufactures. 
 
 Labourers, including the whole class of agri- 
 cultural workers, and carpenters and joiners, suc- 
 ceed in order. They each present a mortality 
 of ninety-one, and compare a degree favourably 
 with the little class of men who are known as- 
 bankers, and whose rate of death is ninety- 
 two. Next to them are the whole class of male 
 domestic servants, who yield a rate of ninety- 
 three deaths in proportion to the hundred. 
 
 Sawyers, a rather large class of working men, 
 present a little higher mortality, ninety-five. 
 Brass manufacturers and braziers present ninety- 
 six as their rate, and paper manufacturers and 
 
WORK AND LONG LIFE. 215 
 
 musical instrument makers present the same, viz. 
 ninety-six. Gunsmiths and blacksmiths rise to 
 ninety-seven. Shoemakers, iron and steel manu- 
 facturers, and tanners and curriers, rise to ninety- 
 eight. Bakers complete the list of those who 
 stand on the favourable side of the standard in 
 the scale. They exhibit a mortality of ninety- 
 nine, compared with the standard of one hundred 
 as the mean. 
 
 We have now descended step by step along 
 the scale until we have arrived at the classes of 
 men who, out of the seventy occupations under 
 our cognizance, yield the standard mortality 
 of a hundred. These are two in number. They 
 are engine and machine makers, and wool and 
 worsted manufacturers. 
 
 To place the computations in perfect simplicity 
 of statement, we may rest here, and, in a line, 
 run back the order from the standard to the 
 lowest degree of mortality. It will run then in 
 this way : to the hundred that would have died 
 by an equality of deaths throughout the whole of 
 the seventy classes of workers, there died ninety- 
 nine bakers ; ninety-eight tanners and curriers, 
 iron and steel manufacturers, and shoemakers; 
 ninety-seven blacksmiths and gunsmiths ; ninety- 
 six musical instrument makers, paper manufac- 
 turers, brass manufacturers, and braziers ; ninety- 
 five sawyers ; ninety- three domestic servants ; 
 
216 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 ninety-two bankers ; ninety-one carpenters, 
 joiners, and labourers ; eighty-nine silk manu- 
 facturers ; eighty-eight wheelwrights ; eighty- 
 seven booksellers and publishers ; eighty-six 
 civil engineers ; eighty-five farmers and graziers ; 
 eighty gamekeepers ; seventy-seven grocers and 
 shopkeepers ; seventy- six grocers ; seventy-five 
 Protestant ministers ; seventy- one clergymen of 
 the Established Church ; and sixty-three gentle- 
 men of the long robe, barristers. 
 
XXXV. 
 
 WORK AND SHORT LIFE. 
 
 AS we resume our narrative and proceed on 
 our way the picture becomes sadder. "We 
 leave the standard of a hundred, in which engine 
 and machine makers and wool and worsted makers 
 were enrolled, to see before us a long list of 
 forty-three classes, in which the rate of vitality 
 is lower and the rate of mortality higher than 
 the standard. At the first the difference is 
 very small, but it falls to a figure a little more 
 important than the figure on the other or favour- 
 able side. 
 
 The classes which depart first from the standard 
 in the downward direction are iron, copper, 
 tin, and lead manufacturers. They rank as 
 a hundred and one, and in this respect stand 
 side by side with bakers and confectioners. 
 The schoolmasters and solicitors come next at 
 one hundred and two. After them follow the 
 millers, and, side by side with the millers, 
 in respect to rate of mortality, the Eoman 
 
2i8 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 Catholic priests. These both have a mortality 
 of one hundred and three, compared by the 
 standard. The comparison is very strange in 
 regard to the priest of the Eoman Catholic 
 Church, when it is made with that of the 
 ministers of the Church of England, or with 
 Protestant ministers. 
 
 Watchmakers come in order after the priest 
 and miller ; they rank as one hundred and four ; 
 and one step below them are the tobacco manu- 
 facturers, who rate at one hundred and five. 
 
 "We reach at this point another representative 
 class of the strictly professional order, in the 
 men belonging to the science and art of physic. 
 They, one would think, living only to learn the 
 laws of health and of life, might surely be on a 
 level with the other professions, and might rank 
 above such hardly conducted lives as those of 
 the baker, blacksmith, sawyer, domestic servant, 
 or farm labourer. It is not so. These men who 
 labour to save life stand six degrees down in the 
 scale below the standard ; thirty-five degrees- 
 below the most favoured class of all (the bar- 
 risters) ; thirty-four below the clergy of the 
 Established Church ; and three below the priests 
 of the Eoman Catholic Church. They rate as 
 one hundred and six, and by their side are the 
 shipbuilders, who yield the same figure. 
 
 Messengers and porters, coachmakers, and rope- 
 
WORK AND SHORT LIFE. 219. 
 
 makers are three classes which lie together next 
 in order : they rank as one hundred and seven. 
 
 The class of shopkeepers known as drapers 
 are immediately lower on the list ; they rank as- 
 one hundred and eight. It is of importance, for 
 reasons I shall ultimately haye to offer, to com- 
 pare these shopkeepers with the grocers, between 
 whom and themselves there is so wide a difference 
 in the matter of mortality. 
 
 Next to the drapers come the tailors, who stand 
 at one hundred and nine on the list, and with 
 them the workers in wool, cotton, flax, and silk 
 manufacture, who also stand at one hundred and 
 nine. Eespecting this last-named group, an error 
 of classification has crept into the account, which 
 it will be well to avoid in future tables. The 
 wool and worsted manufacturers have already 
 been estimated in previous and distinct classes, 
 and have been found to be favourably placed* 
 Some of them are here mixed with the cotton 
 and flax workers, probably because in the cotton 
 and flax manufacturers, from which the returns 
 are obtained, there are wool and silk workers 
 also ; but these, by being blended with the others, 
 vitiate the calculation because they lighten the 
 mortality. However, they are so grouped, and 
 we must take them, with this correction, in the- 
 order in which they are placed. 
 
 The two groups which succeed are one degree 
 
220 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 lower in the scale, viz. one hundred and ten \ they 
 -are chemists and druggists and commercial tra- 
 vellers. Following them, a degree lower still, 
 viz. one hundred and eleven, are the insurance 
 service clerks, commercial clerks, and butchers. 
 Carvers and gilders rank at a hundred and 
 twelve ; farriers at a hundred and thirteen ; 
 miners, cotton and flax manufacturers (taken 
 together), and printers, at a hundred and fifteen. 
 Bookbinders rate at a hundred and sixteen, glass 
 manufacturers and fishmongers at a hundred and 
 nineteen, and plumbers and painters at a hun- 
 dred and twenty. 
 
 Fourteen occupations remain on the list, which 
 ;are remarkable in that they present the highest 
 mortalities. They begin with railway engine- 
 drivers, officers, and servants ; tool, file, and saw 
 makers ; and harbour and dock labourers ; all of 
 which classes have a mortality of one hundred 
 .and twenty-one. Hatters, coppersmiths, and 
 needle manufacturers are still more unfavourably 
 placed, viz. at a hundred and twenty-three. 
 Manufacturing chemists and dye and colour 
 manufacturers run down a degree further, viz. 
 to a hundred and twenty- four. Hairdressers sink 
 to a hundred and twenty- seven ; bargemen to a 
 hundred and twenty-nine, and carmen, carriers, 
 and draymen, together with horsekeepers and 
 grooms, to a hundred and thirty- one. 
 
WORK AND SHORT LIFE. 221 
 
 The last three classes on the list are of all the 
 most exceptional. They are (a) Inn and hotel 
 keepers, licensed victuallers, or publicans. (&) 
 Earthenware manufacturers, (c) Coachmen (not 
 domestic) and cabmen. In the first two of these 
 classes, the rate of mortality, computed by the 
 standard of one hundred as the mean, is one 
 hundred and thirty-eight. In the last-named 
 class the rate is one hundred and forty-three. 
 In other words, for every hundred deaths of 
 the representatives of the seventy occupations 
 collectively, there are one hundred and thirty- 
 eight deaths . of innkeepers and earthenware 
 workers, and one hundred and forty-three of 
 cabmen and non-domestic coachmen. The last 
 class die as two to one compared with the clergy 
 of the Established Church. 
 
 The three groups of occupations thus sig- 
 nalised stand out in a peculiar light, and offer a 
 strangely striking example of the influence of 
 occupation on health and life. Of the groups 
 themselves, the earthenware manufacturers are a 
 very small group, the total of the deaths recorded 
 against them in the three years being only one 
 thousand three hundred and twenty. The coach- 
 men and cabmen, though larger in number, the 
 deaths recorded against them being, in the three 
 years, two thousand two hundred and thirteen,. 
 constitute also a comparatively small group. 
 
222 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 The innkeepers, on the other hand, are a large 
 class, the number of deaths recorded against 
 them for the three years being seven thousand 
 one hundred and twenty-seven, instead of five 
 thousand one hundred and sixty- seven, that 
 have occurred amongst them according to the 
 standard rule. We are obliged, therefore, to place 
 this class of workers in the lowest part of the 
 scale of vitality of all the great classes of workers 
 in England and Wales. If we were to depart 
 from our table and make search among all the 
 minor occupations not included in the seventy 
 that have come under notice, none other could 
 be found that is so disadvantageously placed in 
 relation to value of life. 
 
XXXYI. 
 
 CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES. 
 
 AS we glance with, scientific appreciation over 
 the facts revealed by the history that has 
 been collected, and which is now in our posses- 
 sion, several points stand prominently forward. 
 It will not be lost time to look at one or two 
 of these. 
 
 In the first place, we are led to see that the 
 degree of mortality, and therefore, as may be 
 fairly inferred, the degree of ill-health incident 
 to an occupation, is not of necessity connected 
 with the occupation, but is due to some error, 
 which may perhaps be very slight, but which, 
 continuously persisted in, is extremely fatal. 
 Let us glance, for example, at the facts relating 
 to two trades, that of the grocer and that of the 
 draper. 
 
 In the labour carried out by the workers 
 in those businesses there cannot be any great 
 difference in the amount of work done nor in the 
 
224 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 hours of work. Neither can there be any marked 
 or sufficient difference in respect to social advan- 
 tages. The draper lives as well, is sheltered 
 as well, is or may be as well provided with 
 recreative pleasures, as the grocer. They both 
 live in the same communities, exposed to common 
 general influences and to similar anxieties in 
 reference to business affairs. It is not probable, 
 and indeed there is not the slightest reason to 
 assume, that the grocer leads, as a rule, a more 
 temperate or more perfect moral life than the 
 draper. Yet there is this extraordinary differ- 
 ence between them, that by a mean of a hundred 
 as a standard for men belonging to seventy 
 occupations, only seventy-six grocers die to one 
 hundred and eight drapers, and this in males 
 varying in age from fifteen to seventy-five 
 years. 
 
 "When we analyze the phenomena we find that 
 this great difference is produced at definite 
 periods of life, and that from fifteen' years up to 
 fifty-five the mortality at every period is in 
 excess amongst the drapers. From these facts 
 we are driven to infer that the evil which is at 
 work amongst the drapers is of an acute kind, 
 influencing life in its earlier stages. If we 
 inquire one step further we discover that the 
 evil lies in diseases affecting the organs of res- 
 piration, such as consumption and bronchial 
 
CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES. 225 
 
 phthisis. The explanation of the difference of 
 mortality between grocers and drapers is now 
 at hand, without mystery. 
 
 The grocer lives in an open shop with doors 
 rarely closed from morning to night. He deals 
 in goods which give off little dust. He is rapid 
 in his movements, and keeps himself warm by 
 exercise, without the aid of hot stoves and thick 
 raiment. The draper, on the other hand, works 
 in a close atmosphere. His shop-door is on 
 swing hinges, and is commonly blocked up with 
 rolls of woollen or cotton material. His shop is 
 literally stuffed with goods. He is engaged 
 handling goods which fill the air with fluff and 
 dust. He warms up his place with stoves, and 
 from morning to night he keeps up his tempera- 
 ture by artificial means. Under these conditions 
 he becomes first dyspeptic, thin, pale, and 
 anaemic ; then consumptive or bronchial ; and so 
 he succumbs. The source of evil here is easily 
 traced, and is as easily removable. It belongs 
 to the occupation as a matter of ignorance, not 
 of necessity. It is a type of many similar errors 
 connected with those occupations which yield 
 the highest mortalities. 
 
 In other examples the degree of danger accom- 
 panying the occupation is so closely connected 
 with it that it is inseparable, although at first 
 sight the connection may not seem necessary. 
 
226 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 One who casually compares the life of the 
 members of the profession of the Church with the 
 life of the members of the profession of Medicine 
 might think that between the two professions 
 there was little reason for difference of value of 
 life. Yet by the standard we have obtained it 
 follows that for every seventy-one clergymen 
 who die, one hundred and six doctors die. When 
 we come to the cause of this difference, we find 
 that up to thirty-five years of age the deaths are 
 in the proportion of two of the doctors to one 
 of the clergy, and that from this period of life 
 through every decade the excess of mortality, in 
 a lesser ratio, continues amongst the ^Esculapian 
 fraternity. 
 
 The cause of this difference lies in the 
 difference of occupation purely. The extreme 
 labour of learning, and the danger of the 
 learning through which the man of physic has 
 to pass before he attains his qualification, are 
 the great causes of his mortality in early life. 
 Later, the struggle to live, coupled with the day 
 and night watching; and later still, the in- 
 creasing watchfulness and anxiety which come 
 with success, these causes all add to the failure 
 of physical health and to the loss of life which 
 is inflicted on this class of workers. In short, 
 whoever enters the profession of medicine must 
 enter it knowing that, compared with the clerical 
 
CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES. 227 
 
 other professions, he must accept a shorter 
 lease of life than theirs, in compensation for the 
 longer leases of life it is his high privilege to 
 confer on his fellow-men. 
 
 There are classes of labourers who, engaged at 
 very laborious work, die in very different pro- 
 portions because their work is carried on under 
 different conditions. The dock-labourer's work 
 is not actually harder than the farm-labourer's ; 
 yet the dock-labourer dies at the rate of a 
 hundred and twenty-one, the farm-labourer at 
 the rate of ninety-one. In this case the greater 
 exposure of the dock-worker to physical acci- 
 dent, and to extremes of cold and wet, are the 
 determining causes of his greater mortality. 
 The same may be said in respect to the differ- 
 ences between the bargemen and the black- 
 smiths. 
 
 There are classes of labourers in which the great 
 mortality that prevails amongst them is due 
 to the want of scientific care in carrying away 
 the products of labour which are given off as 
 volatile refuse. These products are dusts, or 
 gases, or vapours which the worker breathes or 
 receives into his lungs, and the presence of 
 which in the air is sufficient to convert a light 
 and easy occupation into a seriously fatal pursuit. 
 The work of the hairdresser cannot possibly be 
 esteemed a more laborious art than that of the 
 
228 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 wheelwright. But the hairdressers, who are all 
 day inhaling a close atmosphere charged with 
 fine particles of hair- dust, die at the rate of one 
 hundred and twenty-seven, while the wheel- 
 wrights, who are toiling in all weathers in the 
 open shed, die at the rate of eighty-eight. It is 
 quite unnecessary that any such differences as 
 these should exist. The fatality from impure 
 air charged with dusts is so much ignorant 
 destruction of life. 
 
 There are classes of workers who present high 
 mortalities, from the circumstances that they are 
 exposed directly to poisonous compounds which, 
 absorbed by their body, produce fatal disease. 
 The workers in lead, plumbers, painters, and 
 potters, and the workers in some chemical 
 factories, and at some chemical pursuits, such as 
 photography, afford illustrations of this nature. 
 The labour of plumbers and painters is not 
 more severe than that of carpenters and joiners, 
 but the death-rate of the former is as a hun- 
 dred and twenty to ninety- one of the latter. 
 The cause of the difference in this instance is 
 the exposure to lead, chiefly, and some other 
 similar cause is at work in the other examples 
 of high mortality referred to under this head. 
 In many of these examples all the danger is in- 
 duced by deficient cleanliness on the part of the 
 worker. By the combined efforts of workmen 
 
CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES. 223 
 
 and of science these evils may in time be re- 
 moved. 
 
 The most startling fact of all in reference to 
 occupation and health is that which is told of the 
 innkeepers and publicans. This class of the 
 community is really at the lowest of the vital 
 scale. The cause, unhappily, is not difficult to 
 discover. There is nothing in the occupation 
 of an innkeeper, as an occupation, which 
 can account for its unhealthiness on ordinary 
 grounds of labour. It is not an occupation 
 which exposes those who fill it to physical 
 danger, as the work of the miner or the engine- 
 driver does. It is not an occupation which 
 makes great demands on the physical organism, 
 like that of the blacksmith or ropemaker. It is 
 not an occupation which leads men into solemn 
 charges and responsibilities, like those of the 
 physician, solicitor, or clergyman. It is not an 
 occupation which brings those who follow it to 
 the miseries of want and starvation. Why, 
 then, is it the occupation most nearly allied to 
 death ? The answer is simply told. The occu- 
 pation is the one that is most nearly allied to 
 alcohol. This agent of death, which diffuses 
 danger more or less amongst all classes of 
 workers, tempts most rapidly into destruction 
 those who are the dispensers of it. 
 
 The influence of this one agent vitiates to 
 
230 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 some extent every calculation on the vitality of 
 classes of men. Here it stands out on its own 
 ground, telling its effects on its chosen servants, 
 and teaching a lesson by the fruits it yields in 
 'them, which, if the lesson stood alone, were a 
 sufficient recompense for all the labour through 
 which the facts that have now passed before us 
 have been collected. 
 
 Of the members of the seventy occupations we 
 have specially studied, few do too little work, 
 many do a great deal too much, and probably so 
 long as there is human competition excess of 
 labour will prevail, and will be a certain cause 
 of an excess of mortality above the natural stan- 
 dard. But the real dangers, the series of causes, 
 which lead to the great excesses of mortality are 
 to be found outside the occupations as mere 
 departments of human industry and skill. They 
 lie in the conditions under which the skill and 
 the industry are developed and pursued ; con- 
 ditions nearly every one of which are removable 
 without a breath of injury to the art or business 
 itself, whatever it may be. 
 
 In the history given in the above passages 
 I have recorded the leading facts bearing on 
 life and occupation in this country in so far as 
 they are officially authenticated. They may be 
 accepted as fair representations of the facts of 
 other countries similarly civilised. In respect to 
 
CONDITIONS AND MORTALITIES. 231 
 
 health they show at once that the conditions 
 conducive to good health must indeed be little 
 cared for in a community some classes of which 
 die at the rate of two to one over other classes, 
 and in which those who are now most favour- 
 ably circumstanced are actually not fully up to 
 the natural standards of health and longevity. 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 IDLENESS AS A DISEASE. 
 
 fllHE old proverb that eight hours of the 
 JL twenty-four of each day should be passed 
 in work, eight in sleep, and eight in play or 
 recreation, is one of those true sayings which 
 science willingly accepts and confirms. In our 
 modern days, however, no rule of life is more 
 deliberately broken. The age is so decidedly 
 and decisively competitive, that the race daily 
 run for wealth, reputation, fame, name, and 
 honour, is spent in trying who shall do most 
 work with least sleep and least recreation. In 
 fact, sleep and recreation have ceased to be con- 
 sidered as useful parts of existence, and are 
 looked upon as so much loss of time. 
 
 The ungallant Caliph Omar is reported to 
 have said of women that they were great evils, 
 but that the greatest evil of all was that they 
 were necessary. Our busy man of the present 
 day says, practically, the same thing respecting 
 
IDLENESS AS A DISEASE. 233 
 
 sleep and recreation : They are great evils, but 
 the greatest evil of all is that they are necessary. 
 
 In the race that is being run for wealth, 
 reputation, fame, name, and honour, success, no 
 doubt, does now turn on the time that can be 
 devoted to work. The law of the survival of the 
 fittest was never so actively carried out as it is 
 at the present hour. They who make solid and 
 rapid progress are the strong workers, the men who 
 can endure most fatigue and perform the largest 
 amount of mental or physical strain, or com- 
 bined mental and physical strain, in the shortest 
 intervals. The weak go to the wall in one way or 
 other. Some of the weak, the majority of them, 
 serve the stronger. Others of them, thinking 
 they can make up in cunning what they want in 
 power, try intrigue, practise criminal acts, as a 
 means to reach the forward ranks, and, failing, 
 find a home in the gaol instead of the mansion. 
 A third set of them sink into the workhouse or 
 charitable asylum, and live on the alms of those 
 who are above them. 
 
 Through the whole of the classes that really 
 work, the tendency to excess of work is rela- 
 tively developed. The strongest drag the weakest 
 in their train, and make the work and hours of 
 work for all, according to their pleasure. Thus 
 the hours of recreation, whatever may be said of 
 them, are ordained by fashion, and no man, 
 
234 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 unless he be quite independent (when he, gene- 
 rally, by a reaction against work altogether, has 
 none other but hours of idleness), can be so placed 
 as to have a choice or voice in regular and 
 systematic recreative delights. 
 
 "When, some time ago, I published a series of 
 remarks similar to those written above, it was 
 answered by one of my learned brethren, for 
 whose opinion the utmost possible respect is due, 
 that there was a considerable amount of disease 
 induced by idleness, and that the idea of produc- 
 tion of disease by overwork was problematical. 
 The observation led me carefully to reconsider 
 the facts involved in this question, but without 
 finding any reason for modifying my former 
 views. I do not for a moment deny that many 
 people suffer from idleness. I fully admit, and 
 have already written, that idleness, which I am 
 bound to look on as a physical infirmity, is de- 
 structive, in a certain sense, to those who indulge 
 in it. But when I come to consider the number 
 of persons who suffer from idleness and compare 
 them with the number who suffer from sheer 
 overwork, the comparison is absurdly small of 
 those in whom idleness has taken baneful root, 
 by the side of those who from toil swell the 
 ranks of the diseased. 
 
 Idleness is an infirmity. In its completest 
 development it ignores recreation as much as it 
 
IDLENESS AS A DISEASE. 235 
 
 ignores labour. It is a paralysis of the will, and 
 in certain cases may be looked on as in itself a 
 distinct and fairly defined disease, which nothing 
 can immediately cure. I have observed also 
 that this disease, idleness, may be born from two 
 sources. 
 
 There are families in which idleness is 
 an hereditary curse. You may blame these 
 families as much as you like, you may punish 
 them, but you cannot directly change them. It 
 is only by the admixture of the elements of them 
 with the elements of other families, only by 
 breeding industry into them, that a change of a 
 permanent kind can be specifically perfected. 
 There are families in which specific diseases or 
 taints, passing in hereditary line, are the causes 
 of that physical and mental inactivity which 
 nothing can animate, and to which we give the 
 name of idleness. Such causes must remain 
 until they are gradually removed by the intro- 
 duction of an improved sanitary system per- 
 meating all classes of society, and rectifying the 
 social errors that everywhere prevail. 
 
 These hereditary influences are often of ancient 
 date. They come down from the times when 
 men in masses were begotten to bondage ; when 
 the masses were indeed herds, herding together 
 as best they could, less cared for than the cattle 
 and swine they tended; less free and worse 
 
236 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 provisioned. They coine down from the times 
 when the food that was eaten was collected 
 without the slightest knowledge of its properties 
 beyond those that satisfied the rude appetite or 
 gratified the taste; when the food, even if it 
 were good and nourishing, was cooked so badly 
 that all the force of a stomach taxed to its 
 utmost was unable to complete the resolution of 
 the substance into new body and blood; when 
 the dress was insufficient to protect the body 
 from the vicissitudes of weather; and when 
 infectious diseases, springing from personal un- 
 cleanliness and vice, or from overcrowding 
 under cheerless, cold, unclean, and dark shelters, 
 spread like wildfire through the ranks, and left 
 many whom they did not slay hereditarily 
 wounded. 
 
 In our present day the worst of the evils 
 springing from such sources are greatly modi- 
 fied, because, bad as things are, they are better 
 than they were to an extent it were difficult to 
 depict by any art of history less facile to read 
 than that which the painter by his magic force 
 could place upon the canvas. But the modifica- 
 tion is partial after all, and even now there are 
 in various new phases origins of the disease of 
 inaptitude, idleness. 
 
 Amongst these causes not one is more potent 
 than the strain of labour after success to which I 
 
IDLENESS AS A DISEASE. 237 
 
 referred above. That parents who are worn-out 
 by the struggle of life produce enfeebled off- 
 spring, whose powers of work, whose facilities 
 for work, and whose proclivities for work are 
 impaired, is one of the most striking physio- 
 logical facts of the present day. It is as though 
 men, and women too, were laying before the 
 eyes of the physiologist a great physiological 
 experiment on the influence of labour on life in 
 which they and their children are the subjects of 
 experiment. 
 
 The experiment is not vain. It shows that 
 Nature puts fetters even on industry ; wills that 
 the work of the world shall be distributed 
 through the various generations of men; that 
 each generation shall take its equal share of 
 labour, and no more ; and that if any generation 
 insists on more, there shall follow, in compen- 
 sation, a new generation or new generations 
 which shall not be able to imitate their fathers, 
 but shall rest in order to redeem what their 
 fathers have prodigally misspent. 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
 COMPETITION VERSUS HEALTH. 
 
 IN the course of my observations so far, I have 
 made reference mainly to persons who have 
 passed childhood and the heyday of life. "What- 
 ever errors in respect to work and recreation are 
 committed amongst them, are committed and in- 
 tensified amongst the younger classes. It matters 
 little into what class of English society we 
 enter, into the homes of the manufacturers of 
 earthenware in the pottery districts, into the 
 manufactories of large towns, into the agricultural 
 districts, into the homes of the middle and upper 
 classes, there is the same unnatural system in 
 progress, the forcing of the young into the active 
 duties of life, and the resort to recreations and 
 exercises which really are not recreative plea- 
 sures, but are too often recreative tasks that belong 
 to the schoolroom rather than to the playground. 
 The children of the industrial classes are be- 
 coming more favourably circumstanced than they 
 
COMPETITION VERSUS HEALTH. 239 
 
 were a short time ago. The introduction of the 
 half-time system into manufactories ; the intro- 
 duction of the system by which children under 
 ten years of age are forbidden to work; the 
 introduction of board schools; and the educa- 
 tional system, half instructive and half recrea- 
 tive, which is aimed at in the schools ; these are 
 all good omens for the future of the children of 
 those five million industrials who constitute the 
 backbone of the country. 
 
 Amongst the children of the wealthier classes 
 the errors are as they have long been, while in 
 some directions they are undergoing multiplica- 
 tion and intensification. Our youths of both 
 sexes, under the pressure of the competitive 
 system of learning which prevails at this time, 
 are practically forbidden recreation. 
 
 I have recently been watching a young man 
 who has been preparing for graduation in honours 
 for one of our universities. I have recently been 
 watching a young lady who has been competing 
 for a first place in the high-class university 
 examinations. I have looked at the lessons these 
 pupils have been forced to learn, at the charges 
 of knowledge they have been obliged, in a given 
 time of short duration, to stow away in their 
 brain, and which charges, when the examiner pulls 
 the trigger, must be exploded on the examina- 
 tion paper. I have looked at one particular 
 
2 4 o WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 subject of examination with which I am best 
 acquainted, and I have asked myself, " How long 
 would it take me, who am a fair hand at learning 
 anything I may apply myself to, to get up suf- 
 ficient information to answer all the questions 
 that are set for these young minds to answer?" 
 The conclusion I have been forced to arrive at is 
 that the task on the one subject on which I am 
 best able to form a judgment, because it has been 
 a pursuit of my life, would be more than suf- 
 ficient to fill properly all the time that is given 
 to learn the whole programme. I see, indeed, a 
 trained specialist in one department of learning 
 putting forth his trained strength to wrestle, 
 on his own ground and on his own conditions, 
 with a youth who has been straining to get up a 
 similar contest with a number of other trained 
 specialists, not one of whom could wrestle with 
 his colleagues off his own ground. 
 
 The process amounts to an inquisition, and it 
 were better for the upper and middle classes if 
 there were no universities at all, than that such 
 a pressure should be inflicted on their children. 
 To have sent a Faraday, a George Stephenson, a 
 Fergusson, a John Hunter, a Newton, a Shake- 
 speare, a Bacon, through any such an ordeal, 
 would have been either to have whipped him 
 into silence on the stage of the world, or to have 
 made him the merest of pedants. 
 
COMPETITION VERSUS HEALTH. 241 
 
 In time, as Nature with her clear voice 
 declares herself, the blunder will stand out too 
 distinctly to be unrecognised. When it is seen, 
 as it will be seen in another generation of 
 manhood, that the humble board schools, teach- 
 ing the "three E's," are the training schools 
 for all the genius and mental greatness of the 
 country, and that the men and women who 
 have been pressed into the university service 
 are beaten into fits by their lower and freer 
 neighbours, are, in fact, nurtured imbeciles 
 compared with their lower and freer neighbours, 
 then the follies of the existing plans will be 
 discovered, and the rectification of them will be 
 the earnest question of the day. 
 
 At present it would seem that matters must 
 stand as they are. The university scholars 
 have it all their own way ; they have no com- 
 petitors as yet in the race, and no comparisons 
 can be made of a practical kind until the com- 
 petitors from the board schools are on the field. 
 "We can therefore only look in advance to see 
 what will happen, and predict the future from 
 the psychological and physiological lights which 
 lie before us for our guidance. These, fortu- 
 nately, are decisive enough, and they are helped 
 by the facts which the history of man has given 
 for our edification. 
 
 The lights show us that young brain un- 
 
242 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 duly exercised becomes old altogether while it 
 is yet young, and that old brain moderately 
 exercised remains young in parts when, as 
 a whole, it is old. They show us that the mind 
 which will throw off the most brilliant work, 
 the mind that will master the most difficult 
 inquiry, the mind that will lend itself most 
 readily and earnestly to the hardest tasks, is the 
 mind which has simply been put in the way of 
 doing work, and which, possessing the elements 
 of method, reading, writing, calculating, has 
 been left to its unfettered freedom. 
 
 The modern student of the middle and upper 
 classes of society, during the period he or she is 
 preparing for examinations, which means the 
 most critical period of his or her life in respect to 
 health, finds no time whatever for healthy recre- 
 ative pleasures. There is no possibility of such 
 a thing ; the exigencies are too pressing. The 
 dread that failure on a single subject may cause 
 " plucking" is so incessant, the mind has really 
 no peace except when the eyes are bending over 
 the book, and are straining to take in still more 
 and more of the hard lesson. 
 
 The anxiety brings sleeplessness ; the sleep- 
 lessness increases the anxiety; the body be- 
 comes feverish; and at last, when the great 
 effort has been made, the result, whichever 
 way it turns, is in the end bad. To win is 
 
COMPETITION VERSUS HEALTH. 243 
 
 to secure a passing advantage bought at the 
 <3ost of some years of life, and with the mental 
 faculty forced into grooves out of which it 
 never quite frees itself. To lose is to be sub- 
 jected to a chagrin and annoyance which in sen- 
 sitive natures runs actually into remorse, shame, 
 or a dazed imbecile carelessness which, in a per- 
 son past maturity, would lead to dementia, and 
 which at no age is fairly recovered from or fully 
 forgotten. 
 
 I am perfectly alive to the fact that, in writing 
 what I have written above, I am stating some 
 very hard and unpleasant truths. But "if an 
 offence come out of truth, better is it the offence 
 ome than the truth be concealed." I am but 
 telling as a true physician what experience 
 teaches me of the physical conditions induced by 
 the excessive and useless exercises of labour to 
 which the younger and as yet better brains of 
 our community are subjected. I am but telling 
 the experience of other members of my profession 
 who feel as I do, if they do not express them- 
 selves so freely. 
 
 After a lecture I had to deliver in one of 
 our large provincial towns during the past 
 session, and in which I stated what I have 
 here committed to paper, one of the eminent 
 physicians of the place came forward to me to 
 thank me for the statement, and to give me the 
 
244 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 following personal experience. "My own son," 
 he said, "a youth of good intellectual parts, 
 made tip his mind to go in for his degree at a 
 university" naming the university in which, 
 in this kingdom, the process of intellectual 
 destruction is most scientifically and systema- 
 tically carried out " and determined also, if it 
 were possible, to win a good place in the lists of 
 honour. He worked through all the preliminary 
 grades with untiring industry, taking no rest, 
 and unable to find time for any. He went in for 
 his great effort, lost, and now is wandering on 
 the Continent utterly broken down, mentally and 
 physically more like an idiot, for the time, than 
 a youth of good intellectual capacity originally, 
 on whom every expense had been bestowed to 
 ensure for him a good education." 
 
 These results of their system they who plan 
 and carry out the examinations do not see. 
 They who manage the university are intent only 
 on the sustainment of what they, most honestly 
 I know, consider to be the credit of the univer- 
 sity, the maintenance of its high character, and 
 the assurance that none but brightest scholars 
 should appear on the rolls of its graduates. 
 
 The examiners look purely for the direct 
 efficiency of those who come before them for 
 examination. Neither manager nor examiner 
 can ask after the antecedents of those whom they 
 
COMPETITION VERSUS HEALTH. 245 
 
 take in charge. They do not know that the 
 student may be the subject of tubercular diathe- 
 sis, of heart disease, or brain affection ; and that 
 out of every three students one at least will be 
 under some such disqualifying hereditary influ- 
 ence. They proceed, adding difficulties upon 
 difficulties, as if every student had the same 
 stamina and the same capacities. Without the 
 least intention, and without the least suspicion 
 of what they are doing, they often test, by their 
 crucial severity, the physical instead of the 
 mental powers of their candidates, and, as ruth- 
 lessly as ignorantly, pluck the best brains by 
 overtaxing the feeblest hearts. 
 
XXXIX. 
 
 SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 IT has been constantly repeated by the philo- 
 sophical historians that different ages present 
 different and, as it were, alternate pictures of 
 mental and physical power. This age was one of 
 genius, that of mediocrity ; this of war, that 
 of peace ; this of quiet inventive thought, that of 
 quick, sure, successful inventive application and 
 manufacture ; this of pleasure, that of laborious 
 anxiety. To the physiologist these phases are all 
 natural phenomena following from simple causes, 
 as day follows night and night day. The age of 
 genius wore itself out by its own efforts. The 
 ages of war, of active mechanical labour, of 
 travel, did the same. Then followed the ages of 
 quietude and rest, in which the exhausted 
 energies were recruited ; in which the potentiality 
 of living action was stored up; in which the 
 man universal practically slept and dreamt to 
 rise again in new form, charged with new 
 
SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY. 247 
 
 energy for new efforts like a man who has risen 
 from a night of sound repose. "We are passing 
 through one of these phases, one in which the 
 whole soul of the man universal is quickened to 
 mechanical work, to liberation of all his poten- 
 tiality in regular and systematic order, through 
 work given out and expended by the hands. 
 Every man's hand is becoming mechanical, and 
 there is as much active brain now in some men's 
 hands as there was in the whole organization of 
 the majority of men who lived a century ago. 
 Such, too, is the force of moral contagion, that 
 for the first time in the history of the world 
 women are entering the lists with men, and no 
 longer content 
 
 "To guide the spindle and direct the loom," 
 
 are determined, at least for a time, to share the 
 field of active combat with their sterner partners, 
 and to join with them in the common handicraft 
 struggle for wealth, reputation, fame, name, and 
 honour. 
 
 "With this mechanical tendency, this desire to 
 cultivate every branch of knowledge on the 
 mechanical principle, so that even mental opera- 
 tions are expected to move with the precision 
 of a steam-engine, there is developed another 
 tendency, that of working in grooves, and attain- 
 ing what is called perfection in special depart- 
 
248 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 ments of art, science, and literature. To some 
 extent this division is, perhaps, a necessity, but 
 carried into such minuteness as at present exists, 
 it is hurtful beyond expression. The ideal of 
 individual perfection in the performance of the 
 one particular art or craft, without diversity of 
 occupation, that is to say, the devotion of a life 
 to a single intent or purpose, is of all exercises 
 the most ruinous to the vital nervous power. It 
 brings the whole nervous energy into concentra- 
 tion upon special sets of the motor instruments 
 of the body. Before maturity is attained the 
 living man is transformed into an automatic 
 mechanism which becomes so distinctive that no 
 other motion except that which the habit directs 
 is tolerable. Limitation of view, limitation of 
 knowledge, of thought, of sympathy, of muscular 
 movement, becomes a second nature, and leads to 
 dependence of one man on the other and others, 
 until the perfect master in his own department is 
 a helpless child so soon as he is out of his own 
 narrow sphere. Dependency breeds dependency, 
 while the splitting up of departments into de- 
 partments continues without end. 
 
 The special desire for attainment of special 
 excellence extends itself from work to play, and 
 men tie themselves to a particular recreation as 
 they do to the work by which they live. The 
 wealthy men who can afford to play at politics in 
 
SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY. 249 
 
 the Houses of Parliament find it necessary to 
 specialise there, to take up some subject, and to 
 talk, and write, and argue on it, until by itera- 
 tion and reiteration they become publicly ticketed 
 with their speciality. The men who can afford 
 to amuse themselves in other ways in their own 
 homes or clubs, work up some particular game- 
 whist, chess, billiards until they have gained 
 the reputation of being the best in that art. In 
 their own circle as masters of the art, they are 
 so exclusively devoted to it that they think of 
 no other pastime. 
 
 Into this acquirement of a second nature 
 in what is considered to be recreation, the me- 
 chanical taste of the age again shows itself. 
 The man is known by his play. He has a 
 system which he invariably follows, and out of 
 which he is never at home. Sometimes he im- 
 parts his system to others, and becomes a teacher 
 of it; sometimes, most commonly, he keeps 
 his system to himself, as a system too precious 
 to be made a common property with the rest 
 of the world. The effect of all this is that an 
 accomplished man, in the complete sense of that 
 term, is not now to be met with, and if he were 
 met with would be looked upon as superficial, or 
 as knowing too much to know anything well. Now 
 and then an accomplished woman is met with, and 
 is tolerated, but even she is ram avis in terris. 
 
250 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 The effect of this intensity for one exercise is 
 to turn that which is called recreation into work, 
 and often into work of the hardest kind. The 
 City man, or the hard- worked professional man, 
 or the mechanic engaged all day in the work- 
 shop, is tempted in the evening to take a few 
 hours' drill in a volunteer corps, or to encounter 
 a long march, or to have a turn at the butts and 
 strain every muscle and nerve in competitive 
 desire to be the best marksman. If volunteering 
 be not the recreation, then cricket, or bowls, or 
 rowing, or gymnastics, or bicycling take the 
 place, and the struggle in these recreations is, 
 again, to arrive at such excellence that the 
 amateurs shall compete successfully with the 
 professionals who make the pastime an art by 
 which to live. 
 
 The same strain is followed in indoor games 
 and exercises. If the dance is the amusement, 
 it must needs begin at the natural hour of 
 going to rest, and must be continued until the 
 time when the natural hours of work ought 
 to begin. If music be the evening's pleasure, 
 it must be carried on as if the performers 
 were on the orchestra platform of the Philhar- 
 monic, and were forced to get their bread by the 
 skill of their performance. 
 
 If four old fellows, or young fellows, or 
 middle-aged fellows, sit to a rubber of whist, they 
 
SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY. 251 
 
 must lay clown their stakes and play as if dear 
 life depended on the measure of the die. They 
 must tax their memories to remember what cards 
 are in or what cards are out, until they are dizzy 
 with the effort. They must learn Blue Peter and 
 all the newest arts of play. They must call up old 
 experiences in order to remember good finesses 
 and leads. They must carry in their minds a 
 whole book of rules. And if they would keep 
 their reputation as first-rate players, they must 
 be ready at any moment to dispute every point 
 of play; to argue out how this would have 
 happened if that had been done ; to bet on 
 results, and stand by loss or gain with equal 
 composure ; to bear the anger of a partner who 
 loses, and to protest to the last, if a stake has 
 seemed to be lost by some misadventure or loose 
 play, that the principle was correct and the result 
 the same as if any other play had been carried 
 out. 
 
 To crown the whole of this recreative busi- 
 ness, time is obliged to be considered no object. 
 "Time was made for slaves," and the slaves 
 acknowledging the argument keep up the effort 
 until sheer weariness and irritation at loss, or 
 exultation at success, drives them to their broken 
 rest. They tell you that at the end of a year 
 they are as well off as they were at the begin- 
 ning, however great the stakes may be for which 
 
2 5 2 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 they have played, so thoroughly does constant 
 play over a long period of time equalise the 
 risks. This refers to the money lost and won ; 
 not a word is said, not a word is thought, of the 
 health that is lost, of that worthiest of posses- 
 sions and choicest of gifts, which is never equa- 
 lised by any length of time occupied in the play, 
 and the loss of which once entered is always 
 down on the debit side of the account to the end 
 of life. 
 
 In the more widely scientific game of chess the 
 method of play is little different now from that 
 of cards. It is true that high stakes are not 
 commonly played for at every table when men or 
 women sit down to play, and that the honour of 
 winning at chess is considered as a quid pro quo 
 for a money prize. In this sense chess takes a 
 much worthier place than cards. But the mental 
 labour that is expended on the game by those 
 who become infatuated by it ; the strain of cal- 
 culation to which it subjects its votaries; the 
 inventive and speculative thought it enforces, 
 even at times when the game is not in progress, 
 is exhaustive to a degree that is little understood 
 by any, and least by those who are under the 
 spell of the fascination. The chess-player who 
 has once got the game so in his mind that one of 
 the great objects of his ambition is to master it 
 and be a distinguished player, carries, virtually, 
 
SPECIALITY IN WORK AND PLAY. 253 
 
 a chess-board and all the pieces in his brain, 
 where, like automata, the pieces move about by 
 day and by night, to the infinite cost of the 
 owner's rest and the ruin of his life. 
 
 In making these criticisms, I am not urging a 
 line against the recreations themselves to which 
 I have invited attention, or to any other recrea- 
 tions. All good and wholesome recreations are 
 useful diversions from the daily life, as pure 
 pleasures. I would not take one away, I would 
 thank all who would invent more, and I think 
 that the man who invented the game of croquet 
 has not received a tithe of the thanks which he 
 really deserves. 
 
 Against games there can be no objection.. 
 The mischief commences when the games, ceas- 
 ing to be recreations, become muscular and mental 
 labours. When they are carried to such extent 
 that they who follow them on would feel them 
 burdens too heavy to be borne if they were 
 enforced by tyrant masters, then the games,, 
 instead of being reliefs from the cares and neces- 
 sary labours of life, are added cares, added and 
 unnecessary labours, by which so much strength 
 that ought to be conserved is cruelly thrown 
 away. Day by day adds to my experience of 
 the evils here described, and my duty were not 
 performed if, in deference to popular taste, I 
 hesitated to expose them. 
 
XL. 
 
 RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 
 
 IT adds to the evils pertaining to the mental 
 training of youths who are passing through 
 our university mills, that such recreations as 
 they venture on are, in accordance with the spirit 
 of the time, of an exhausting or debilitating 
 character. Eunning and rowing; indulging in 
 furious gymnastic exercises ; billiards ; long and 
 wearying walks, with rest in lying by and smok- 
 ing these are the kind of reducing pastimes 
 which the hard-worked student selects as a relief 
 from his mental strain. 
 
 The youths of other sections, who, having no 
 university or professional scholastic career before 
 them, are engaged in commercial or mechanical 
 callings, or who are acting as clerks, copyists, or 
 artists, though they are more favourably circum- 
 stanced in regard to mental exercises of a severe 
 kind, are equally indifferently circumstanced in 
 respect to recreative enjoyments of a natural and 
 
RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 255 
 
 healthy character. The long hours of business 
 to which they are subjected, the closeness of the 
 air in which they labour, the cramped position of 
 the body under which they work, demand that 
 the recreations they indulge in should be in pure 
 air, should include simple but not fatiguing 
 exercise of the body, and should secure what are 
 the real and instinctive pleasures of the mind. 
 " The love of simple pleasures " says Mr. Hunt, 
 a writer who has written so admirably, it is a 
 thousand pities he has written so little " which 
 find their home among flowers and forests, moun- 
 tains and rivers, and the wide sea, is far more 
 strong, not only in childhood, but at all ages, 
 in uncontaminated minds, than the love of plea- 
 sures and amusements artificially invented." 
 
 The proofs of this true and wise expression are 
 fully seen in natural desires. The pleasures 
 named are those for which the hearts of our 
 youths yearn, but which they rarely obtain. 
 The artificial pleasures they can obtain are not 
 real and abiding joys, but are too often mere 
 transferences of labour from one kind of employ- 
 ment to another. And though, because they are 
 such transferences, they are better than the con- 
 tinual grind at one occupation, they are poor 
 representatives of those true recreations on which 
 the health of mind and body so largely depends, 
 and become injurious recreations when they are 
 
2 5 6 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 carried on, as they often are, in the close heated 
 air charged with tobacco-smoke and vapour 
 from gas of the billiard-room, card-room, debat- 
 ing arena, or music saloon. 
 
 The amusements and recreations of children 
 are, in all classes of society, somewhat better 
 than they were a few years ago. The earlier 
 times for holding children's parties which have 
 been adopted in London during the past two 
 seasons, and which allow the children, after five 
 or six hours' play, to get home to bed by nine at 
 night, are much more reasonably and naturally 
 selected than formerly obtained. The introduc- 
 tion of croquet and of other outdoor games in 
 which girls as well as boys take part, and which 
 give good exercise without violence or exertion, 
 is a great advancement. The reintroduction of 
 the good old-fashioned dances for children, in 
 which there is freedom of movement of the 
 body without the stiff formalities of set dances 
 of the Parisian school, is another good revival 
 calculated to prove both interesting and health- 
 ful. "While the custom, becoming so general, of 
 taking children for a month every year to the 
 seaside, and of allowing them perfect freedom of 
 action to wander by the shore, and paddle, and 
 dig up sand-forts, and bathe, and learn to swim, 
 is one of the greatest improvements of modern 
 life, one of the surest means of bringing up a 
 
RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 257 
 
 healthy race of men and women to fill the places 
 which the present men and women occupy, and 
 to perform in a more advanced manner future 
 duties. 
 
 These improvements in the recreations of the 
 child-life are not to be over-estimated. They 
 are, nevertheless, very much marred by other 
 combinations of work and so-called play con- 
 nected with the different systems of education. 
 School-hours for young children are two-thirds 
 longer, at least, than they should be. The 
 device of making children take long and solemn 
 walks in rows of two and two, as if they were 
 taking part in a daily funeral, and the restric- 
 tion of the exercises, of girls especially, to mere 
 formalities of muscular movement, are ruinous 
 formulas. Worst of all, in relation to both 
 sexes, is the introduction of that competitive 
 prize system, by which mere babblers are trained 
 to speak and argue and deliver facts and opinions 
 with the assumed authority of matured minds, 
 and are inducted into this precocity by a method 
 of forced training that destroys future power, and 
 counterbalances the good that in other directions 
 is springing up to improve the mental and 
 physical tone of the rising generation. 
 
 I believe that, here again, the board-school 
 system will have a great influence on the systems 
 that lie above it ; and that parents, for it is the 
 
258 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 pride or ignorance of parents far more than the 
 faults of teachers and masters which encourages 
 existing evils, will learn from the humbler 
 system that the simplicity of childhood demands 
 simplicity of education. 
 
 In all phases of life recreation is a necessary 
 part of the daily existence.. It must change in 
 character with every age, but it belongs to every 
 age of life. The proper application of it lies in 
 the pure and simple method of making it inno- 
 cent, varied, and simple. For persons advanced 
 to or beyond maturity, in whom the physical 
 growth and development is completed, all extreme 
 physical exercises can have but one effect, that 
 of reducing more rapidly an already wavering or 
 declining power. Severe exercise is to them a 
 process of running down the hill of life when it 
 should be leisurely walked down. In like 
 manner, for these matured organisations all 
 vehement competitive mental games, billiards, 
 whist, chess, are equally injurious when they 
 are carried into excitement, anxiety, fatigue. 
 For the body runs out by the nervous as readily 
 as by the muscular centres, and the mental 
 fatigues named, with others similar, are rapidest 
 of destroyers. Through them the descent down 
 the hill of life gains a momentum which is even 
 less easily checked than the speed incident to 
 over physical exertion. 
 
RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 259 
 
 For the matured man, exercise within fatigue 
 in the daily work is the desideratum. "Work 
 then becomes a means of prolonging and improv- 
 ing life. Work that may be made of the most 
 enduring character is then carried on. But in 
 this period of life recreation must be recreation. 
 It must be something that the eye or the ear can 
 take in without labour, without effort. Beautiful 
 scenes and works of nature that unfold them- 
 selves so as to be comprehended at a glance. 
 Beautiful works of art, dramatic, pictorial, that 
 in the best of human representations imitate 
 nature. Clear and eloquently simple discourse, 
 that teaches and explains, without tedious argu- 
 ment, what is newest and oldest and truest. 
 Readings of a like character. Mental games, 
 which bring into play old and acquired know- 
 ledge, or which, if they call for new knowledge 
 in their exercise, are moderate in their demands. 
 Physical exercise that can amuse without creat- 
 ing weariness or subjecting the body to shocks 
 and sudden cessations from rapid motion and 
 falls. These are the only recreations fitted for 
 men who, having passed the meridian of life, have 
 arrived at the stage when the elasticity of the 
 tissues is impaired; or the reserved stock of 
 life, the vis vitce that impelled youth, is failing, 
 never to be regained, but most easily to be 
 exhausted. 
 
260 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 The exercises of recreation for youths and for 
 men who have not reached the meridian of life 
 may be as active as the players will. But the 
 players must not exceed the bounds of nature. 
 They must not carry wearied limbs and minds 
 into recreative sports, which are but hard labour 
 under another name, and which, being made the 
 end of each day's toil, are carried into the night, 
 to the forfeiture of a portion of the eight hours' 
 term of sleep that is essential for the perfect 
 renewal of the vital motion. They must not let 
 recreation unduly precede the day of hard work ; 
 nor follow it, whether it be of mind or body, in 
 impure air ; nor sustain it by unwholesome foods 
 and stimulating drinks. 
 
 Amongst the female population there is great 
 improvement of late in relation to recreative 
 outdoor amusements. The croquet-lawn has to 
 be accredited with much of this good and whole- 
 some change, and the more we see it developed, 
 in every reasonable way, the better will it be for 
 the future mothers and children of our country. 
 It cannot be too strongly urged that all recrea- 
 tions which bring the young of both sexes 
 together are doubly useful. Such combinations 
 in recreation impart courage and strength to 
 women, gentleness and strength to men. 
 
 In childhood all recreative exercise should be 
 free as the air. Even in close towns, those chil- 
 
RECREATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 261 
 
 dren who roam the streets and alleys and very 
 slums are better off for health than they are who 
 are kept in the close nursery or parlour. If we 
 compare, in such a place as London, the street 
 children with the children of the richer classes, we 
 see a comparison which is favourable to the poorer. 
 But if we compare both these classes with those 
 children of the shopkeepers who are too respect- 
 able to be let free of the streets, and too poor to find 
 a playground in the squares, we see how striking 
 is the comparison ; how strong and well the out- 
 door urchins are, rich and poor, by the side of 
 the unfortunates who pine indoors, or find their 
 longest stroll from home to school, and school to 
 home. Through all the classes, however, reform 
 is demanded. Less of forced work, mental or 
 physical ; more of recreative freedom ; less life 
 indoors ; more life in the gardens, on the hills, 
 by the sea. Learning is cheap now, and who- 
 ever can read and write can become a scholar, if 
 he can become a healthy being. The dearest 
 thing in the market is health, without which 
 learning, be it ever so cheap, is bought for a 
 sacrifice, and is burnt on its own altar. 
 
XLI. 
 
 GETTING UP. 
 
 THE universal experience of the wisest men of 
 all ages is in favour of the habit of getting 
 up early in the morning. The practice is closely 
 connected with goodness of work and length of 
 life. It is also closely connected with happiness 
 and activity of life. The physiological facts on 
 this subject are striking. Those who rise early 
 in the morning are, without any doubt, able to 
 work during the succeeding hours for a longer 
 time than those who habitually rise late. So it 
 comes to pass that confirmed early risers usually 
 wake at their ordinary time, even when they have 
 been late in going to bed, and during the day feel 
 less fatigue than do persons who from habit linger 
 long in bed. There is something in the act of 
 breathing the early morning air which invigorates 
 for the whole day, which seems to remove oppres- 
 sive vapours from the body, and which renders 
 all the active organs of the body, the brain, the 
 
GETTING UP. 263 
 
 nerves, the organs of the senses, the muscles, the 
 lungs, and the heart, freer to act and to perform 
 their varied functions. 
 
 In this English climate it is always proper to 
 take at least eight hours of sleep. A strong man 
 in the meridian of life, I mean a man of thirty 
 and from that to forty years of age, should not 
 take less than eight hours. A woman of the 
 same age may take nine hours and be all the 
 better for it. Children under twelve years of 
 age should have twelve hours' sleep, and youths 
 of both sexes between the ages of twelve and 
 twenty-one should have ten hours. Persons 
 who have advanced beyond forty-five years 
 should begin to take a little more than the eight 
 or nine hours. They may, with advantage, add 
 half an hour on for every additional five years of 
 life. In this way the strength and happiness of 
 old age is greatly conserved and favoured. 
 
 Through all these changes the habit of early 
 rising should be maintained, and the time of 
 sleep should be reckoned back from the hour of 
 rising in order to set the hour for going to bed. 
 Taking it all round, six o'clock in the morning 
 is a good practical hour for getting up in this 
 climate. This means that the full-grown man 
 should go to bed at ten o'clock at night, the 
 youth at eight, the child at six. Some allowance 
 may be made, however, for season. In the 
 
264 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 period of the year when there is a long stretch 
 of sunlight the hours required for sleep are re- 
 duced for all classes of ages. At midsummer 
 one hour less of sleep will suffice compared with 
 what is required at midwinter. At midsummer 
 a man in the prime of life may therefore go to 
 bed, if he likes, at eleven, a youth at nine, and 
 a child that can run at eight. These are simple 
 rules to be remembered, and if they were gene- 
 rally acted upon they would tend very much to 
 improve the health of all classes. They would 
 enable all classes who work, from schoolboy 
 time through all the time of manhood, to perform 
 more work and better work than if the hours of 
 sleep were taken in such a manner as to begin 
 later in the night and end later in the morning. 
 
 The reason why the morning air is so con- 
 ducive to health, the reason why it supports all 
 the actions of life during the day with so much 
 power and cheerfulness, is that the air is very 
 pure and active if it be free. All through the 
 night the outer air has been undergoing rapid 
 changes. There has been time for the diffusion 
 through it of various products of decomposition. 
 Then with the return of light there is a chemical 
 change between the carbonic acid gas in the air 
 and the vegetation on which the light falls. The 
 green leaves of the plants or the green leaves of 
 grass begin to fix the carbon of the carbonic acid 
 
GETTING UP. 265 
 
 that is in the atmosphere, while the oxygen of 
 the carbonic acid is given back in the new and 
 nascent state to the air. The freshness of the 
 morning air in spring, summer, and early autumn 
 is due to this cause, and all living things are 
 benefited by it. 
 
 In addition to these advantages to the physical 
 health from early rising, the mental health is 
 also invigorated and refreshed. In the country 
 no part of the day is so beautiful as the early 
 morning, and in large towns even the same is 
 true. No one has ever seen London so well as 
 he who has traversed the great city in the first 
 hours of the day. Then its air is clear, its 
 streets are free, all its vastness as a city is com- 
 prehended, and its architectural beauties and 
 faults are correctly appreciated. 
 
 There is one more advantage connected with 
 the practice of rising early at a stated hour. The 
 practice begets the habit of regularity and punc- 
 tuality. I have never known a man who rose 
 late and at irregular times who was punctual 
 and regular in the after-course of the day. The 
 fixed habit of rising at a given time becomes in 
 a few years so defined and, as physiologists say, 
 so automatic, that it is even a pain to break 
 away from the custom. It occurs, indeed, that 
 the sleeper wakes up whether he will or no. In 
 this manner he attains one fixed and habitual 
 
266 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 method, and that prompts him to learn and 
 acquire the same method in other acts. He has 
 full confidence he can do one act of the day with 
 precision, and thereby the certainty is impressed 
 on him that he can do more with like regularity. 
 He can rely on himself, and very soon those who 
 know him feel that they also can rely on him. 
 Such a man is a strong man, and is sure to get 
 on in the world. 
 
 I have only one word more to say on this head. 
 It is that when once awake it is good practice to 
 turn out straightway. The mind is then bright 
 for the day. Second naps in the morning breed 
 heavy, leaden days, in which the head feels 
 bound as with a cord, and as if another necessary 
 nap were always coming on. To read in bed in 
 the morning is very bad. To get up briskly is 
 to be sharp and sure till it is time to turn in for 
 another night. 
 
XLIL 
 
 GOING TO SLEEP. 
 
 HHE poet Wordsworth defined sleep as the 
 J_ " twinkling of oblivion," a beautiful ex- 
 pression, but one which does not describe the 
 intention of the natural process. Shakespeare 
 is much more perfect in definition, and indeed 
 is all but perfect when he says 
 
 " Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath ; 
 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second self, 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast." 
 
 Some other illustrious writers and poets have 
 been almost equally felicitous in their definitions. 
 Philip Sidney speaks of sleep as : 
 
 " The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release ; " 
 
 and Dryden declares it 
 
 "Of all the powers the best. 
 O peace of mind, repairer of decay ! 
 Whose balms renew the limbs to labours of the day." 
 
 Similar descriptions have been rendered in 
 other but more prosaic terms by the physicians 
 
268 WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 and philosophers. Hippocrates, whom we recog- 
 nise as the Father of Medicine, and in whose 
 works all that remains of the science and art of 
 healing np to his time is recorded, treats specially 
 on the importance of sleep as a means of health. 
 "While Menander, immortal writer of Greek play, 
 and who must have been a scholar also in physic, 
 maintains that sleep is possessed of such healing 
 virtues that it might be considered a natural cure 
 for all diseases. 
 
 The phenomenon of sleep is very singular and 
 interesting. It occurs in the natural state with 
 the regularity almost of night, and it ceases with 
 the regularity of the dawn. It goes with the 
 sun, said one of our old physicians, and he was 
 nearly correct. Sleep, however, is to a certain 
 extent under the control of the will of the 
 sleeper, who during the earlier part of his life can 
 limit it in its duration to five and even to four 
 hours in the course of the twenty-four. He can 
 also so modify the periods of its recurrence that 
 he can, if he will, turn day into night, as the time 
 of his rest by sleep. 
 
 All these departures from nature are injurious. 
 They become, after a while, automatic in their 
 course, that is to say, by habit the body feels an 
 inclination to sleep and to wake from sleep with a 
 regularity that is like the mechanical movements 
 of a timepiece, and for a long season of life the 
 
GOING TO SLEEP. 269 
 
 artificial habit seems to take the place of the 
 natural. But nature will not be tampered with 
 for ever, and so they who take too little sleep, 
 and especially they who take too little sleep and 
 that little in the wrong hours, invariably suffer 
 at last for the mistake, whatever it may be that 
 has led them to cross the boundary-line of natural 
 law. There comes to these persons a period of 
 prolonged weakness and weariness when sleep will 
 steal over them whether it be wished or not, and 
 then, encroaching and encroaching on the waking 
 hours, it hangs at last like a permanent shroud 
 over the whole life, until the sleeper sleeps into 
 actual death. Or, and this is the most painful 
 ending, the prolonged sleeplessness extends it- 
 self, and the man cannot get natural wholesome 
 sleep at all. We physicians say of such persons 
 that they are suffering from " insomnia." They 
 do indeed suffer. They fly to opium and other 
 agents that produce sleep, to obtain no more than 
 a temporary relief, and at last they sink into 
 helplessness and into death, remaining to the end 
 sleepless except when they are under the influence 
 of those artificial remedies which act on the brain 
 to produce an unconscious state something akin 
 to sleep, but not the same either in character or 
 in usefulness. 
 
 The most perfect natural sleep is that which is 
 experienced in childhood. Then after a day in 
 
2 7 o WORK AND PLAY. 
 
 which the limbs have been exercised by running 
 about, and the mind has been kept active by 
 pleasing scenes, the whole body sinks suddenly 
 into sleep and remains asleep for ten or twelve 
 hours without a movement except the continued 
 motion of the heart and of the breathing. The 
 little sleeper so happily circumstanced tells you 
 when he wakes that he thinks he has only closed 
 and opened his eyelids. He has no idea what- 
 ever that several hours have passed away. He 
 has had no disturbing dream, he has heard no 
 sound, he has felt no variation of heat or cold, 
 he has felt in fact nothing, tasted nothing, smelt 
 nothing, seen nothing, heard nothing. He might 
 have been, for the matter of his life, like the old 
 man of the seven ages : 
 
 "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans sense, sans everything." 
 
 But when he wakes as does the day he finds 
 all his senses active, all his wits about him, and 
 all his strength repaired. His life is renewed. 
 
 The youth who takes great care to lead a very 
 simple and innocent life, and who cultivates sleep 
 so that at the right times it comes over him in 
 an automatic manner, retains throughout his life 
 the almost perfect sleep of childhood. He grows 
 a happy man, and I believe I may say is always 
 healthy. Certainly he lives longer than the rest 
 of the world, and recovers more quickly than 
 
GOING TO SLEEP. 271 
 
 others from the illnesses he may contract through 
 those external influences by which the different 
 diseases that affect mankind are called forth. 
 Menander was right ; sleep is a natural cure. 
 
 Thus it becomes a duty of every one to culti- 
 vate natural sleep at the natural hours, and to let 
 nothing interfere with the process either at its 
 beginning or at its ending each day. Sleep is a 
 period of internal quiet when the body is least 
 able to receive outward vibrations and impres- 
 sions; therefore sleep should be courted and 
 carried out when the motions and vibrations of 
 the outer universe are most effectively lulled. 
 When all is darkest and most silent, in a word, 
 when all is night and when the day sleeps, then 
 is the time for human sleep, and none other. To 
 deceive ourselves on this point, to say, " Let us 
 sleep at any time, for it is all the same so long as 
 sleep is secured," is to resist one of the wisest 
 canons of common experience, and of science too, 
 with equal pertinacity. 
 
PART VI. 
 
 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
XLIII. 
 
 SHADOWS OF THE MIND. 
 
 A WHOLE series of mysterious manifestations, 
 and these of the simplest kind, are con- 
 nected purely with the physical conditions which 
 modify the natural mode of conveyance of an 
 object or act to the senses. The mirage, the 
 double sun, the monster in the fog, the reflected 
 sound or echo, even the reflected image in the 
 clear stream, these, the mysterious manifestations 
 of the earliest history of man, when the fixed 
 principle of his thought had no rival, are now 
 acknowledged, all but universally, to admit of a 
 physical exposition that strips them of their 
 mystery. Such obscure manifestations as remain, 
 and are not traceable to external influences, are 
 discoverable in the processes for observation 
 within the observer ; in his senses and the parts 
 to which they minister. 
 
 For the full action of every part accomplished 
 by and through the senses there are many factors 
 
276 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 There is a collective organ for condensing each 
 external fact that is brought to the man ; a seeing 
 organ ; a hearing organ ; a touch, taste, and smell- 
 ing organ. There is in each organ also a receiv- 
 ing nervous surface. There is from this surface, 
 leading into the man, a communicating nervous 
 cord. And at last, at the end of the communi- 
 cating cord is a nervous centre, in ready com- 
 munication with a congeries of nervous centres 
 for taking up the impression conveyed, for fixing 
 it, and for bringing it into union with other 
 impressions that have already been received, 
 fixed, associated. 
 
 Suppose all these parts at all times natural, at 
 all times in harmony, then everything that seems 
 unnatural might be fairly ascribed to the recep- 
 tion of actual outward manifestations that are out 
 of the common denomination of nature. Suppose, 
 on the other hand, that these parts are not 
 always in harmonious working order; then the 
 design unfolds itself that there may be impres- 
 sions, made by or within the man, that are mys- 
 terious or unreal, in so far as the true reading of 
 the outer universe is concerned, and, in a word, 
 hallucinatory. 
 
 And this is what physical science teaches, that 
 each of the parts named as factors are, at times, 
 disturbed or deranged in function. The collect- 
 ing organ may be at fault, the receiving nervous 
 
SHADOWS OF THE MIND. 277 
 
 surface may be at fault, the communicating cord 
 may be at fault, the receiving centre may be at 
 fault ; and, in accordance with error of function 
 in one or more of the parts, there may be aberra- 
 tion varying from that which is merely physical 
 to that which is psychological in the most refined 
 degree. 
 
 The simplest illustration of derangements of 
 function is met with when there is perversion of 
 action in the collecting organ, as in the eye in in- 
 stances of colour-blindness or of muscce volitantes, 
 floating specks appearing in the field of vision. 
 More complex is a condition in which the recep- 
 tion of an impression on the receiving nervous 
 surface of an organ of sense is too long retained, 
 so that the impression remains when the first 
 cause of it is gone. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton, looking too intently at the 
 sun, had left upon his sense a vivid picture of 
 the sun, a phantom to some men, to him a phe- 
 nomenon, painfully persistent, but understood by 
 him as a pure physical fact. I knew once a 
 gentleman who had a peculiar impression of an 
 odour left on his olfactory surface, and for 
 months it remained a source of constant discom- 
 fort, anxiety, and even timidity. In vision an 
 aberration of function in the receiving surface 
 may occur from mere strain to see in obscurity. 
 Thus in looking at an object in partial darkness, 
 
278 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 as at night, when the stars are beclouded, an 
 object steadily and strainingly gazed at seems to 
 come and go, or, as is commonly said, to vanish 
 and reappear. 
 
 There are various states of the nervous organ- 
 isation in which the conduction of external 
 impressions from the organs of sense to the senso- 
 rium is so perverted that modifications of external 
 impressions are both induced and sustained. The 
 delicate muscular mechanism by which the two 
 great organs of the senses, the eye and the ear, 
 have their various parts correctly adapted, are 
 under refined nervous control, and easily lose 
 their adaptations when the nervous control is 
 either defective or changed from its natural use. 
 The nervous atmosphere through which impres- 
 sions vibrate from the receiving surface to the 
 receiving centres, is susceptible of change, and 
 thus under various circumstances there is an easy 
 step to perverted appreciation of external things. 
 
 We have many known agents which exert their 
 power by thus interfering with the healthy rela- 
 tions that should subsist between the organs of 
 sense, the conducting way, and the mental centres 
 to which all impressions are finally delivered. 
 Alcohol taken in excess leads to such disturbance 
 of balance of action, and therewith to false im- 
 pressions of external objects, phantoms not made 
 by the imagination, but constructed out of per- 
 
SHADOWS OF THE MIND. 279 
 
 verted sensual action. Opium, haschish, and 
 some vapours and gases made to enter the body 
 induce the same perversions, so that objects that 
 are really before the observer appear to the per- 
 verted sight far distant, or larger or smaller than 
 they are. Slight sounds are exaggerated into 
 tempestuous noises, and sensations of smell, taste, 
 and touch are either exalted into undue activity 
 or lost altogether. 
 
 In connection with this subject I may observe 
 that some of my physiological researches have led 
 me to the view, that in certain conditions of the 
 body there are produced, within the body itself, 
 organic products which in the most potent man- 
 ner affect the organs of the senses and interfere 
 with their function. In a laborious investiga- 
 tion on the action of organic compounds of the 
 sulphur series, I found that the most marked 
 changes in the reception of impressions could be 
 induced by certain of these organic substances, 
 together with symptoms of hysteria and of mus- 
 cular debility singularly analogous to those states 
 of the body in which debility of the motor organs 
 is attended with what is called excessive nervous 
 susceptibility and excitability. In diseased states 
 these same organic products exhale from the 
 body, or pass off by the secretions, as products 
 derived from organic chemical changes progress- 
 ing within the organism. 
 
XLIV. 
 
 DECEPTIONS OF THE SENSES. 
 
 A MAN, under any of the deceptions above 
 cited, is never supposed to be anything less 
 than deceived. The man who sees little specks, 
 called muscce volitantes, floating in the air may 
 explain the form of the shadowy things seen with 
 the utmost exactitude. He may, I have known 
 such a case, give to the appearances fanciful 
 names from their forms ; yet it is not at any time 
 supposed that the seeings are realities. The man 
 who tells you a red object is colourless, or is of 
 different colour to what all other men call red, 
 is considered, however persistent he may be in 
 his opinion, peculiar only and deluded. The man 
 who explains that he sees but the half of an 
 object, or that he sees two objects when there is 
 but one before him, is at once accepted as incor- 
 rect in his observation. The man who, under 
 opium or haschish, receives the impression of 
 
DECEPTIONS OF THE SENSES. 281 
 
 being in rooms of infinite space, of grasping in 
 one sweep of apprehension incalculable intervals 
 of history, is held to be for the time of disordered 
 mind. And the man who, under the poison of 
 alcohol, turns the simplest of objects into the 
 likeness of the fiend, is credited with obvious 
 derangement so long as he thus misinterprets 
 what exists before him. 
 
 Yet there are many persons who, recognising 
 such every- day truths to the full, accept other 
 hallucinatory phenomena, of a similar origin, as 
 actual external realities, and who, once believing, 
 adhere to the opinion they have formed more 
 determinately than to any ordinary fact or busi- 
 ness with which they are hourly concerned. 
 
 The illusions depending upon changes of func- 
 tions in the receiving surface of an organ of 
 sense, or in the conducting cord, are compara- 
 tively simple. It is when we come to consider 
 the reception and the fixing of impressions in 
 the brain that the profoundest difficulties arise. 
 Here we pass, with ease, out of the domain of 
 current physical science into what is but useless 
 speculation, unless we are ever on our guard in 
 thought. I shall touch, consequently, on but 
 few parts of this subject on such as are nearest 
 to the physical basis of research. 
 
 The brain receives and retains external im- 
 pressions brought to it through the senses. In 
 
282 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 the exercise of this function it may become 
 unduly impressionable, and may be the seat of 
 illusion. Under these circumstances, one par- 
 ticular impression may so overrule every other 
 impression that it shall persistently present 
 itself. Sometimes a sudden impression is made 
 upon the brain so potently that it is stamped, as 
 it were, in persistent relief, coming forward at 
 any time, but specially when the mind is unoc- 
 cupied or is weakened, with all the force of a 
 new reality. 
 
 The distinguished French physician, Andral, 
 one of the most accurate of observers and least 
 superstitious of men, affords an illustration of 
 this illusion. When he was a pupil commencing 
 his medical studies, he was terribly impressed 
 at seeing, for the first time, a dead body on 
 the lecture-table. Many years afterwards, dur- 
 ing an attack of illness, he saw in his room 
 a dead body stretched out before him, and 
 it was not until some minutes had elapsed that 
 he recalled the connection between this outward 
 vision and the early impression that had been 
 made upon his brain. 
 
 I know myself another instance, differing in 
 detail, but belonging to the same order of phe- 
 nomena. A youth, who had all his life been 
 easily moved by any painful sight, entered the 
 profession of medicine, and saw, as a first expe- 
 
DECEPTIONS OF THE SENSES. 283 
 
 rience, an eminent surgeon perform the opera- 
 tion of amputation at the shoulder-joint. This 
 was before the introduction of means for the 
 abolition of pain, and the effect on the mind 
 of this observer was terrible. He did not faint, 
 as some of his neophyte comrades did, but 
 stood resolutely transfixed in wonder and fear. 
 In time he got over the dread, from that mo- 
 ment lost all dread at seeing operations, and, in 
 fact, has himself many hundred times since 
 taken part in surgical art. But this remains, 
 that whenever he is present at any operation, the 
 first operation that so impressed him is always 
 present to him in its minutest details, as if it 
 also were veritably in progress. 
 
 Connected with this form of hallucination is 
 that of hearing sounds with which the ear has 
 been at one time very familiar, without external 
 obvious cause. Dr. Samuel Johnson, in this 
 manner, heard, as he believed, the sound of his 
 mother's voice calling his name, "Sam!" when 
 she was separated from him by the distance be- 
 tween Lichfield and Oxford. 
 
 In studying this class of illusion, it is neces- 
 sary to observe that the illusion is not an act or 
 effort of memory, i.e. it is not an -effort called 
 forth by any act of volition. It is akin to that 
 singular sensation which they who have lost a 
 limb occasionally experience spontaneously an 
 
2*4- HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 experience as if the limb were still in its place, 
 and were endowed with the sensibilities it once 
 had, but which practically are forgotten. It is 
 the same as that illusion of " pre-existence " 
 which many have experienced, when a recogni- 
 tion seems to be felt of something already known, 
 and which the memory is unable, however se- 
 verely it is taxed, to recall. In a word, it is 
 illusion sans volition. 
 
XLY. 
 
 APPLIED HALLUCINATION. 
 
 A NTJMBEK of mysterious manifestations are 
 JLJL traceable to the simple fact of recurrence 
 of impressions altogether independently of the 
 will. There are others which are purely voli- 
 tional, and these constitute a distinct class of 
 hallucinatory phenomena. They are illusions 
 produced by what I should call the faculty of 
 projection of objects that have been received 
 from without by the brain, and fixed in it. We 
 exercise this faculty naturally when at will we 
 repicture to ourselves, or project what we have 
 seen, heard, felt, or otherwise received by the 
 senses, but what is not at the moment before 
 us. We recall a landscape we have surveyed, 
 a tune we have heard, and the like; and if 
 the impression be correctly fixed in us, and we 
 will it to return, it comes back directly. In 
 the act we project from us that which we recall, 
 and look at it, or listen to it, as if it were 
 
286 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 again external to us. This faculty, exalted to 
 unnatural degree, is a fruitful source of illu- 
 sion. 
 
 Wigan supplies a striking illustration of this 
 kind in the case of an eminent portrait-painter 
 who followed Sir Joshua Beynolds. The painter 
 in question once produced three hundred por- 
 traits from his own hand in one year. When 
 asked on what this peculiar power of rapid work 
 depended, he answered that when a sitter came 
 to him he looked at him attentively for half an 
 hour, sketching from time to time on the canvas ; 
 then he put away the canvas and took another 
 sitter. When he wished to resume the first 
 portrait, he said, " I took the man and put him 
 in the chair, where I saw him as distinctly as if 
 he had been before me in his own proper person. 
 When I looked at the chair I saw the man." 
 After a while the painter began to fail to dis- 
 cover the difference between the real and the 
 imaginary sitters, so that he became actually 
 insane, and remained in an asylum for thirty 
 years. Then his mind was restored to him, and 
 he resumed the use of the pencil ; but the old 
 evil threatened to return, and he once more for- 
 sook his art, soon afterwards to die. 
 
 Talma, the actor, had a faculty of mental pro- 
 jection equally singular with that possessed by 
 the artist whose history Wigan has related. 
 
APPLIED HALLUCINATION. 287 
 
 Talma could project before himself the form of a 
 human skeleton with such perfection of detail 
 that to him the form was a reality. When he 
 stood before the footlights he had in his pre- 
 sence, in the theatre, an audience of skeletons. 
 Goethe, who conceived himself to be the greatest 
 of men after Shakespeare, once projected his own 
 figure and viewed it as if it had been that of 
 another person. 
 
 I might prolong the record of these halluci- 
 nations; but to prove that they exist is all- 
 sufficient for the purpose I have in view. They 
 are, the reader will see, nothing more than the 
 results of an exaggeration of a natural faculty, 
 which faculty, well possessed, is a marvellous 
 accomplishment, but over-possessed is a disaster 
 to the possessor. 
 
 There is another form of hallucination, having 
 its seat in the brain, and which springs from 
 what has been called the effect of the imagina- 
 tion. Imagination, brought to its true meaning, 
 is the art of the will to combine into various 
 groups the pictures or impressions that have 
 been condensed in the brain through the senses. 
 "We are accustomed to speak of men of imagina- 
 tive turn as original men. In a sense, this is 
 false and true. It is false if we mean by the 
 expression that a man can originate absolutely. 
 It is true if we mean that a man can originate 
 
288 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 combinations of impressions he has received from 
 the outer world. 
 
 The power or faculty of forming by the will 
 original combinations of things, events, facts, 
 received and stored up in the brain, is as 
 varied as is the faculty of forming combina- 
 tions or arrangements of things and facts that 
 lie before the observer for his use or applica- 
 tion. One man makes out of his inner hidden 
 properties the most perfect of forms or stories, 
 and puts them forward in language or in writing 
 to charm and captivate his kindred. Another 
 puts forward mean and commonplace forms of 
 combination. These men are understood, and no 
 one supposes them subject to hallucination. 
 
 But there is a third class of man who holds a 
 distinct position as an imaginator. He puts out 
 his treasures in such rank confusion that we 
 are unable to recognise the pictures he directs 
 us to see. Him we conceive to be estranged, for 
 he produces, according to the general judgment, 
 impossible combinations, his crowded or squalid 
 fantastic imageries appealing to no recognis- 
 able realities. Such men, in the wildness of 
 their combinations, give to us pictures of new 
 heavens, new earths, new shades, which they have 
 mentally surveyed until the impression, in all 
 its wantonness, is to them an absolute truth, a 
 truth it is a duty straightway to communicate 
 
APPLIED HALL UCINA TION. 289 
 
 to mankind. To name only one, from what 
 might be a volume of illustrations of this type 
 of imaginators, there is Benvenuto Cellini, who, 
 visited by an invisible spirit, was carried even 
 into the effulgence of the sun itself, discover- 
 ing the luminary, when divested of its rays, 
 to be a ball of molten gold, and seeing emanate 
 from it divine forms of infinite splendour, which 
 he could afterwards describe as faithfully as he 
 could the prison in which he was incarcerated 
 or the couch on which he slept. 
 
 Uneducated sceptics, hearing what they call 
 these stories of the marvellous, are wont to say 
 that all narratives of the kind are the results of 
 disordered imagination. In this they are often 
 greatly wrong. The power of combining re- 
 ceived impressions is, I admit, easily and fre- 
 quently exaggerated into the production of hal- 
 lucinations which, recited as realities, constitute 
 a very large class of hallucinatory phenomena, 
 and indicate truly a disordered imagination. 
 But some men who possess this power of strange 
 combination in the most marked degree are 
 able to control it and to produce from it fictitious 
 history, or applied hallucination, which is the 
 consummation of idealistic art. 
 
XLVI. 
 
 PROJECTED VISIONS. 
 
 are changes of function due to what 
 may be called disturbance of the vascular 
 tension of the brain. In order to receive external 
 impressions in a perfect and natural state, it is 
 necessary that the nervous organization, like a 
 musical stringed instrument, should be accu- 
 rately attuned, its various minute parts, its 
 fibres, set, yet not unduly strained. The tension 
 is maintained by the pressure of the blood 
 the silent blood stream, that is ever, during 
 life in circuit, filling up vacuities, supplying 
 new portions of matter, supplying fluids to be 
 diffused through different receiving organs and 
 regulating pressures. To the brain this blood 
 may come in equal current, or it may ebb, or it 
 may enter like a tide ; so that the tension may 
 vary from low to high, with varying phases of 
 mental change following upon varieties of tension. 
 "When, under any circumstances, the blood 
 
PROJECTED VISIONS. 291 
 
 current ebbs, so that the brain is indifferently 
 supplied with blood, external impressions rush 
 in through the senses in such disturbed pro- 
 fusion, that a new existence may seem to have 
 opened itself to the mind, with flashing, flicker- 
 ing manifestations of the past, and with the 
 will losing its steady command. The light of day 
 is insupportable in its brilliancy. Sounds the 
 faintest are exaggerated into torrents, or peals, 
 or blasts. Faint odours are overpowering, and 
 other physical impressions, not appreciated by 
 the healthy bystander, are recognised by the 
 prostrated organism. 
 
 A woman who was saved from drowning, 
 and who was restored from what seemed the 
 unconsciousness of death to life, once related 
 to me her experiences of the phenomena I 
 have named with wonderful and simple fidelity. 
 As she sank the noises of the water, though 
 it was still water, and the voices of persons 
 who were calling for her rescue, were appall- 
 ing from their intensity " they were like 
 thunder." The touch of the water seemed as if 
 it were creating the dissolution of her body. 
 At last, as if being distributed into some im- 
 measurable expanse, she was lost, knowing no 
 more until she found herself, hours afterwards, 
 in a warm bed, with friendly hands supporting 
 her, and friendly voices pressing her to try to 
 
292 HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 swallow nourishment. The ecstasies of the 
 starving or frenzied person, often so poetically 
 described, are of this order of phenomena, but in 
 minor degree. 
 
 There is an opposite condition of the brain to 
 the above, in which the tension is unduly 
 increased by pressure of blood. Under this con- 
 dition the tendency is not for the nervous organi- 
 zation to receive the impressions of the outer 
 world in overwhelming confusion, but to project 
 certain of the impressions it has received into 
 the external world to re-view them. A perfect 
 illustration of this perversion is supplied in the 
 narrative of Mcolai, a bookseller of Berlin, who 
 himself describes what he experienced. Nicolai 
 had been accustomed to be bled twice in the 
 year, as was the fashion in his day ; but at the 
 close of the year 1790 the process was omitted. 
 In the beginning of the year 1791 he was affected 
 in his mind by several incidents of a disagree- 
 able character, and on the 24th of February of 
 that year he observed, at the distance of ten 
 paces from him, the figure of a person he had 
 known in life but who was deceased. The figure 
 remained before him for seven or eight minutes * 
 then, as he became exhausted, he fell into a 
 troubled slumber and slept the ghost away. 
 
 Later in the day the same figure and other 
 figures returned to the astonished Mcolai, and 
 
PROJECTED VISIONS. 293 
 
 until April continued to return, so that he be- 
 came accustomed to them ; and, learning to dis- 
 tinguish phantoms from phenomena, he observed 
 the phantoms, correctly knowing them to be pro- 
 jections from his own brain. The forms, he said, 
 were for the most part human figures of both 
 sexes, some of persons dead or distant, whom he 
 knew, others of persons he did not know. They 
 came without his will, and went without his 
 order. Occasionally the figures were mounted 
 on horseback or were accompanied by animals of 
 natural size and colour, but all, perhaps, were a 
 little paler than natural. To Nicolai the figures, 
 when he became familiarised with the phenomena 
 of their appearances, spoke, their speeches 'being 
 short and not disagreeable. 
 
 In the whole history of spiritual manifesta- 
 tions, so called, there is nothing that equals in 
 marvel this experience of Mcolai. How his 
 spiritual history would have ended had it pro- 
 gressed to his death, and what beliefs would have 
 been founded upon it had it received no correc- 
 tion, it were indeed hard to say. Fortunately, 
 as I think, in the month of Apri], 1791, a cold- 
 blooded Sangrado of a surgeon formed a conclu- 
 sion that the loss of a little blood by means of 
 leeches might clear the vision of the haunted 
 bookseller. On the 20th of that month the 
 surgeon carried out his design at eleven o'clock 
 
HALLUCINATIONS. 
 
 of the forenoon. During the operation, says 
 Mcolai, the room swarmed with human forms, 
 and continued full till four o'clock, " when the 
 digestion commences." Then the figures began 
 to move more slowly, afterwards they became 
 paler at half-past six they were all entirely 
 white, and moved very little, though they were 
 distinct in form. The figures did not glide away, 
 neither did they vanish, but in this instance they 
 dissolved immediately into air, some of them 
 remaining, in pieces, for an interval. By degrees 
 they were all lost, and at eight o'clock there did 
 not remain a vestige of them ; neither did they 
 return. Mcolai was cured by his Sangrado. 
 
PART VII. 
 
 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
XLVIL 
 
 STATISTS AND HEALTH. 
 
 SOME circumstances of a purely political 
 character have helped on the study of the 
 subject of national health. Previous to the 
 great revolution, which dethroned James II. 
 and put William and Mary on the throne, there 
 existed a tax called the hearth-tax. Every 
 hearth in the kingdom had to be paid for. 
 Severe as this impost seemed to be, it had one 
 good effect indirectly ; it led to the collection of 
 correct information as to the housing and num- 
 bering of the people, Two shillings had to be 
 paid on every hearth. How many hearths were 
 there, and how many houses ? The " hearth 
 books " became important documents. In 1685 
 Dr. Davenant computed from these books that at 
 Michaelmas of that year the number of houses in 
 all England and Wales was one million three 
 hundred thousand, of which five hundred and 
 
298 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 fifty-four thousand six hundred and thirty-one 
 were houses of one hearth and chimney. The 
 average of persons to each house was computed 
 at five persons, and an estimate was thus made 
 of the number of the people. The population of 
 England and Wales then was not quite double 
 the population of present London. The enumera- 
 tion was crude, and the object of it at the time 
 irrelevant to the subject of health ; but it had 
 this value, that it set afoot the system of 
 national stock-taking, which has eventuated in 
 those wonderful returns of population, house 
 accommodation, births, marriages, deaths, and 
 occupations, which to the modern student of 
 health are so invaluable as bases for all the work 
 on which he is engaged. 
 
 In late times the unnecessary risks and losses 
 to which our men of arms have been exposed 
 during active service have forced on the atten- 
 tion of statesmen the necessity of considering the 
 best means of preserving the health of the 
 soldier. The experiences of the Crimean cam- 
 paign; the experiences of the destruction of 
 troops from residence in India, irrespective alto- 
 gether of the vicissitudes of war ; the disclosures 
 of the great fatality from the disease pulmonary 
 consumption in men pent up in close barracks at 
 home ; these and many similar lessons have 
 led to increased attention, on the part of poli- 
 
STATISTS AND HEALTH. 299, 
 
 ticians, to the health of the communities which 
 make up our fighting populations in times both 
 of war and peace. 
 
 The outbreak of devastating epidemics and the 
 occurrences of such catastrophes as gaol fever, 
 Irish famine fever, and cholera, have demanded 
 and at last obtained a degree of political atten- 
 tion which has been without parallel. Cholera,, 
 it is true, is not rendered impossible in this- 
 nation, but famine fever can hardly occur any 
 more in the United Kingdom ; while our gaols,, 
 which in the days of Howard were the foci of 
 fever and pestilence, are now, by a strange 
 change in events, the health spots of the land. 
 Could any one have told Howard that within 
 ninety years of his death the gaols, in which he 
 saw sacrifice of life to ignorance in the highest 
 development that was possible to his observation, 
 would be the places where the tests of lowest 
 mortality were being proved, what would have 
 been his wonder or his satisfaction ? 
 
 Yet it is a fact, as demonstrable as any fact 
 that was ever written, that if we could bring the 
 mortality of the whole community to the degree 
 of mortality that now exists in English gaols, we 
 should reduce the death-rate almost to a natural 
 standard, and make the common term of life a 
 hundred years. 
 
 In yet one other direction political necessity 
 
3 oo POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 has led to improvement in the national health. 
 At the latter part of last century our factory 
 system, which by that time had become of 
 primary importance to us as a commercial 
 country, was in as bad a sanitary form as bad 
 ould be. Men, women, and children were sacri- 
 ficed ruthlessly to the greed of the trader, who 
 ispun his wares from their lives. In 1802, there- 
 fore, an Act was passed for the better regulation 
 of factories, a first Factory Act, which called in the 
 :aid of medical men, and which was intended to 
 produce, and did produce, an improvement in the 
 health of operatives of both sexes, old and young. 
 Since the passing of the first Factory Act many 
 more have followed, and although up to the pre- 
 sent time much that requires to be done is left 
 undone, we, as a nation, have the credit of being 
 earliest in the field in endeavouring to relieve 
 factory labour of its sickly burdens. " England," 
 says a recent Belgian writer, " taking precedence 
 of all other peoples on the road to industrial 
 progress, was the first to know the evils of it, 
 and consequently to endeavour to do away with 
 them." From an initiative commenced three 
 parts of a century ago other nations have fol- 
 lowed in train, and a good example in political, 
 like a good example in private life, has spread 
 beyond its home to carry with it humane and 
 profitable service. 
 
STATISTS AND HEALTH. 301 
 
 With the political aid that has been rendered 
 to the study of the national health, there must 
 also be taken into account economical science in 
 its public applications to the value of money, of 
 property, and of life. The learned Dr. Price, | 
 who a hundred years back may be said to have 
 laid the foundation of method for computing the \ 
 values of lives, and to have invented political) 
 arithmetic, traces very clearly this economical 
 arithmetical science and its results to the origin 
 of the national debt. The statement may strike 
 many minds as peculiar, but it is nevertheless 
 true. The national debt was the fruit of the 
 last great revolution. It began with a debt of 
 a few millions. In 1700, Price says, it was only 
 sixteen millions. In 1715 it was fifty-five 
 millions. From 1715 to 1740 it sank to forty-six 
 millions. It then rose to seventy-eight millions, 
 sank to seventy-five, and rose again, in 1775, to 
 one hundred and forty-six. It was afterwards 
 reduced to one hundred and thirty- six millions ; 
 and, rising once more, had, in 1783, exceeded 
 two hundred millions, " with an example of 
 expense,' 7 adds Price, " now going on which will 
 probably make this kingdom the wonder and 
 terror of future ages." 
 
 I may leave the modern scholar, who knows as 
 much about the national debt as I do, to reflect 
 on Dr. Price's prophecy. I only refer to the 
 
302 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 matter to point out that from the calculations 
 made upon the values of the lives of those who 
 first invested in the national funds, there sprang 
 into fuller activity than had ever before existed, 
 the method of estimating life by its value in the 
 money market. The " London Annuity Society," 
 the " Laudable Society for the Benefit of 
 "Widows," the " Society for Equitable Assur- 
 ances on Lives and Survivorships " these and 
 other societies became great undertakings, for 
 the conduct of which various new calculations on 
 vitality were required, calculations that were 
 accurate and even refined in their accuracy. 
 
 The demand for information was thus sup- 
 plied, and with the supply there was found to 
 l3e much useful matter relating to the national 
 health, the conditions under which health is 
 conserved, and the conditions under which it is 
 impaired. In a letter to the illustrious Benjamin 
 Franklin, whose own writings and proverbs teem 
 with sound maxims on health, the author I have 
 named above, Eichard Price, D.D., F.B.S., 
 dwelt on expectations of lives, the increase of 
 mankind, the number of inhabitants in London, 
 and the influence of great towns on health 
 and population. In a masterly way he laid 
 many bases of fact and suggestion. From his 
 labours we may date the origin of the methods 
 by which in this day, with vastly improved 
 
STATISTS AND HEALTH. 303 
 
 resources and learning, we calculate births 
 against deaths, averages of mortalities in dif- 
 ferent localities, and averages of mortalities at 
 different periods of human life. 
 
XLYIII. 
 
 LEGISLATION AND HEALTH. 
 
 HPHE labours of the legislative sanitary re- 
 JL former lie in four directions. 
 
 1. In an endeavour to understand simply the 
 nature of diseases, their alliances, their true .dis- 
 tinctive characters, the modifications to which 
 the body is subjected under the influence of 
 diseased action, and the chemical or physical 
 measures best adapted for removal and preven- 
 tion of disease. Labours of this kind require the 
 highest order of medical intellect ; they are 
 altogether removed from the business of the mere 
 politician, and they imply in him who prosecutes 
 them a mind fully charged with all the modern 
 doctrines of chemistry, physics, and the laws of 
 life. These labours tend to lead the mind from 
 effects back to causes. 
 
 2. In an endeavour to seek out primarily the 
 causes of diseases, irrespective of the symptoms 
 and the other details involved in the 1 considera- 
 
LEGISLATION AND HEALTH. 305 
 
 tion of the diseases themselves. Efforts in this 
 line of research should embrace observations con- 
 ducted on a large scale, bearing on the effects 
 of locality, climate, season, meteorology, con- 
 tagion, habit, diet, and occupation, in giving rise 
 to distinctive types of disease. 
 
 3. In striving to make the vast stores of in- 
 formation already acquired in regard to the two 
 forms of inquiry above noted accessible to all 
 classes of society, by having them scientifically 
 popularised and diligently taught. 
 
 4. In giving free scope and encouragement 
 to those mechanical arts which tend to improve 
 the beauty and convenience of towns and cities, 
 to lessen muscular labour, to increase the com- 
 forts of the poor man's home, and to introduce 
 such an elevated class of amusements and occupa- 
 tions for leisure moments as shall make the hearts 
 of men happier, their minds less animal. 
 
 In these offerings to reason and knowledge lies 
 the true reform the elixir vitce, which carries all 
 the charms the quacksalver's bill claims for the 
 quacksalver's pill. 
 
 In the prosecution of the few and simple 
 principles thus sketched out is embodied, I be- 
 lieve, the beginning and the end of sanitary 
 science. These ignored, all else is mere practical 
 dilettanteism, mere playing with the details of 
 principles, while the principles themselves are 
 
 x 
 
3 o6 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 undeveloped. Eight honourable and honourable 
 gentlemen may discourse in the senate house, and 
 sit on committees of inquiry, and publish tons' 
 weight of blue-books, and preside over boards of 
 health, and invest magistrates with new powers ; 
 but, the mortality tables of the Kegistrar- General 
 will still tell how little can be done until a new 
 impulse is supplied leading to improvements in 
 the application of the knowledge that has been 
 so laboriously acquired. 
 
 There are some diseases which seem to stand 
 forth independently altogether of what are usually 
 understood as pernicious influences, diseases which 
 have a specific cause of which we know nothing 
 at present, and cannot form a reasonable idea. 
 There are other diseases, the propagation of 
 which are almost as traceable as is the genera- 
 tion of the living world. If legislation must do 
 something, as it ought, why should it not direct 
 inquiry in reference to this distinction? And 
 when it has made out a few facts regarding those 
 diseases, the propagation of which is understood, 
 why should it not make a trial to lessen or extin- 
 guish them? There is a disease of diseases 
 which a mock morality makes it a very crime to 
 name, but which leaves its base imprint more or 
 less marked on every hundredth babe at least 
 born in this kingdom, and which engrafts a host 
 of maladies on half our Saxon race. This of all 
 
LEGISLATION AND HEALTH. 307 
 
 diseases is most preventible by coercive legisla- 
 tion, if such legislation can do anything what- 
 ever. It cannot. It cannot stop small-pox, 
 though it has Jenner's discovery in its right 
 hand. In. short, in relation to sanitary science, 
 the legislature can do but one basic thing, 
 namely, promote scientific education. But if it 
 would do this, it would speedily do all. 
 
 The two instances of imperfect legislation to 
 which I have referred above are excellent ex- 
 amples of the difficulties that lie in the way of 
 enforcing legislation on a people that revels in 
 freedom, even when the legislative action is 
 necessary for the actual protection of life as well 
 as health. There can be no doubt in any un- 
 prejudiced mind that the Contagious Diseases 
 Acts and the Vaccination Acts have controlled 
 two of the most fearful of the diseases afflicting 
 the human family. Yet the difficulties of main- 
 taining these Acts in operation are so persistent 
 and so great, it is doubtful whether both may not 
 for a time be repealed under the pressure of the 
 stern opposition that is made to them. 
 
 How unreasonable the opposition to vaccina- 
 tion is, how thoroughly that opposition is main- 
 tained by simple want of knowledge, is proved 
 by this one circumstance, that the members of the 
 medical body, who are by necessity most familiar 
 with all the dangers and all the advantages attend- 
 
3 o8 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 ing the process of vaccination, are so satisfied as to 
 the infinitesimal character of its danger, and so 
 assured of the infinite quality of its advantages, 
 they are, of all sections of the community, most 
 anxious to secure for themselves and their chil- 
 dren the protection it affords. On the occasion 
 of the prevalence of small-pox in 1870-1, a 
 public vaccinator to whom I applied for the vac- 
 cination of my own family informed me that the 
 doctors alone gave him sufficient employment for 
 another pair of hands, that they were always the 
 first to apply to him, were most importunate of 
 all to take advantage of the prophylactic, and 
 were, he believed, all but universally protected 
 by it. The fact sufficiently accounts for the im- 
 munity from small-pox which the doctors, who 
 are most of all exposed to the poison of the dis- 
 ease, exhibit during an epidemic. It suggests at 
 the same time singular contrasts in action and 
 in result as between them and those who really, 
 on no knowledge at all, object to the process. 
 
 The practical lesson that is to be gathered 
 from these strange and anomalous experiences is, 
 that legislative action which is opposed to free- 
 will must always be the most perplexing to the 
 legislator, and, except in instances of absolute 
 necessity, should never be attempted. Free-will 
 combined with ignorance is resolute, and usually 
 wrong. Free-will combined with knowledge is so 
 
LEGISLATION AND HEALTH. 309 
 
 right it needs no law. When he meets the first 
 combination, the legislator must be in perpetual 
 contest, and must make his way purely by the 
 strength of his position, for the time. "When he 
 meets the second, he has nothing to do but lay 
 aside his power, and let the freedom and the 
 knowledge take their own course without his in- 
 terference as a legislator. 
 
XLIX. 
 
 REGISTRATION OP DISEASE. 
 
 MUST it be said that the Government has no- 
 responsibilities and no duties in respect 
 to the maintenance of the national health ? Can 
 local administration, or private enterprise, or 
 individual effort, alone or in combination, be left 
 to their own discretions and devices ? By no 
 means. There is full scope for the action of 
 Government, independently of its doubtfully 
 useful coercive functions. There is before it 
 certain grand supervising and directing functions 
 which, up to this time neglected, should at once 
 be brought into consideration. 
 
 I cannot do better than invite public attention 
 to some of the more important of these functions 
 of Government. They are vital in respect to the 
 interests of the community, but, vital as they 
 are, they are certain to receive no application 
 through the legislature until an enlightened 
 
REGIS TR A TION OF DISEA SE. 311 
 
 public opinion forces upon the legislature the 
 fact that it demands their institution. 
 
 The first grand sanitary work demanded from 
 the Government is the institution of a department 
 for the registration of disease throughout the 
 whole of the United Kingdom. It is as vain for 
 the State to apply legislative action for the pre- 
 vention of disease generally, while it is ignorant 
 of all the phenomena of disease that are present, 
 as it would be vain for the individual to write a 
 prescription for a particular form of disease while 
 he is ignorant of the symptoms of the malady 
 and the circumstances under which it was de- 
 veloped. I have been hammering at this subject 
 now for twenty-three years, and, at the risk of 
 hammering again, I repeat that it is the first 
 essential for the good of the nation that the regis- 
 tration of disease should be made as much a part 
 of the business of the State as the registration of 
 births, deaths, and marriages. The registration 
 of births, deaths, and marriages shows admirably 
 the balance that is paid over by disease to death. 
 We want now to know the balance that is paid over 
 by health to disease, and the reasons of the debt. 
 
 The registration of disease is one of the sim- 
 plest duties that could fall to the action of the 
 State. It has only to be done, and might within 
 any one year be in as perfect working order as 
 the registration of births, marriages, and deaths. 
 
312 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 I do not say this from theory, but from direct 
 experience. In the year 1855 I commenced an 
 effort to test the practicability of this scheme, 
 and was soon assisted by a large body of com- 
 petent observers. At one time fifty observers 
 were lending me their services, from forty-four 
 points of observation extending from the Scilly 
 Islands to the Hebrides. The facts were pub- 
 lished quarterly. The diseases affecting the 
 human subject, the diseases affecting the lower 
 animals, and the diseases affecting plants, were 
 recorded with more or less of detail ; and in some 
 instances the observers added an excellent account 
 of the meteorological conditions that had pre- 
 vailed in their districts during the periods of 
 observation. These returns were commenced in 
 the March quarter of the year 1855, and were 
 continued regularly for four years. They were 
 published in the Journal of Public Health. 
 
 These records of disease, obtained as described, 
 may still be read with profit. In one of them, 
 reported from the notes of eight observers, by Mr. 
 Haffenden, of Canterbury, there was given, in 
 the spring quarter of the year 1857, the first 
 distinct account of the outbreak of diphtheria in 
 England, from a series of cases observed at the 
 village of Ash, by Mr. Eeid, of Canterbury. If 
 such a prompt report of every disease new to the 
 country were conveyed to the Government imme- 
 
REGISTRATION OF DISEASE. 313 
 
 diately on its outbreak, I need not tell how im- 
 portant might be the action of the Government 
 in stamping out the plague at its primary source. 
 
 The success of this experiment for the registra- 
 tion of diseases was the actual cause of its failure. 
 It was impossible for any one individual to bear 
 the labour and the expense of collecting and 
 publishing regularly the returns of disease from 
 fifty observers, though their valued labours were 
 freely given. When, therefore, the experiment 
 had been fairly tried and shown to be practicable, 
 I laid the results before Sir Benjamin Hall, 
 afterwards Lord Llanover, who was once Presi- 
 dent of the old Board of Health, and suggested 
 to him that the weekly records of the union 
 medical officers of the kingdom should, by a 
 very simple modification, be utilised for regis- 
 tration of disease, after they had served the 
 purely local purpose for which they were 
 intended. Sir Benjamin Hall received the 
 scheme with much favour, and promised to take 
 the opinion of the Eegistrar- General upon it: 
 but after a little time he informed me that the 
 carrying out of the design would involve an 
 expense which the public, he believed, would 
 hesitate to meet, and so the attempt was not 
 made. 
 
 In scientific research it is so common for the 
 most laborious series of researches to fail in their 
 
3 H POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 direct object, that men of science become inured 
 to failure, and soon cease to lament over it. I 
 confess, however, I have never ceased to lament 
 the failure of my original proposition for obtain- 
 ing a complete registration of disease in this 
 country. I regret most deeply the time that has 
 been unnecessarily lost. If I could have con- 
 tinued to have received reports four times a year 
 from but fifty observers during the twenty-three 
 years that have now passed, I should by this time 
 have collected over four thousand sets of facts 
 relating to disease, from which something useful 
 must have been derivable. If the larger scheme 
 I proposed had been carried out if the weekly 
 returns of the three thousand poor-law medical 
 officers had been utilised for the same period, 
 instead of being allowed to go to destruction 
 when their first use was over some three mil- 
 lion and a quarter of facts, relating to diseases 
 and their causes in England and "Wales, would by 
 this time have been collected. It is impossible 
 to estimate this deplorable loss of knowledge, and 
 still the loss goes on. I name the subject in 
 order to urge forward an endeavour to prevent 
 the further and continuous waste of knowledge. 
 
 To know the diseases of a country in their 
 entirety ; to know the relation of the diseases in 
 men to the diseases of inferior animals and of 
 plants ; to be able to fix the special localities of 
 
REGISTRA TION OF DISEA SE. 315 
 
 special diseases ; to be able to trace the diseases 
 back to occupations, modes of life, and all the 
 external exciting causes from which they spring 
 is knowledge which every statesman, surely, 
 should long to acquire. Such knowledge is the 
 best history, the best book of reference that could 
 be obtained, from which to read the health, and 
 thereby the wealth, of our people. Domesday- 
 book were a poor contribution by the side of that 
 book of vital possessions to which I once again 
 venture to direct public attention, with a view to 
 its commencement as a public work. 
 
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 
 
 IT accorded with the disposition of the ancient 
 Greek to burn his dead. For the Greek was 
 the father of mirth, and it was never in his 
 happy mind to retain long near to him that 
 which would hold him in gloom. So to the 
 eternal fire must go his nearest and his dearest 
 when the spirit that animated the body was 
 resolved away. Burial of the dead was to his 
 mind a slow and even wearisome process, to be 
 followed out only in emergency. The traveller 
 who should find a dead body was asked to bury 
 it, or at least three times to cast dust upon it 
 
 " Quanquam festinas, non est mora longa, licebit 
 Injecto ter pulvere, curras." 
 
 And the sailor who floated ashore from the sea 
 bore on his body the most costly gift he 
 possessed for him who should give its lifeless 
 bearer the rite of burial. But these acts were 
 
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 317 
 
 exceptional, the necessities inflicted upon those 
 who could not be submitted to the pyre. 
 
 Beyond this reason, moreover, the Greek 
 found and felt another motive for that system 
 of cremation he all but universally practised. 
 Strange as it might seem to men of other races, 
 the very process of submitting the body to be 
 burned was to him the sign of the life that is- 
 immortal. The body he with so much ceremo- 
 nial committed to the fire was not, in his ideal, 
 destroyed. Great men, according to that ideal, 
 were raised to the world of the higher intelli- 
 gences; and Pluto himself, because he taught 
 the art of disposal of the dead, was for his 
 art believed to have been received into the 
 number of the gods. The thought that animated 
 the Greek was indeed the reverse of the material 
 conception of organic structure, living or dead. 
 The men who transformed their heroes into divi- 
 nities, and who carried out their young dead to 
 the funeral pile before the dawn, that the sun 
 might not be the witness of so terrible a calamity 
 as the cessation of life while yet it had not 
 approached its perfected glory, were hardly the 
 men to be tainted with the belief in the cessation 
 of individual phenomena with the cessation of 
 that visible motion from which we infer that the 
 body that once was living has ceased to live. 
 
 With the Greek, the burning to which he sub- 
 
3i 8 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 jected the dead body was a process for the puri- 
 fication of the soul. The soul, left unclean in its 
 earthly state, required to be rendered free and 
 perfect by the absolute destruction of the case- 
 ment in which it had been enshrined during its 
 mortal course, and to which it might still cling. 
 So they submitted the casement to the pur, the 
 great and absolute purifier, the fire. Further, 
 they conceived that in this purification they set 
 free the indestructible principle of life, that it 
 might enter the more speedily into the domains 
 of the blessed. This was the Greek ideal of 
 what we call cremation. Symbolized, somewhat 
 differently, it remains to this day connected with 
 a faith to which millions pay allegiance. 
 
 It accorded with the disposition of the ancient 
 Egyptian to retain his dead as perfectly as art 
 could enable him. The body, the receptacle of 
 the soul, was too precious to be cast away to the 
 earth to rot there, or to the sea to be devoured of 
 animals, or to the fire to be resolved into thin 
 air. It was to be held so that the spirit which 
 once animated it might at some strange and event- 
 ful moment re-enter its tabernacle and reign in 
 it again, incorruptible. In this ideal we have the 
 origin of a belief which is still most prominent 
 in the thoughts of mankind, the root of a faith 
 symbolized specially, and accepted also by millions 
 of mankind. In our care of burial of the dead, 
 
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 319 
 
 in our sepulchres and stately tombs, we strive to 
 express what the heart prompts from this source. 
 
 This ideal received its fullest recognition in 
 the process of disposal of the dead by embalm- 
 ing. The poorest and the richest Egyptian 
 preserved his dead, with all the perfection 
 his means could devise. The rich man with 
 his costly gifts left his lifeless friend in the 
 hands of the embalmer for seventy days, and 
 received back the body swathed in cloth and 
 gum, so perfectly prepared, that set up amongst 
 the living or laid in the sarcophagus of all but 
 solid stone, it could be left safe there for all the 
 ages that were to come. Left, not dead, but 
 waiting in solemn silence for the renewal of life 
 that would one day as surely revive it as the sun 
 revives the silent earth into the living day. 
 
 When father Abraham, refusing it as a gift, 
 bought of Ephron the Hittite the field before 
 Mamre for four hundred shekels of silver, that 
 he might bury his dead out of his sight in the 
 cave of Machpelah, he followed another disposal 
 of the dead which, through all the variations of 
 the marvellous race he founded, has held its 
 course. To the Greek this mere burial would be 
 barbarous. To the Egyptian it would be a poor 
 imitation of that perpetuation of mortality by 
 which the mortal would be made to rejoin the 
 immortal part. It symbolized, in another and 
 
320 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 natural ideal, the ideal of a seed seemingly dead 
 but susceptible of reanimation. The seed sown 
 in the ground is buried, but does it not spring 
 up again ? That which is sown is not quickened 
 unless it die. And so with the body : it is sown 
 in corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is 
 sown a natural, it is raised a spiritual, body. 
 How fixedly this principle of burying in the 
 earth, of replacing in the earth that which came 
 from it, has remained rooted in the minds 
 of men, through Jewish interpretation, let any 
 thinking person consider. The masses cling to 
 it despite pictures of disgust, however realistic ; 
 and even the choicest of our philosophers have 
 held by it to their final sleep, and, like Franklin, 
 have written it for their own epitaph. 
 
 THE BODY 
 
 OF 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 PRINTER 
 (LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, 
 
 ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, 
 AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING) 
 
 LIES HERE FOOD FOR WORMS J 
 
 YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, 
 
 FOR IT WILL (AS HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE 
 
 IN A NEW 
 
 AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION 
 
 CORRECTED AND AMENDED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 311 
 
 Amongst us the mode of disposal of the dead 
 by burial has become so universal it were vain 
 to endeavour to change it. We may, however, 
 with advantage study how to improve the system, 
 towards which object I would offer the following 
 suggestions. 
 
 The construction of the soil of the burial- 
 ground is of first moment, and might readily be 
 made matter of legislation. The soil that is most 
 fitting for this purpose is a fine carboniferous 
 mould, or a mixture of such mould with lime 
 and sand. In such a soil the complete removal 
 of the body might, under proper conditions of 
 burial^ be secured within a period of ten years, 
 and in such a soil renewal of burial might be 
 safely carried out after every such interval. In 
 Naples it has been customary to bury in pits of 
 earth with which lime has been mixed ; to bury 
 so many bodies in one section on a given day ; to 
 allow that section to rest for a year, then to 
 remove the whole of the earth of the section with 
 its organic remains, refill with new earth, and 
 bury again for the next year in the new earth. 
 In this country such a prompt system would not 
 be tolerated, but the method of burial in a 
 destructive, but more slowly destructive, earth 
 would probably meet every necessity, without 
 creating undue prejudice at the commencement 
 of the reformation. 
 
322 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 In some localities a natural soil would yield 
 all that is wanted for perfect burial in earth. 
 In other localities the earth would have to be 
 specially constructed, and a series of carefully 
 conducted experiments on the destructive powers 
 of various earths would be required before a per- 
 fect system could be obtained. It will probably 
 be found, I repeat, that. an earth composed of equal 
 parts of fine carbon or virgin soil, sand, and lime, 
 would be the most rapid of all combinations for 
 the destruction of the animal matter, and the 
 absorption of the products of decomposition. In 
 a cemetery correctly constructed, with twelve feet 
 of prepared earth as its basis, such a soil might 
 remain undisturbed, except for purposes of burial, 
 for many years ; long enough, certainly, for the 
 burial-place of the majority of the dead to be for- 
 gotten and for the dead body to pass into entire 
 reunion with the earth from whence it sprang. 
 After a given and due time, without any injury 
 to sentiment, the soil could be removed in sec- 
 tions and be resupplied with new material for 
 new burials. 
 
 I have described the artificial soil which would 
 prove the most effective for the purposes of 
 burial from the facts I have gleaned during 
 direct observation of the action of different sub- 
 stances on dead organic matter. Specimens of 
 such matter buried in pure carbon, in virgin car- 
 
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. 323 
 
 boniferous earth, in a mixture of carboniferous 
 earth and sand, and in this latter mixture to 
 which lime had been added, were found to 
 undergo resolution, in the last most, in the first 
 least effectively. A fresh carboniferous earth 
 answers exceedingly well, better than pure 
 vegetable carbon. The rapidity with which it 
 deodorizes even decomposing animal matter is 
 most remarkable. It may be said to act in a 
 matter of minutes. The rapidity with which it 
 produces destruction of the organic substance, 
 especially if it be kept dry, is equally surpris- 
 ing. The complete decomposition may be in- 
 cluded in from twenty to thirty weeks. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, however, that all the 
 parts of an animal body are not equally destroyed 
 in the same time. The integumentary parts and 
 the membranes are much more slowly destroyed 
 than the muscular, and the muscular are more 
 slowly destroyed than the nervous. The bony 
 parts are more resistant to destruction than the 
 integuments, and the pigments are more resistant 
 than the bone. 
 
 With these modifications of the earth in which 
 the dead should be laid must come an entirely 
 new system of burial. It would be in vain to 
 construct the best burial-ground if the present 
 system of enclosing the dead in coffins of wood 
 or iron or lead were to continue. The coffin 
 
324 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 should be nothing more than an easily destruct- 
 ible shroud, in which the mortal remains may be 
 concealed from view until they are deposited in 
 the earth. 
 
 The present coffin is after the mode of an 
 Egyptian sarcophagus, and is probably an imita- 
 tion of that receptacle. In the form of this 
 receptacle there is nothing objectionable, and if 
 the popular taste wills that it shall be maintained, 
 so be it. But the structure must be so modified 
 that the instant the body is placed in the earth it 
 shall either be in direct contact with the sur- 
 rounding earthy matter or shall be separated 
 from it by some simple organic material that is 
 easily and rapidly destroyed. The newly pro- 
 posed wicker coffins would probably answer the 
 purpose intended, but they have the fault of 
 not being sufficiently destructible. A return to 
 the ancient bier and to the primitive mode of 
 simply enveloping the body in cloth would be 
 the most rational improvement. 
 
LI. 
 
 LEGISLATION AND GOOD WATER. 
 
 are certain common necessities of life 
 _1_ which, supplied from impure sources, are 
 the causes of many diseases, but which, supplied 
 from pure sources, are the great maintainers of 
 health. The grandest representative of these 
 common necessities is water, for the animal body 
 is made up of water more than of any other com- 
 pound that enters into its organic construction. 
 
 For this important, all-essential constituent, 
 water, we have had to depend hitherto on various 
 supplies ; on the rain that falls into the cistern ; 
 on the river that flows near our houses ; on the 
 wells that are sunken into the earth; on the rivu- 
 lets that flow out of rocks, or out of the earth 
 natural springs. Precisely as these sources have 
 been found for the convenience of the inhabitants, 
 they have been resorted to without any reference 
 whatever to the healthiness of the supply. 
 
 Not until these late years not, indeed, until 
 
326 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 Dr. Snow twenty-five years ago began to direct 
 the attention of the world to this all-important 
 subject, and to demonstrate by his wonderful 
 researches the fact of its importance did the 
 wisest of men look with any anxiety on water as- 
 a source of disease. Afterwards, when Snow 
 had made it appear most clear that cholera is 
 mainly dependent on an impure water supply, 
 the wider question of the whole influence of 
 water in the production of disease came forward 
 for discussion; old and half-forgotten truths- 
 began to be revived and put into their proper 
 place, and new truths soon burst into light. 
 The result has been to show that a large number 
 of diseases, which were originally supposed to 
 be due to some occult and unremovable cause,, 
 are due to the consumption of impure water. 
 Typhoid fever has been traced to water charged 
 with decomposing excreta, and, perhaps, other 
 organic decomposing substances, in the same 
 way as cholera has been traced to the consump- 
 tion of water holding in it the poison of cholera. 
 Goitre has been traced to the consumption of 
 water containing an excess of saline constitu- 
 ents. Ague has been traced to the drinking of 
 marshy water as its cause. Paralysis has been 
 found to occur from the dietetic use of a water 
 charged with lead derived from leaden pipes. 
 Diarrhoea and continued fever have been constantly 
 
LEGISLATION AND GOOD WATER. 327 
 
 discovered to arise from the swallowing of water 
 derived from wells contaminated with sewage or 
 the fluids from filthy drains and stagnant pools. 
 
 In these and some other directions, the con- 
 nection of acute and chronic diseases with the 
 water supply has been satisfactorily determined; 
 and now it is frequently asked, as it ought to be, 
 by the community generally, when the healthi- 
 ness of a place is under consideration, what is its 
 water supply. Every one, in fact, who knows 
 anything at all, is alive to the necessity for a 
 proper supply of the natural fluid aliment of man 
 and beast ; while the learned have so far advanced 
 in their knowledge as to be able to compute the 
 rate of healthiness of a place and the character of 
 some of its prevailing diseases by the examina- 
 tion of the water with which the people of the 
 place are regularly fed. With all this know- 
 ledge, general and special, it still remains too true 
 that the supplies of water throughout the country 
 are so uncertain and so often bad, that they are a 
 persistent cause of the most serious disease. The 
 health resorts of England, as they are called, and 
 as they would be truly called if they were pro- 
 perly fed with water, are amongst the worst oi 
 the water-contaminated centres. 
 
 To meet the dangers arising from supply of 
 impure water we have so far had to depend, 
 mainly, on the exertions of private companies, or, 
 
328 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 in rare instances, on the public enterprise of 
 municipal bodies. Some advance has been made 
 from these efforts, and sufficient has certainly 
 been effected to prove that in water supply, as in 
 everything else, " where there's a will there's 
 a way," that no barriers lie between healthy 
 men and healthy water which modern science 
 cannot overcome, and that the purest water 
 is a commodity to be ensured at a fair cost of 
 money, and the labour and skill which money 
 purchases. 
 
 It seems to me that at this crisis the legitimate 
 duty of the Government is to legislate on the 
 question of water supply. The Government now 
 knows, and the people know, what precisely is 
 wanted in respect to the maintenance of health 
 by water food. Both know the dangers that 
 belong to neglect on this great subject. Both 
 know equally well that supply of water to the 
 whole kingdom, to every city, town, village, 
 hamlet, separate mansion, lodge, is out of the 
 range of pure private enterprise, and cannot be 
 safely entrusted to an unlimited number of inde- 
 pendent companies, each liable to differ on 
 matters of science, economy, and method. Both, 
 therefore, should be of one mind to place the 
 government of the supply under strict legislative 
 enactment, so that every living centre should be 
 made certain of receiving this abundant gift of 
 
LEGISLATION AND GOOD WATER. 329 
 
 man in the condition fitted for the necessities of 
 all who live. 
 
 There are two processes by which the legisla- 
 ture may proceed to act on the matter of water 
 supply. It may declare what is a standard of a 
 pure water, and enforce, as is proposed, all 
 municipal and local boards to supply such water 
 to those whom they locally govern. It may take 
 the whole business in its own hands, as it has 
 the postal supply, and be itself responsible for 
 waterworks everywhere. I do not discuss the 
 merits of these respective systems. It is suffi- 
 cient to indicate that on this subject of health 
 it is time for the legislature to take up the cue 
 and make a good appearance. 
 
LIL 
 
 LEGISLATION AND STRONG DEINK. 
 
 TO see that the nation has a pure supply of 
 water is not more important than to ensure 
 that supplies of fatal drinks shall be at once 
 reduced and in the end abolished. For more 
 than a hundred and fifty years this question has 
 been before the legislature, and still the Lords 
 of the Privy Council might write by her Majesty's 
 command to the Custodes Eotulorum of the 
 several counties, precisely as the Lords of the 
 Privy Council wrote by his Majesty's command 
 on March 31st, 1743 " That the excessive 
 drinking of spirituous liquors has not been pre- 
 vented by former Acts of Parliament, but still 
 continues the same ; and it is complained of as 
 a custom destructive of the health, morals, 
 and industry of his Majesty's subjects, and to 
 the peace of his kingdom." 
 
 There are few now who do not admit the evil 
 that has to be legislated for, and the necessity of 
 
LEGISLATION AND STRONG DRINK. 331 
 
 immediate legislation none, except those who 
 are directly or indirectly profiting, or thinking 
 that they profit, by the sale of strong drink. 
 Every legislator who speaks deplores the evil, 
 and would, he says, fain crush it. Every candid 
 legislator knows that the nation is ready for the 
 gradual abolition of the trade in strong drink ; 
 yet not more than one in seven dares to insist 
 on legislative action, and no Government dares 
 to touch the question with a view to restrict the 
 sale of the most useless article at its best, and 
 the most fatal article at its worst, of all the 
 things on earth human beings buy and sell. 
 
 The future historian, watching the curious con- 
 test that is now in progress, and seeing its bear- 
 ings with a distinctiveness we cannot realise, 
 will have many speculations on the reason why 
 such a contest was so long on hand, and why the 
 greatest enemy of civilised man was allowed so 
 long a reign. He will probably come to the con- 
 clusion that the chief reason was of a physio- 
 logical character. He will say the generation 
 did not see the evil because they were born 
 to it, begotten in it, begotten upon it. The 
 degeneracy of liking the enemy had to be bred 
 out before a majority could exorcize it by the 
 action of their free-will. The time, I think, 
 approaches when the generation is sufficiently 
 changed to begin the process of exorcism. It 
 
332 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 only begin practically by legal enactment. 
 I know it will be said that such moral extension 
 of temperance as will give direction and power 
 to political movement might be expected to move 
 everything in due order and with due effect, 
 without the introduction of any one addition to 
 the statute book. I venture to think not. I 
 would be second to none in supporting moral 
 over coercive human law, in cultivating virtue, 
 if I may so say, by fashion rather than by penal- 
 ties and punishment. But in this drink question 
 the law, as it is, is hopelessly involved. The law 
 which should protect the nation from the folly 
 and crime of drink, if it did anything at all in 
 the matter, does actually legalise, and I am not 
 saying a word too much when I say patronises 
 and sustains, the evil. It exacts dues out of the 
 iniquity, and doubles the injury which the enemy 
 himself inflicts. It allows every temptation to 
 drink to stand forth in the public thoroughfares 
 to catch the ignorant and unwary. It trains the 
 ignorant, by these means, into drunkenness, robs 
 the man it trains of money for what are called 
 State purposes, punishes him if in his trained, 
 legally trained, madness he commits some offence 
 against society, and finally leaves him unprotected 
 from his own acts when his madness is fully con- 
 firmed. Can any system be worse than this ? Can 
 any system more urgently require reformation ? 
 
LEGISLATION AND STRONG DRINK. 333 
 
 It is not necessary to ask the legislature to 
 adopt any process for reducing the power and 
 efficiency of rational free-will, in asking it to do- 
 something to help those who are struggling 
 to put down the great crime of our age, and 
 who only fail to triumph because the legislative 
 machinery stands in the way. It is but neces- 
 sary to pray the legislature to remove its own 
 acts, by which it gives licenses to a large class 
 of men to traffic in alcohol, to the injury of 
 the national health, if they will but pay for 
 the licenses. The State surely can say we will 
 not take part in the wholesale disposal of an 
 article that is to be retailed for the life service of 
 none who buy it, but for the fatal service of the 
 many who buy. In this case, in fact, the State 
 has only to withdraw its protection to place 
 the drug alcohol in the same position as other 
 chemical bodies of the same class, to recognise 
 that death produced by alcohol is the same as 
 death produced by any other poisonous agent, 
 and to leave the use of this agent in the hands of 
 those who are learned enough to know how to 
 use it, if it be at any time a warranted necessity. 
 
 Presuming the State has not power to act 
 altogether in this concern, it should at least give 
 fair play to those advanced communities which 
 in their own spheres are anxious to legislate for 
 themselves, which beg for no more than that 
 
334 POLITICAL SANITATION. 
 
 they, by their free-will, may exclude an evil 
 they abhor, and which hope, by the example 
 they would set, to extend their movement until 
 the supreme will of the people shall emancipate 
 the legislator from all the peril and responsibility 
 of making the local the imperial policy of the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 For the due consideration of these contem- 
 plated measures, and for the due working of the 
 sanitary laws and regulations which already 
 exist, one great reform is required within the 
 Government itself. It is essential that there 
 should be a recognised minister of health holding 
 a seat in the Cabinet, and having a department 
 under him that shall be completely organized 
 for dealing with every matter pertaining to the 
 public health and life. At present sanitary 
 work is so chaotic the nation generally neither 
 appreciate the quantity nor the quality of the 
 work that is actually performed for it. The 
 Eegistrar- General is an important State sani- 
 tary officer. The President of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board is an important State sanitary 
 officer. The President of the Board of Works 
 is in some sense an important State sanitary 
 officer. The Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department is vested with duties which can only 
 be interpreted as sanitary. In this confusion 
 sanitation stands connected with legislation by 
 
LEGISLATION AND STRONG DRINK. 335 
 
 many loose ties, and is, according to the popular 
 mind, disconnected and inoperative. It has no 
 fixed place in the system of government, and 
 is treated consequently as if it had no fixed or 
 enduring importance. The consolidation of all 
 that now exists of official sanitary work into one 
 department, under the direction of a responsible 
 minister fitted by education for the ministerial 
 duties, would do more to bring the people to the 
 idea of sanitary science, as a distinctive part of 
 political science, than any step that has been 
 taken in the whole history of the country in 
 relation to its health. 
 
 We must probably wait long for sound legis- 
 lation on matters of health, for there is always 
 more tempting metal than health before the poli- 
 tician. But we must not therefore weary in 
 sanitary work. Each man and each woman is a 
 politician in the circle at home, and if each will 
 work intelligently in the million little centres 
 which under the name of home make up the 
 nation, the Minister of Health, who must one 
 day appear, will find his labours so much the 
 easier and his success so much the more certain 
 and honoured. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PB1NTBD BY VlfiTUB AND CO., LIMITED, CITT EOAD, LONDON. 
 
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