[Health and how to preserve it] / by John Haddon.

  • Haddon, John
Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Health and how to preserve it] / by John Haddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    each is, to a great extent, independent of his neighbour, but in a town, one house cannot harbour disease without endangering those around it through the atmosphere, and those at a distance even, through a defective system of drainage. Thus to preserve health I would observe, 7. THAT THE HOUSE YOU INHABIT MUST BE WELL BUILT, ON A GOOD PLAN, PROPERLY DRAINED, AND IN AS OPEN A SITUATION AS POSSIBLE, SO THAT THE AIR MAY CIRCULATE FREELY AROUND IT. If yo.u can find such a house, you are, as far as possible in a jown, independent of your neighbour. I fear it is too true that, as a rule, the houses occupied by the working classes are what i%re called jerry built. They are run up in a month or two. fhe drainage is considered a matter of no importance. They look pretty well, and as the demand is great, they are quickly let. But nodce the result. Soon the te.nant or his innocent child, throu-^h the thin damp walls (which allow heat and cold to affect their inmates almost as much as if they hved under canvas) catches cold : rheumatism, inflammation of the lungs, or some allied disease, is set up; and if he survives, it is to be an invalid for l,fe At a later period, through defective drainage, scarlet or typhoid fever breaks out, and the whole family is laid up. After a protracted illness, some die, and those that are lett remain weak and feeble for many a day. The family, by the necessarv expenses incurred d^iring the illness is left m debt which cripples it for years. This is a melancholy picture but it is not overdrawn. I have known such cases, and they are common. ^, „„„^,-;m. These facts may then serve to impress upon you the necessity of choosing a proper house in which to dwell. If you, as working In, would not encourage the erection of such dangerous house^ by refusing to inhabit them, you might improve both the healtti and the morality of the community. In looking out for a house the attention of the working man j should be directed to the following rules:—
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