A resumé of the history of hygiene : being the introductory lecture to a course on hygiene and public health, delivered at University College, London, May 10th, 1870 / by W.H. Corfield.

  • William Henry Corfield
Date:
[1870]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A resumé of the history of hygiene : being the introductory lecture to a course on hygiene and public health, delivered at University College, London, May 10th, 1870 / by W.H. Corfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    19/22 page 17
    predisposed to tubercle or to scrofulous disease because the one or the other has occurred among his near relations ; and in many cases, by careful attention to his mode of life and avoidance of excesses, he may ward off indefinitely the fearful disease with which he is threatened. As yet we know little or nothing of the causes of such diseases ; but it is certain that bad hygienic conditions favour the development of several of them, and may in many cases be the direct causes of them. One point should be noted ; it is that the intermarriage of families in which one of these diseases exists, favours its development, and should there- fore be avoided. I should not fulfil my task to-day did I not refer to a class of dis- eases only too widely spread, unfortunately, among all ranks of society. Here is a wide field for wise preventive legislation ! I know that many well-meaning but misguided people would tell you that such diseases as syphilis and its congeners are the just punishment of immoral con- duct, and that therefore, forsooth, they must be allowed to spread them- selves, unchecked, among the population of our land. This is certainly not the hygienist's way of looking at it ; and, let us hope, not the law- giver's, for it is to him that we must look for the carrying out of such measures as may be considered necessary for the subjection of this for- midable enemy of society. In the civilised condition of man, new discoveries are made every day, and new methods for the employment of labour arise. Each of these entails a special kind of work, and exposes to particular dangers. Need I call to your minds the well-known instances of the special anjemia of miners, the phthisis of stonemasons, the jaw-caries of phos- phorous-match makers, the palsies of workers with lead, with mercury, and with bisulphide of carbon? And so hygiene, being the study of the prevention of disease, gets fresh branches added daily to its already enormous superstructure, and follows the arts in their progress, indi- cating at each step the precautions to be taken to avoid the spread of disease and death. From its very nature, hygiene interests all classes of society; but it is to those who are worst off, the poorest and most wretched, that it must direct its first attention. Civilisation has its evils as well as its advantages, as Bouchardat has well remarked ; and one of the greatest of them is the over-crowding of people in the great centres of popula- tion, with the misery and disease which are the results of it. It is to better constructed houses for the working classes, to a free supply of good water, and to satisfactory sewerage arrangements, that D
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3