Life in one room, or, Some serious considerations for the citizens of Glasgow : a lecture delivered to the Park Parish Literary Institute, Glasgow on 27th February, 1888 / by James B. Russell, M.D., LL.D., Medical Officer of Health for the City of Glasgow.
- Russell, James Burn, 1837-1904.
- Date:
- 1888
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Life in one room, or, Some serious considerations for the citizens of Glasgow : a lecture delivered to the Park Parish Literary Institute, Glasgow on 27th February, 1888 / by James B. Russell, M.D., LL.D., Medical Officer of Health for the City of Glasgow. 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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![a typical illustration. Throughout the community as a whole, infection, which means the passage of a material something from person to person, must take place in proportion to their average proximity. If that is in Glasgow 8 yards and in Edinburgh 10, then the chances favourable to infection in Glasgow must be in that proportion greater than in Edinburgh, unless indeed by greater care in the treatment of cases of in- fectious disease we diminish those chances. Now let us turn to the class of facts upon which Mr. Bright touched. As a matter of fact, the population is not equally distributed over the area of any city. The space m which people really live—that space the extent of which most in- fluences their health and comfort, and even conditions the moral relations of their lives—is the space which is their own, viz their house-room. The extent of this space or the size of the house determines the local density. While the average densityftf all Glasgow is 84 persons per acre, the local density varies from 25 to 348, in the 24 sanitary districts into which the city is divided. You can apply for yourselves to these facts all that 1 have said as to the evils of density. If we classify all the houses in Glasgow, we find that m every 100 there are 30 of only one apartment, 44 of only two apart- ments, 15 of three, and only 5 of five apartments, and up- wards' This enormous proportion of small houses will suffi- ciently explain the low average rental of a Glasgow house. The hovels of the East completely swamp the palaces of the West, and produce an average of only £11 6s. 9d. The size of this average house is only 2'3 rooms, each occupied by 2 persons fully (->042). The highest average of rooms per house m an] district is a little over 4 (4'046); the lowest considerably under 2 (1 070). The highest average of inmates per room is about •>, (2-94); the lowest 1J (1-25). I am unable to give you parallel statements regarding any other city, because the data have not been worked out. Indeed, the materials do not exist excepting for Glasgow, so that I may ask you to note tins fact tint the authorities of Glasgow have a minute knowledge ol the physical condition of their people which no other authori- ties possess, and therefore ignorance cannot be *ta ex enu- atioif'of any backwardness in improving this condition. 1 can](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21450912_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
