Observations on foul water irrigation, founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity / [William Tait].

  • Tait, William
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on foul water irrigation, founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity / [William Tait]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It may be argued, on the other hand, that it may he all quite true, that marsh miasm does not produce continued fevers, but that animal rniasm is an active agent in the production of that particular form of fever. This opinion, although countenanced by the high authority of Dr Southwood Smith, is only partially true. We have equal respect for all opinions, it matters not from what quarter they come, that come to us unsupported by facts. That miasm or effluvia, arising from a person labouring under disease, will produce disease in others, we readily ad¬ mit; but that effluvia or gases arising from the decomposition of animal matter will have the same effect, remains to be proved. As the latter differ from the former in their nature and properties, so will they differ in their effects. The difference between animal miasm and putrefactive gases must be carefully observed. The former arise only from the body in a state of specific disease, and are never formed in the dead body. Putrefactive gases are not per se in any degree poisonous, but prove hurtful only by exciting disgust.* It was the opinion of the late Dr * Dr Ferguson observes, “ That at the town of Point au Pitre, Guadaloupe, which is situated amidst some of the most putrid marshes in the world, the stench of which is almost never absent from the streets, the place was far from being uniformly unhealthy. Strangers, however much they might be annoyed with the smell, often resorted to it witli impunity. A fact of the same kind has been observed in the Island of Tobago. The principal fort and barrack of the colony has been placed immediately to the leeward of the Bacolette swamp, within the distance of half-a-mile, and the strong amnio- niacal stench of its exhalations, even at that distance, often pollutes the bar¬ racks ; but these are so far from producing fever at all times, that when I visited the white garrison there, they had been more remarkably exempt from that form of disease for several years than any other troops in the West Indies. I shall not multiply facts and illustrations of the same kind to prove that putrefaction and the matter of disease are altogether distinct and inde¬ pendent elements ; that the one travels beyond the other without producing the smallest bad effect; and that, however frequently they may be found in company, they have no necessary connection.”—Trans. of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Yol. IX. p. 281-2. “ The atmosphere of the slaughter-house, though sufficiently disgusting to the nose, does not appear to be at all injuiious to health. The mere odours of animal substances, whether fresh or putrid, are not apparently hurtful; indeed, they seem to be often decidedly useful. Consumption is remarkably rare among the men employed in the slaughter-house. If we see a phthe- sical youth in the fraternity, we shall generally find that his parents, aware of an hereditary disposition to consumption, brought him up to the business with the hope of averting this formidable malady. The atmosphere of the slaughter-house, imbued with a foreign admixture, is, moreover, less suscep¬ tible of those natural changes which produce epidemics. From this circum¬ stance, butchers are less subject, than other trades, to Cholera and Dysentry. To the same favourable combination, we attribute their comparative exemp¬ tion from diseases, considered as infectious or contagious.”—Thackrah on the Effects of Ails, Trades, and Professions on Health and Lovgivity, p. 11.