On the health of towns : as influenced by defective cleansing and drainage. And on the application of the refuse of towns to agricultural purposes / Being a lecture delivered at the Russell Institution, May 5, 1846.

  • William Augustus Guy
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the health of towns : as influenced by defective cleansing and drainage. And on the application of the refuse of towns to agricultural purposes / Being a lecture delivered at the Russell Institution, May 5, 1846. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tivators of land so far as to observe that the value attached to the refuse of towns, coupled with the proved possibility of applying it to the land with an economy at present unknown, and, by the great majority of persons not even imagined, is calculated to remove such appre¬ hensions, and to place beyond the reach of doubt the power of England to compete in agriculture as in ma¬ nufactures with the most favoured nations of the world. To establish this position is one of the objects of this evening’s lecture, in the course of which I hope to be able to show that the principal cause of the unhealthi¬ ness of towns is to be found in the presence of those very substances which, if applied to the land, would endue it with inexhaustible fertility, that health and plenty are thus indissolubly united, and that we have it in our power, at the same time that we are effecting a great economy, to confer an immense benefit on every class of the community. These leading statements resolve themselves into a series of subordinate propositions, which may be briefly stated thus. 1. That towns are unhealthy; 2. That one of the leading causes of their unhealtliiness is defective cleansing and drainage; and 3. That the refuse of towns, which, when allowed to accumulate within their precincts, impairs the health of their in¬ habitants, and gives rise to severe and fatal diseases, may be most advantageously applied to agricultural purposes. I shall address myself to each of these propositions in turn. And first, as to the fact that towns are un¬ healthy.