Annual address : on the shortcoming of some modern sanitary methods / delivered by George Vivian Poore.

  • George Vivian Poore
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual address : on the shortcoming of some modern sanitary methods / delivered by George Vivian Poore. 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.

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    diseases for the Strand is more than double tliat of Dorsetshire, a fact which is not to be wondered at in a population, the bulk i)f whom only bi'eathe ])urc air upon the rarest occasions, and who habitually breathe an air so foul that the sun often fails to penetrate it, and Avhich is fatal to almost all flowers and a large proportion of trees. To me one of the saddest indications of the dismal state of this overgrown city is the appeal, which is now so common in the newspapers, for funds to give poor London children one day in the country, with of course the not immaterial deduction of the hours spent in going and returning. These tables may serve to dispel another popular fallacy, viz., that the sulphur-laden air of London has antiseptic powers, and helps to check zymotic disease. As a fact those zymotic diseases which presumably travel through the air (Small-pox, Whooping Cough, and Measles), are particularly rife in London. The death-rate from these three causes was during 1871-80 :— In London. Dorsetshire. Small-pox ... 0-44 ... 0-09 Measles ... 0-51 ... 0'20 Whooping cough 0*81 ... 0*29 1-76 0-58 In fact the mortality caused probably by air-borne germs was exactly three times as great in London as in the healthy country district which I have chosen for comparison. I have endeavoured to show that the admixture of water with putrescible matter is inadmissible. 1. Because it is antagonistic to a law of nature, encouraging putrefaction and delaying nitrification, and there can be no successful antagonism to nature. 2. Because the putrefaction set up in cesspools and sewers by mixing w^ater with putrescible matter has been a direct cause of much disease. 3. Because the practice involves the most perfect dissemina- tion of disease particles, and a neglect of the great principle, '•^principiis ohsta. 4. Because it is the great cause of the fouling of rivers and wells, and makes the obtaining of pure water increasingly difficult. 5. Because it is financially and economically disastrous, crip- pling the ratepayers and exhausting the land. 6. Because it is one of the chief causes of overcrowding, the greatest of all sanitary evils. °