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mischief in all its magnitude, and we pass it by as
a thing of but little moment. It is not so with the
sudden flash of an epidemic. The quick sacrifice
of a few thousand lives rouses us from our thoughtless
abstractions, and tells us how great is the danger
of neglecting our sanitary defences; but no epidemic,
even in its most violent manifestation, can
equal in its aggregate results the terrible mischief
that is done by the slow and continued working of
these endemic influences; and no district can be
regarded as safe where the health of the people is
sapped, as it is here, and where the children are
bom, as it were, only to destruction. And this is
not all, for it is in such places that the seeds of
epidemic diseases are always lurking. There it is
they wait for some last condition that is necessary
to their activity; and, when once they have burst
into life, it is there also they find the right soil for
their continued growth and development; and
then, like rank weeds, they spread fast and far into
the cleaner ground of the neighbouring districts.
When this happens, we are earnest enough in our
endeavours to root them out, and we vainly regret
that we had not crushed them in the germ.
As to the nature of the diseases which are nurtured
in such districts, you will see by the table
that they are fever, consumption, and a whole group
of infantile maladies. In all England the mortality
from fever does not exceed 4 per cent, of the deaths.