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with part of Shadwell, are girded in by the Thames, forming a semicircle,
and then intersected by the London Docks, so that the greater
portion forms a kind of island. And it is this peninsular arrangement,
and this alone, I consider, that affords a key to the elucidation.
For the river, polluted as it is with organic impurities, I am not disposed
to regard as so detrimental to the public health, so poisonous on
its borders, and so calculated to engender disease as it is commonly
believed. On the contrary, since the completion of the house-drainage,
that great destroyer of zymotic poison, although this has of course
greatly contaminated the river, yet by the removal of stagnant
sources of contagion, especially among the abodes of the poorer portion
of the community, it has, in my opinion, backed by that of others of
great experience, totally changed the prevalence and character of
disease.
I have before me at this moment, the list of all the zymotic
diseases in the district, with the abodes where they were fatal; and
the most striking circumstance I notice is, the rarity of any death of
this description to be found near the water's edge. I see, moreover,
that this class of diseases increases in amount and intensity just in
proportion as they are remote from the tidal influence. While in
Wapping, surrounded as it were by water, there has not been a single
death from fever (proper) and but 1 death from diarrhœa (an infant 14
days old), and this too throughout the year.

The contrast in the numbers can scarcely foil to strike even an
indifferent observer,—a contrast which is not to be explained by the