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be pronounced generally detrimental to the public health. The
greater number are kept in the East Ward, where there is
sufficient space to allow the effluvium belonging to such places
to be effectively diluted by the atmosphere.
More offensive odour appears to proceed from the distillers'
wash and brewers' grains, which are used for feeding the
animals, than from the cows themselves. There is probably less
effluvium proceeding from a cow than from any other animal of
equal bulk and producing an equal quantity of manure and
refuse litter. Sheep and horses, both of them herbivorous,
have each a peculiar odour, that belonging to the former is
especially unpleasant. That proceeding from cows is usually
spoken of as agreeable, and giving an idea of sweetness and
cleanness rather than of offensive filth. Notwithstanding, in
close and densely-populated places I believe it impossible for
cows to be kept so clean as to be quite consistent with the best
state of public health. If it were not that the remark is so
frequently made to me, that the smell of a cow-house and of
cows is healthy, and even a good remedy for some complaints,
especially consumption, I should not think it worth while to
notice it; and I only now avail myself of this opportunity to
state that such a supposition has no foundation whatever in
fact, in consequence of the general belief in the error.
Nearly all the causes which produce and aggravate disease,*
arc to be found in full and combined operation in many
* The following are the principal causes which produce and aggravate
disease:—
1.—Want of drainage (surface and sewerage);
2.—Uncleanliness of houses;
3.—Dampness, and bad repair;
4.—Want of ventilation;
5.—Atmospheric pollution;
1, fermenting rubbish,
2, escape of gas from sewers, cesspools, &c.
3, emanations from noxious trades;
6.—The use of improper food and water;
7.—Over-crowding of dwellings;
8.—Deficient water supply.
These are so evidently that which I have stated them to be, that I need do no
more than enumerate them.