View report page

6
scholars; at the same time bills and placards were
distributed and posted throughout the Hamlet, containing
plain and concise recommendations for the prevention
and suppression of epidemic diseases, this plan
is still continued, and, I believe, has been the means of
doing much good.
Causes of Disease.
It is far easier to discover and remove the primary
or generating causes of these diseases, than it is to
check their spread by infection and contagion. For
example, in three instances in which scarlatina had been
especially fatal — George Place, Diamond Row, and
Frimly Street—foul, obstructed, and very offensive
drains were discovered under the basement floors
of the houses. The necessary remedial works, and
sanitary measures were at once carried out, and the
disease did not spread in the locality immediately surrounding.
In what may be termed "spontaneous outbreaks"
of scarlatina, I have invariably been able to
trace the cause to a similar origin, and I have little
doubt that the primary causes of ordinary epidemic diseases
emanate from similar subterranean sources.
In London and most old towns, the dwellings are
surrounded or undermined by old, obstructed, or disused
drains, similar to the examples I have given, containing
stagnant filth of the foulest description, and it
is only a question of time for the maturation of the
the disease virus and degree of facility for its escape
into the air we breathe, or possibly the water we
drink, or may be contact with the food we eat, for the
inevitable production of some fatal blood poison
disease.
These decayed old sewers and drains are the most
prolific sources of disease, their power for mischief
being enhanced by their close relationship with the
houses they were formerly intended to serve.