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7
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1873—4.
This disease has now been traced back to its lair, and the laws which govern it discovered.
Who, a few years ago would have thought, that the Milkman carried it in his
milk-can, and whilst delivering that innocent and nourishing fluid, he was at the same time
distributing this deadly disease. Yet so it was. This of course is not the only way in which
it is spread; water used for domestic purposes, and the air breathed, are two more highways
on which it travels, but which may be so thoroughly closed as to stop its fatal career.

The sixth Table shows the number of deaths that have happened from small-pox,
measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping-cough, diarrhoea, and fever, in each of the last
ten years,
Consumption has caused 129 deaths, one more than in the preceding year. This disease
used to head the death list, but it has only been second during the last two years,
bronchitis leading and to the extent of 55 deaths; in the year 1872-3, the excess was but
21. Probably, diseases once put down to consumption are now placed to chronic bronchitis;
both diseases being very like one another in one or more of their stages. Ee this as it may
the disease is most fatal, yet it comes within the list of the preventable. This, people will
not believe; anyhow, they continue to act as if they did not. The disease owes its rise from
breathing impure air, and from unwise marriages. This latter cause I dwelt upon in my
last Report. Who may count the thousands of deaths brought about by closed doors, closed
windows, fire boards, list and sand bags? All as deadly instruments as the rifle or the
sword, or the mitrailleuse; indeed far more so, as they are in constant operation. The air
with health on its wings, abounds outside, but the entrance to it within is "bann'd and
barred." Nothing can compensate for the want of fresh air; its purity and plenteousness,
are absolutely necessary for health. Humanity voluntarily bares its chest for the death
stroke, and our cemeteries and churchyards bear witness to the result. Deaths from consumption
arising from breathing air which has been breathed before, have emphatically
been proved. It would take too long, and I should weary your patience, by bringing before
you army statistics proving this fact; but the results they show are astounding and almost