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33
II. The Causes and the Prevention of
Endemic Disease.
According to the method adopted in my last
Annual Report, I now proceed to offer you such
observations as another year's experience may justify,
on those physical influences which prevail
against life within the City of London, and on those
remedial measures which seem aptest to remove
them.
A. Sub-soil Drainage, House-Drainage, and
Sewerage.
1. In respect of drainage, I have already adverted
to those unwholesome conditions which prevail
along the low-lying valley of the ancient Fleet,
and have mentioned to you that frequent incursions
of the river aggravate whatever mischief is inherent
in the soil, by maintaining it as a perpetual
swamp, and by favoring in it a constant succession
of putrefactive changes. I have likewise illustrated
to you the probability that, in some of the higher
portions of the City, chiefly in the Out-Wards of
Cripplegate and Bishopsgate, there still survive
some properties of that old malarious fen, from which
these districts were originally reclaimed. Stow