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supreme importance, in reference to any such
visitation as we dread, that, during the next twelve
months, there should be taken every precaution
which technical knowledge can suggest, for restricting,
even by palliative and temporary expedients,
those mischievous effects which I have endeavoured
to illustrate.
In describing to you the local affinities of cholera,
I have intimated that, in its preference for our low
metropolitan levels, it selects these soils specifically
in respect of their being damp with organic putrefaction.
A moment's consideration will suffice to
show that, if this be true, the higher levels of the
metropolis will be exempt from the disease, only in
proportion as they exempt themselves from the local
conditions which invite it—only in proportion as
they avail themselves of those natural advantages
which their situation enables them to command.
Let a district be defective in house-drainage, so that
its soil is excavated by cesspools and sodden by
their soakage; let its sewers be ill-constructed and
foul, so that offensive gases are ventilated into the
immediate breathing-air of the inhabitants; let its
pavement be absent or imperfect, scattered with
refuse and puddled with water;—you will easily
conceive that, under these circumstances, all distinctions
of level are merged in the strong identity
of filth, and whatever diseases belong to putrefactive
dampness of soil will strike here as readily as on the
low-lying mud-banks of the river.