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So, likewise, in still narrower limits—the predisposition
of a house to Cholera may be stated in the
same terms as define the liability of a district, viz.
that the humid gases of organic decomposition, in
proportion as they are breathed into one house in a
district more than into other houses there, will
engender the greater liability of that house, as
compared with its collaterals, to suffer an invasion
of Cholera. And thus it often happens, during
epidemic prevalence of the disease, that sporadic
cases are determined in localities which might
generally claim to be free from infection: for, what
avails it to be on the highest ground and the best
soil, with every neighbouring facility of sewers and
scavenage, if, owing to individual carelessness and
filth, the conditions of dampness and putridity are
by choice retained within a house, and its basement
flooded with rotting liquids, or piled with accumulated
refuse ?
I might give you many instances in illustration
of these points—showing you how, under the
operation of specific sanitary faults, the Choleramortality
of districts acquires an artificial exaltation:
but few comparisons will suffice. At the period of
the epidemic of 1849, your best conditioned subdistrict
was the north-west of the City of London
Union; and (among those of the same level) your
worst was the sub-district of Cripplegate, which at
that time was in a very unsatisfactory state, abounding
with open cesspools and their consequences. In