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9
deep alarm that has lately agitated the public mind.
To determine the true causes of the sickness and mortality
that impair the strength of the community, is an
object of such paramount importance that every theory
professing to account for this sickness and mortality,
ought to be rigidly scrutinized. For if we hastily accept
a specious theory, our attention is likely to be diverted
from the real causes; and the action of sanitary administration
will be turned into a false, perhaps disastrous,
direction.
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It is still pertinaciously urged that the emanations
from the river are the fertile source of disease throughout
the metropolis, and it is inferred that the interception
of the sewage in main-drains for discharge below
the town, will both cleanse the metropolitan part of
the river, and improve the health of the metropolis. I
need not point out that even if the first proposition
were granted, the second would not necessarily follow.
On the contrary, it appears to be almost a matter of
certainty, that the connection of the existing sewers
with gigantic main-drains of small inclination, and in
which, consequently, the sewage in summer-time could
have but a sluggish flow, would be attended by an
enormous aggravation of the nuisance we now experience
from the reflux of sewage gases in a concentrated
form into our streets and houses. It may well be that
the remedy would prove worse than the disease.