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7 and 8; in Dulwich not one death was due to zymotic causes,
in Peckham and St. George's though deaths from these causes
were not excessive, still they were numerous. Now the healthiness
of Dulwich is not merely apparent, it is real, for the
returns from it for years past have proved it to he pre-eminently
healthy among the districts of the metropolis. How is this ?
How is it that Dulwich should be so favored above the
other sections of this large Parish ? Again, Camberwell, in common
with the other southern districts, suffers so severely from
cholera during epidemic outbreaks of that disease, and has in
cousequence obtained such an unenviable reputation for
general unhealthiness, that a recent writer in "The Times,"
expressing no doubt the prevailing sentiment, suggests that,
because the Registrar General in his last annual abstract did
not allude to them, it might, therefore, be taken for granted
that they maintained their pre-eminence as the seats of fever
and cholera. How is this ?
The solution of these queries, momentous though they be,
is easy and lies on the surface. Dulwich is more healthy than
the other portions of the parish, because it stands on higher
ground, because, in consequence of this, it enjoys a natural
drainage and a purer air, because it is more thinly peopled, and
because its inhabitants are for the most part wealthy or well
to do, and able to surround themselves with comforts which
promote health and soften the severity of disease. Cholera
has proved so peculiarly fatal, partly because of the foul water
which the water companies forced us to imbibe, but chiefly on
account of the want of drainage, under which the greater part
of the parish labours.
On each of the conditions, which I have just pointed out as
combining to produce comparative unhealthiness in our low
lying districts, and to intensify the attacks of cholera, I would
wish before concluding to offer a few remarks.
Density of population.—The degree of crowding to which a
population is subject must clearly, other things being equal,
exercise great influence over the health of that population.
In all Camberwell there are 12.6 persons to an acre. In
three parishes only, Lewisham, Wandsworth and Hampstead,
is there a thinner population than is indicated by these figures.
In all the other parishes of London, the population is more