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otherwise result in future years from the substitution of a space
occupied by oxygen and ozone-destroying people, fires and gas,
in the place of oxygen and ozone producing open country. It is
true that carbonic acid readily interchanges with the other constituents
of the air, but the aqueous vapour given off by the
lungs and skin, which is highly charged with effete animal
matter, is not so readily removed, by oxydation or otherwise, from
the dwellings and localities where it is exhaled. It is this
necessity for the oxydation of animal matter when in a state of
change which renders pure air, containing ozone, so necessary for
robust health. As ozone is very rarely indeed met with in the
air of those localities which are situated at a distance from the sea
or the open country, and as ozone is by far the most powerfully
oxydizing agent in the air, we must expect that density of population
will exercise such a prejudicial influence on the sickness
and death-rate of a population as no sanitary means at present in
use can avert.
There are, however, numerous other causes which affect the
death-rate of a population besides those mentioned, although none
act so powerfully as density of population or overcrowding.
Thus we find, as a rule, in overcrowded localities that the
inhabitants are poor, and consequently do not obtain the necessary
medical and other comforts in sickness ; the children are improperly
fed, badly attended to, and insufficiently clad; the houses
are often damp and draughty, and the sanitary arrangements
defective or out of order. Many, also, of the inhabitants follow
unhealthy occupations, and, what is far worse, take too much
drink. The statistics of crime and of the duty paid on fermented
liquors show the enormous increase in the quantity of drink consumed
and consequent drunkenness during late years. This
excess of drink beyond what the body can throw off, without
injury to the organs concerned in eliminating it, is I believe one
of the chief causes of the high death-rate, not only of adults but
of young children, in densely populated localities. I do not think
that the quantity of drink consumed by the working classes
residing in this district is to be compared with that taken in