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26
SOIL.
"A doctrine has been advanced as
to the relationship of the soil and
its nature to outbreaks of the
malady by Professor pettenkofer,
of Munich, of as great importance
practically, if substautiated as Dr.
Snow's theory of the propagation of
the disease by the drinking water.
ProfessorPettcnkofer maintains that
a certain condition of soil is necessary
to the development of epidemic
Cholera in a locality. This
soil, he holds, must be porous and
permeable to water and air. It
must be charged with organic, especially
excrementitious matter".
In thus quoting this statement of the
Professor's views from Mr. Radclille's
Report, he proposes his objections,
observing that the Cholera
"had an obvious relation to houses
and not to soils."
water, the inhabitants were partially
surrounded by a winding of
the Thames, and then the ebb and
flow of the tide, and the thorough
exposure on all sides to the atmospheric
currents, acted fully as a
compensation. Houses on the river
side are notorious for their exemptions
from all zymotic disease.
REMARKS.
There is nothing new to me in
the views of Professor Pettenkofer,
with the exception of restricting the
poison not to the subsoil, but to the
subsoil water. As an Officer of
Health, I have for years been in
the habit of tracing fever principally
to the soil, largely impregnated
with organic and excrementitious
matter ; in ordinary, moderate seasons
comparatively innoccuous, but
which in a hot summer, with no
wind and no rain, is certain to become
the deadliest source of mischief
to the inmates, by the foul exhalations,
and in this way engendering
pestilence, and intensifying all other
diseases.
Mr. Badcliffe says it (the "explosion")
had an obvious relation
not to soils, but to houses. In my
opinion it had all to do with the
houses in connection with the soils
(surface). This union, as a rule,
was almost invariable.