25
General considerations equ-
ally applying to all the fore-
going conditions.
30, With reference to all the foregoing, we think it may be now safely
asserted, that the conditions of the elements. Earth, Air and
Water, may tend essentially to regulate the pre-disposition or
otherwise of certain places to the reception of cholera; and
it will be found on examination to be equally certain, that the same principles
must be acted upon in each instance of an epidemic, in order to dissipate the disease
when once established. It will not therefore be necessary to repeat in each instance
the specific reasons upon which our suggestions are based, or the detailed arguments,
which point to the propriety of the remedial measures which should be adopted in
each separate instance.
31. Our endeavour is, rather to lay before Government a general outline of
preventive and curative measures, the details of which must be modified so as to suit
the various conditions under which this disease is witnessed.
General principles of pre-
vention widely applicable.
Air.
32. The purity of the Air; its sufficiency in quantity ; its free circulation,
both outside and inside all places of occupation ; the absence
from it of deleterious gases, and especially those arising from
the decomposition of organic matters, are all circumstances
conducive to a satisfactory condition of the public health and freedom from epidemic
diseases.
Water,
33. Water should be pure in quality, free from organic matter, and in suffi-
cient quantity : a failure in any of these respects is injuri-
ous to public health.
Soil.
34. The soil if impregnated by organic and more especially by excremen-
titious matter, acts injuriously on the health of those resid-
ing upon it; tends to render the water and the air impure ;
and should, as far as possible, be avoided for occupation.
Conclusions of the Confer-
ence on the foregoing-
35. The foregoing considerations apply equally to all places permanently
occupied by men, and to them all are applicable the three
following conclusions of the Cholera Congress :—
"1. The sanitary conservancy of towns is an efficacious means of opposing
the reception of cholera and of lessening its ravages.
" 2. This conservancy should be based chiefly on a combination of measures
tending to maintain the purity of the air, to supply the town with abundance of whole-
some water and to hinder the contamination of the ground with organic matters.
" 3. The immediate disinfection and the removal of excrementitious matters,
are sanitary measures of the highest importance, especially in times of cholera."
How these views should be
carried out.
36. The practical measures, the adoption of which seem most calculated to
secure the foregoing desiderata, are as follows, and are equally
applicable to all places permanently inhabited by man.
How to maintain the purity
of air in Cities, &c.
37. The prevention of overcrowding in inhabited buildings ; the due ventila-
tion of all cities and barracks by broad roads and open spaces
of ground between contiguous blocks of buildings ; the aboli-
tion of cesspits, heaps of sewage and surface impurities
generally; the rapid and inoffensive removal of all decomposing animal and vegetable