The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-30 00:00:00

wrangle and dispute among themselves concerning
the pathology of many diseases, they are completely
in accord in respect to the typhoid and choleraic
complaints which are apt to prevail at this season.
Guardians of the public health acknowledge, as a
matter too obvious for dispute, that, given pure air
and pure ingesta, these classes of maladies can be,
not wholly warded off indeed, but prevented, assum-
ing the proportion of epidemic scourges. Thus,
prevention seems to resolve itself into conditions of
breathing, eating, drinking, and avoiding. Of
these, the breathing function is the one that con-
cerns the hygienic physician most. People are apt
to pay little regard to influences that they cannot
see—influences which in many cases are not appre-
ciable to any of the senses. For this reason, the
supplying of pure air becomes a matter of more
imminent public importance than the supplying of
pure victuals. Of late the public has come to have
some due regard for invisible pests wafted atmo-
spherically, in proof of which we need only cite the
abolition of cesspools and the prosecution of the
main drainage scheme. One by one noxious
manufactures have had an onslaught made upon
them. War has been waged against intra-urban
knackers' yards and manure factories ; bone-boiling
establishments have been forced, in many cases, to
migrate ; smoke has been diminished to the point of.
admitting the blooming of roses in the Temple-
gardens—not, however, that smoke is chargeable..
with any great meed of hygienic wrong. Grave-
yard pumps have been locked up, and city grave-
yards themselves are lying undisturbed by sexton's
spade and mattock. Altogether, we are improving
in the matter of atmospheric hygiene ; but there yet
remain pest-generating inconsistencies strangely at
variance with the general recognition of the value
of pure air; and, not least among these, one which
came under the notice of Mr. Humphreys, the coro-
ner, at Bethnal-green on Monday, and a report of
which we published yesterday. The object of that
inquest was to ascertain the cause of death of a child
named Cannell, who is said to have sickened from
the breathing of foul air emanating from receptacles
of putrid blood, employed by sugar refiners. Inso-
much as the inquest stands adjourned, we have no
right to anticipate or .prejudice the verdict. It
would be altogether an abuse of evidence to state
that the child's death was from the cause alleged ;
but knowing something about these receptacles for
putrid blood—technically called by the sugar re-
finers " spice"—we consider we are only indicating
an obvious fact, and acquitting ourselves of an act
of common justice to the community, by protesting
against their existence in a densely-crowded neigh-
bourhood at this malarious season. In kgraveyard
the festering remains are at least buried—covered
with earth—and the purifying influence of earth is
all but magical ; but in the establishments where-
blood is collected in tanks to await the sugar re-
finer's convenience the process of corruption takes
place unchecked. There blood—the most readily
putrescent part of animals—is subjected to condi-
tions favouring its putrescence in the highest degree.
The air is laden with noxious particles which go wafted
on the breeze God knows whither, after wreaking the
full measure of their evil on the ill-fed squalor hard
by. Again, we say, this protest against the " spice"
tanks down east, in Bethnal-green and other neigh-
bourhoods adjoining the great sugar refineries, has
only a collateral reference to the' death of young
Cannel. That event, however, naturally prompts,
to the advice which we now tender—namely, that
the local officers of health see to .the abomination
without delay. It would be consistent with the dic-
tates of sound hygienic principles if " spice" collec-
tors were obliged to change their premises to some.
suburban site, not' temporarily, but wholly ; for`
although the maximum evil of their calling developes
itself just now, yet at no season can.the presence of
large masses of blood in any densely populated
neighbourhood be other than prejudicial. It is not
without some effort that the mind of an individual;
unacquainted' with the practice of sugar refining,
can realise to itself the presence of such an abomin-
ation as putrid blood in a..manufaCtory having to
deal with such a seemingly refined article of food as
sugar. The fact is, however, that many refineries
(not all) are, on account of the presence and the use
of this agent, more disgusting to the sense of smell
than any slaughter-house. • Professedly, all sugflr
refined for exportation to Mohammedan nations IS
manufactured without blood ; and this being so, we
may be ptrdoned for expressing a wish that sugar
refiners would-treat their Christian purchasers more
like Christians. Be this as it may, reservoirs of
putrid blood should no longer be allowed to exist.
festering in Bethnal-green or any similar thickly'
populated locality at this season.