The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-21 00:00:00

lying diqtrictq, placing in many instances the land con-
tiguous to towns, and beyond the usual range of town
drain 1.7 e, alnio,t Hi the condition of marshes. The exha-
lations arising from a surface thus saturated often with
water, holding decomposing matter in solution, spread
to the towns and affect the inhabitants, however
well drained the immediate sites of the towns may be.
The General Board were so apprehensive that disease
would be extensively produced by this unusual and dan-
gerous state of a large portion of the country (an appre-
hension which was subsequently realised by the breaking
out of disease, allied in character to cholera, in sixty
towns), that in their notification, issued in December,
1852, they represented to local authorities that this
calamity afforded a special occasion for administering
extraordinary assistance to the poor, to enable them to
keep large fires in their rooms, to protect themselves
from cold and damp by warm clothing, to sustain their
strength by a solid and nutritive diet, and to counteract
the predisposition to disease induced under these pecu-
liar circumstances, by suitable tonics and other remedies,
under medical direction. This representation was made
when there was a threatening of the return of cholera ;
it is now amongst us, and the General Board would re-
mind the affluent, that the opportune supply to their
poorer neighbours and dependants of wholesome food,
warm clothing, and bedding, and even such remedies
(to be always in readiness) as their medical attendant
may recommend for loosenese of bowels, is charity in
the truest sense, and may be the means of saving many
lives. It is also much to be desired, and the General
Board would strongly recommend, that the higher
classes should co-operate with the clergy, who have
done so much to promote the object of the legislature,
under the Public Health Act, in making frequent visits
among the poor, and impressing upon them the im-
portance of following the instructions here laid down,
with reference to which there is a perfect accordance
between the College of Physicians and the General
Board of Health.
In conclusion, after the large experience of this dis-
ease which has been obtained since the General Board
of Health issued their first notification (1848), they can
now repeat with greater confidence what they then
urged, that, formidable as this malady is in its intense
form and developed stage, there is no disease against
which it is in our power to take such effectual precau-
tion, both as collective communities and private indi-
viduals, by attention to it in its first or premonitory
stage, and by the removal of those agencies which are
known to propagate the spread of all epidemic diseases,
or where that may be impracticable by removal from
them. Though, therefore, the issues of events are not
in our bands, there is ground for hope, and even confi-
dence, in the sustained and resolute employment of the
of the means of protection which experience and sci-
ence have now placed within our reach.
By order of the General Board of Health,
(Signed) CHARLES MACAULAY, Secretary.

NEWCASTLE.
DEATHS IN NEWCASTLE, SEPT. 19.

Cholera
Diarrhoea

DEATHS IN GATESHEAD.

Cholera
Diarrhoea...

Two of the most overcrowded churchyards were
closed on Saturday, on the official requisition of Mr.
Grainger, and three others will be closed under the Pro-
vincial Interments Act of last session by Dr. Sutherland,
the officer charged by the Home-office, under the act,
to inspect and report on burial-grounds. One of the
most overcrowded of the many overcrowded ladging-
houses having been certified by Mr. Grainger and Dr.
Hector Gavin (who has been sent to Newcastle by the
General Board to assist Mr. Grainger) to be unfit for
human habitation, has been closed, and its inmates re-
moved to the House of Refuge. It is to be ear-
nestly hoped that the same course will be taken
with other houses of the same character, when the tents
which were yesterday despatched, have been made avail-
able. An aunt of the mayor of the town has fallen a
victim to the epidemic, which among other indications
of its unprecedented virulence, attacks the upper and
middle as well as the lower classes. Mr. Grainger
arrived yesterday in London for consultation with the
General Board of Health, leaving Mr. Hector Gavin in
charge of the arrangements at Newcastle, with Dr.
Waller Lewis, both of whom had very great experience
under the General Board in the outbreak of 1848 and
1849.