The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-05 00:00:00

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

The following is the quarterly return of the Mar-
riages, Births, and Deaths registered in the divi-
sions, counties, and districts of England, published
by the authority.of the Registrar-General :
" General Register-office, Somerset-house, Feb. 1.
" This return comprises the births and deaths re-
gistered by 2,107 registrars in the districts of Eng-
land during the autumn quarter that ended Dec. 31,
1858 ; and the marriages in 12,332 churches or
chapels, about 4,043 registered places of worship
unconnected with the Established Church, and 630
superintendent. registrar's offices, in the quarter
that ended Sept. 30, 1858.
" The returns present an unfavourable aspect of
the country. The marriages are below the average;
and the deaths in the quarter are much above the
average number. On this account, and on account
of the increase of population, it has never before
happened that so many deaths were registered in
any autumn quarter as were registered in the last
three months of the year 1858. The birth rate was
slightly above the average of the season.
" The returns of the year 1858 show an excess of
mortality in the six cold months, while the morta-
lity in spring and. summer was below the average.
1858 was an unhealthy year ; and the birth rate
was slightly below the average.
•

the fatal neglect of the sanitary arrangements
which are required in every district, and are indis-
pensable in densely-peopled cities. These 100,620
deaths may be called unnatural deaths, of which
about 69,730 happened in the large town districts,
and 30,890 in the rest of the kingdom. This is a
sad reckoning, but it is an under-statement of the
facts.*
" The Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council,
having under the Public Health Act the power to
institute local sanitary inquiries, the registrars of
every sub-district in the kingdom have been re-
quested to give immediate information of any
reigning epidemic, and to insert in their notes nu-
merical statements of the deaths from certain lead-
ing zymotic diseases. After some revision their
returns have been printed in the form of notes
(pp. 30-48), suggesting inquiries which will no
doubt be zealously prosecuted by Mr. Simon the
able health officer of the Board.
. "It will be observed that different diseases have
prevailed in different localities, each group of popu-
lation all over the country sufering more or less
from its local disease, or enjoying unusual exemp-
tion. The excess of the mortality is most frequently
referred to scarlatina and to the epidemic of diph-
theria, which began on the southern coast, and has
during the year spread over the North Midland
and the northern counties. Some districts exhibit
no inerease of mortality. Thus in North Devon,
amonr, 105,692 people, only 465 deaths took place
in three months, and the mortality was at the
annual rate of only 18 in 1,000. In the 63 healthy
districts the mortality of the quarter was at the
rate of 19 in 1,000 annually. In Glendale 39 in
14,348 people died in the quarter, and the morta-
lity was generally low in the surrounding districts
of Northumberland. The Morpeth district is an
exception, or rather the Bedlington sub-district of
Morpeth ; for there 96 of the deaths occurred, leav-
ing only 40 as the deaths in Morpeth itself. In
Bedlington 15 persons died of fever ; diarrheea,
bronchitis, and diphtheria prevailed. The mortality
in Bedlington progressively rose from 23 in 1,000
in the year 1856t0 27 to 1,000 in 1857, and to 35 in
1,000 in the year 1858, according to the calculation
of Mr. Woodman, the clerk to the Board of Health.
' From this it appears,' he adds, that at Bedlington
the death-rate is steadily increasing year by year ;
that the poison from filth and cesspools, and the
want of water, are increasing, and producing their
certain results.' Bedlington neglects sanitary mea-
sures, and sits tranquilly over its cesspools, which
send up disease among the inhabitants. Morpeth
has main sewers as well as a water supply ; fever
has nearly disappeared, and cholera has been averted,
although yet much remains to be done to complete
the sanitary defences of the place,
" The mortality in many of the towns has been
excessively high, and this has been notably the case
in Brighton, Reading, Windsor, Great Yarmouth,
Melksham, Exeter, Plymouth, and the other towns
of South Devon ; Bath and the towns of Somerset-
shire ; Bristol, Gloucester, and Cheltenham ; New-
castle-under-Lyne and the Pottery Districts ;
Wolverhampton and Dudley ; Birmingham and
Stratford-upon-Avon ; Leicester, Lincoln, Notting-
ham, and Derby; Liverpool, Manchester, and the
manufacturing towns of Lancashire ; Keighley,
Halifax, Bradford, and Leeds. In Sheffield 1,021
persons died in 92 days, out of a population amount-
ing in 1851 to 103,626. Certain sanitary works have
been carried out in Lancaster, and only 178 persons
died there in the same time, out of a population of
34,660. Multiplying the deaths and the population
of Lancaster by three, it is seen that the deaths
were in the proportion of 534 to 103,980, while in
Sheffield the deaths were 1,021 to 103,626. Can
nothing be done to render the sanitary arrange-
ments of Sheffield at least as satisfactory as those of

Lancaster ?
"Upon examining all the facts, it is evident that
the excessive mortality of the year 1858 may be
traced, partly to the pressure in the early part of
the year on the poor in the manufacturing districts,
partly to the extreme cold of November, partly to
defective supplies of pure water, and partly to
the prevalence of the epidemic of diphtheria.
" We must not shut our eyes to the fact that one
great nuisance perpetually increases as the popula-
tion increases, and that no effectual provision has yet
been made for getting rid of it from human dwell-
ings. It is referred to several times in the notes
of the registrars in towns which have been most
heavily afflicted. To take one instance—the deaths
(386) exceeded the births (375) in St. Peter's,
Brighton ; the registrar enumerates the prevailing
zymotic diseases, and then observes :
" The inhabitants of this sub-district are chiefly
artisans, mechanics, and the labouring poor. In
many of their dwellings a very insufficient supply
of water has been available to them, owing to the
dryness of the weather in the first portion of the
quarter, the water in the wells in use having been
very low. There is no effectual drainage attached
to their dwellings, and the cesspool system is in
general use.'
" Our towns have not had the advantage gene-

rally of being led by such enlightened and energetic
men as the late Dean of Ely, and have consequently,
notwithstanding some efforts, left the greatest nui-
sance of all still subsisting: Yet the removal of
this nuisance is the one thing needful; in sanitary
reform it is the root of the matter.'

"Liebig, the great agricultural chemist of Europe,
has recently reminded us of English guano a sub-
stitute for foreign supplies. 'I am firmly of opinion,'
he says, ' that if England wishes to remain an agri-
cultural country she must use as manure the night-
soil and similar residues produced in large cities.'
Now England is a great agricultural country, and
she will remain a great agricultural country to the
end of time. And before the supplies of Peruvian
guano fail in our imports, she must bring the article
which may be called English guano into the field.
It is poison alike in the cesspool of large cities and
in the middens of cottages in the country; it is
manure in the soil. The land requires it ; the
houses must get rid of it.
" Byron, to Justify his plain speaking, quotes a
sentence from Voltaire : La pudeur s'est eitfuite
des c-ccurs, et s'est refugiee sur les levres.' Without
pleading guilty to this charge, it must be admitted
that while the cesspool nuisance has been in-
creasing every year in all the cities of Europe,
from St. Petersburg to Paris, from Vienna and
Venice to London and Liverpool, it suggests ideas
so disagreeable that it is rarely mentioned. The
time has, however, come when the thing must be
met. It cannot be evaded. Scientific research has
traced the propagation of typhoid fever to this
source. It is the great nidus of the cholera poison.
The very aggravated disease, diphtheria, which in-
fests this country, first assumed the epidemic form
in France. And every traveller knows that if the
perfumery of France is exquisite ; if her cuisine
is the despair of English gourmands, if her arts
are admirable, if her society is charming, her cabi-
nets are everywhere detestable. They give an
Englishman literally mal ala gorge. And French
guano was apparently the slime on which the
diphtheria—whether it is a new or old form of
disease—whether it is a parasitic or a simple zy-
motic malady--assumed its epidemic character. In
England it has unhappily found a congenial home;
and all over the continent it spreads under still
more favourable conditions. In Munich, whence
Liebig warns England of her danger, adorned as
as the Bavarian capital is with a Glyptothek, a
Pinacethek and other wonders of Bavarian art,
delicate ladies are persecuted in the hotels by am-
moniacal emanations.
"Science has demonstrated that_ fermenting
human extrement is a poison in and near human
dwellings ; and chemistry has shown that the same
elements in other states become grasses, grain,
fruits, and flowers, by the natural magic of the
earth. Why, then, it may be asked, have none of
the enlightened despotisms of the continent emptied
the cesspools of their subjects by absolute decrees ?
-Why have they not conferred this boon on the na-
tive agriculture which they so assiduously protect ?
Neither want of knowledge, nor probably of good-
will, has paralysed administrative action, but rather
want of power. Despotism is only almighty in its
powers of doing mischief. It can set the.world in
flames, •it can shed torrents of blood, but it cannot
regenerate nations. It cannot purify the people it
has subjugated; otherwise a few lines in the first
Code Napoleon might have abolished French cess-
pools, and have directed the French guano to be
deposited every day in the French soil, and by such
a law have conferred more benefit on France than
she derives from 9-10ths of the articles in that
famous digest.
" Ancient legislation did not shrink from plainly
dealing with the most indelicate matters where
human life was at stake, and where the physical
purity of mankind was concerned. Thus in the
laws which we have been taught were delivered by
Divine inspiration the following passage is found.:
—' Thou shalt have a place also without the camp,
whither thou shalt go forth abroad : And thou shalt
have a paddle upon thy weapon ; and it shall be,
camp° sederis thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt
turn back and cover that which cometh from
thee : For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst
of thy camp, to deliver thee and to give up thine
enemies before thee ; therefore shall thy camp be
holy : that Ile see no unclean thing in thee, and
turn away from thee.' (Deuteronomy, xxiii 12t1
13th, 14th.) •, 1,
"This is, mutatis mutandis, the true sanitary
theory; all these matters, all dung, and all dirt,
must be immediately placed under the soil, which
is; the best of all disinfectants ; and modern inven-

If the ages and the mortality of the population of Eng-
land had been the same as the ages and the mortality of the
63 healthy districts, the annual death-rate of England
would not exceed 17•55 in 1,000 living. By applying this
rate to the population of town and country the above num-
bers are obtained.