The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAt.
GLOBE.—The recent revelations touching the cond
tion of the Spa-fields burial-ground, revolting as they
are, will yet belvie wed with a feeling of satisfaction by
those who are awsre of the extent to which the health of
every town-population in the kingdom suffers from the to-
lerated nuisance of inter-mural interment. This is but a
single instance, tied it is no worse, in reality, than hun-
dreds of others ; but it will probably serve to attract
public attention to the general subject ; and, in doing
this, will, we believe, remove one of the chief obstacles
to an amendment of our present system of interment.
Among those whose attention has been drawn to the
sanitary condition of our population, particularly in
connexion with the recent Parliamentary inquiries
into the causes affecting the health of the in-
habitants of towns and popular districts. there are
probably few who have not been painfully conscious of
the vast amount of physical suffering and moral degra-
dation which is traceable directly to such causes as mere
indolence, ignorance, or prejudice on the part of the
chief sufferers. 'I hat men, being breathing animals, need
a constant supply of air, must, however vaguely, have
been practically recognised as a truth from the days of
Adam downwards. But that the health or good condi-
tion of the breathing body was dependent in any degree
upon the purity of the air supplied to it—that the pro-
cess of respiration was a chemical as well as a mecha-
nical one—appears to have been left for the 19th century
to discover. For ages men have continued to immerse
themselves in collections of foul air, and die at once, or
gradually to accumulate it around them, and sicken slowly
to the same end, without any definite idea of what they
were doing. From the mute astonishment of the won-
der-seeker in the Grato del Cane to the unknowing and
silent suffering of the denizens of three-fourths of the
habitations of Europe, the want of a visible distinction
between the vital necessary, and the subtle poison,
alone seems to have prevented a recognition of their
difference. Rooms, and houses, and towns, have for
ages been constructed wholly without reference to ven-
tilation. Food, a want more gross and palpable, but
no whit more pressing, has always been an object of
keen regard. It has often been hard to get ; and mul-
titudes have died of famine. But during its greatest
scarcity we do not hear of men having voluntarily and
largely mixed with their food articles not only unfitted
to nutrify, but especially adapted to disorganise and
destroy their bodies. Yet so have they invariably
dealt with the air they breathe. Of all the neces-
saries of life it is by far the most plentiful, and
most universally accessible ; and yet it is in-
dubitably that with which we are worst supplied.
As to the economy of towns in this respect, recent
investigations have established the fact that, under
ordinary circumstances, the population of a town
vitiates, or renders unfit for the purposes of respiration,
a stratum of air " sufficient to cover the entire surface
of the town to the depth of three feet." To this is to
be added " the changes caused by the products of com-
bustion from forges, furnaces, and other fires mingling
ith the atmosphere (to s.ty nothing of the enormous
quantity of gas, oil, and candles nightly consumed in
large towns), and by the escape of gaseous effluvia
from manufactories of different kinds." The expediency
of constantly changing the air, thus rendered unfit fur
further breathing, is obvious enough. The vitiation
itself, so far as we have yet described it, cannot be
avoided. It is a necessary result of the congregation of
the people in towns. Thera are, however, many diffi-
culties in the way of a constant and complete change
being spontaneously, or even easily made. The most
prominent feature of the alteration effected in atmo-
spheric air by its use in respiration and. combustion is
the generation of carbonic acid gas. This, being heavier
then air, settles downwards, and so is easily confined
in narrow stints and in low districts. Again, much