Polynesian., 1857-02-07
Gbe 11olpuesian.
From the London Evening Mail |

puuilC nave OUCe d-QudEGST a Sui0UlOuS 10
think more of their health. " But why more q ~
some of our readers will say. "Don't people think
quite enough Of it? Are we not bored, some
times even disguised with sanitary talk, all about
air, water, soil, drainage, and the rest of it ?''
But we answer, why not more? Why not
more health, strength, AMI happiness, as far they
are promoted and assisted by physical means
The battle is not over, the work is not done. Our
wives and children not too healthy and strong.
The objects of our charity in crowded court or
messy lane are not too few. The doctors have not
too little to do The church bell does not toll too
seldom, nor the chuTchyard turf too rarely heave.
On the contrary, during the last ten years, amid
all this talk about health, and this general flight
into the country, one of the most prominent topics
has been the startling intrusion of disease and
mortality where least expected. Death has filed
his sickle not only with the pale brood of the ar
tsan but also with the more fortunate nurselings
of the parsonage and the homestead. Amid roses
and honeysuckes; in the sheltered vale and the
breezy down upon sand, and chalk, and freestone,
and gravel, and wherever we bctake ourselves for
health, the Unwelcome still suddenly presents him
self, and claims his own from the terrified flock.
Then at last we feel health to be serious afflr
we apply desperate remedies and seek new advis-
ers we suspect everything and everybody we
think the spot accursed and every trife a bane.
There is no theory, however fantastic, we do not
then credit in exact proportion to our former in
tcredulity. But these ravagss of disease and pre-
mature death where they are least to be expected
are not confined either to poverty and labor or to
abundance and ease. A particular fact stated by
the RegistraF-General will recall many private
recollection. "About 6, ,426 English farmers die
in year, and of these many arc young; 26I5 are
under 65 years of age" How often do we find
the comfortable farmhouse either wholly childless,
or the hope of the family reduced to one sickly
child! How often that child an orphan. The
father Is out and about the whole day, always see
ing the face of heaven, full of business having
word with everybody he meets. walking or riding
as he Pleases, and feeding well. He looks and is
healthy enough. His wife has her occupations
and interests, and is generally in motion She has
at least the substance if not always the color and
light, of health But the children, where are they
Ask not rlshy. Such parents are sometimes seen
anxiously tending the last of Il dozen. 1t is in
some of the healthiest spots IN England that con-
sumption, hypochondria, and every form of ner-
vouS debility, seem most at home. This at least
ought not to be, for nature has not made man and
earth amiss that they should disagree when left
most alone. Even they who believe not in cause
and effect will ask reason here.
In the document bsfore US, then, there are some
hints that point too directly to the probable causes
After some remarks on the laws of decay, eoFrup-
ton, and reproduction In organic substances, the
Registrar General gives some examples of that
Mezentian process by which life is so often tied to
DEATH growth to decay, the first to the last stages
of animal or vegetable development. A house
may be planted in the midst of beautiful scenery,
broad meadows ancient oaks, and thymy downs; !;
it may be surrounded by sunny fields and babbling
rivulets; it may lack nothing that dream of and
pine for in this prison of city; but the walls and
floors may rest on the damp earth, the slopiDg site
may be always saturated from the hill behind the
very plan of the building may render ventilation
impossible; the reeking southwest may bring to
the doors and windows the Odors of the impercep-
tible poison of the adjoining cattle stalls or the
surrounding farmyards every summers evening
may bring the white coveret of the l-drained
meadow right through the garden gate; all kinds
of refuse may tester just out of sight, but be not
the less malignant; the same stagnant pool may be
at once the water-auk and the drain of the whole
living family; the contents of the cesSpool may
percoate far below the Surface into the well. In
deed, in spite Of perpetual washing and scrubbng,
paint, yellow ochTe, heaTthstope, and hlacklsad or
under the more specous disguise of roses and Jas
mines, French windows, Conservatives, smouth
lawns and gravel walks, there may still be the
overlooked bat ever working cause Of disease-the
house drain, that empties itself twixt the wind and
all this beauty or some arrangement of the rooms
that excludes the pure air and carefully husbands
the lurking offence. The very site of the house
may make 1t the sink of swamp or the focus ofa
NOW. OOuDIleSS men can live anu thrive
anywhere with suitable occupation and regimen.
With a generous diet laborers become strong as
drayhorses in the fens; with good food and proper
slmuants there are men who subsist by the foulest
of employments; with open air, playing, talking,
laughing, and crying, the children in our own
streets have some of them ruddy faces but where
infant life is not cherished and forced it slowly but
surely succumbs to adverse influences. The ten
DER sensitive child, that sits, and reads and learns
,te Lao &C.
and stupefes, and pines, and droops, and, may be,
has a smile to expect when its task is done,
yields day by day TO its atmospheric foes Day BY
day, and 1T hoses the first start of life, its lungs
play less freely, its blood circuates more slowly,
It's chest contracts, its limbs fine away, its diges
ton IS disordered, and before long ii rs delivered
to the tender OF the man who gallops in every
other day, sends whole bales of pills and draHghts,
and soon settles either the life the constitution
of his unfortunate patient The regular vaetudi-
narian or the victim who has escaped that fate by
DEATH is as often if not oftener, to be found m the
farmhouse as in the town. Yet in the town it is
impossible wholly to escape bad atmospheric in
fuences; they aEe iRseparable from crowd; in
the country it is possible, and therefore the greater
sin to allow them.
The Registrar-General adduces some very happy
examples of the potency and virulence of physical
corruption even in the smallest quantity. ain the
dairy little dirt spoils the milk butter, or cheese;
unless the vessels of the brewery are clean the ale
is injured, and farmers have hence learnt by expe-
rience the importance of cleanliness in the interior
of their houses. From them the taste for house
hold cleanliness has been diffused through the sur
rounding population. They have only to render
the air which they breathe about their houses pure
to become, with those around them, the halest
people IN the world" IRdeed, there is hardly-a
point on which farmers are more aliye-we might
have said more saperstitious- atmospheric In
fection. On no account would they allow flowers,
or any vegetable matter, in dairy, and most pro-
badly they are right. The old belief as to the
rinhf time for killing pirs has reference to a sup