The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-02-10
A City of Health.

At the Brighton meeting of the Brit
ish Social Science Association, DIR. B.
W. Richardson described an ideal city,
so constructed and governed as to re-
duce the deaths in the first generation
to per 1000, and in the succeeding
generations to per 1000 yearly. The
arrangements are made for 100, 900 peo-
pie. They live in 10000 houses, on
| 4,O00acres of land. The highest houses
have four stories of 10 feet each, but the
residences have mostly two or three
stories. No cellars or underground
rooms are permitted, the cellarage be-
ing taken up with arched subways COM
municating with similar subways in the
streets. For construction glazed bricks
are used, to prevent the ABSORPTION Of
water by the ton during storms. The
bricks are perforated so that currents Of
air pass through the walls Inside,
neither paint. paper, nor plaster is used,
the bricks being laid so evenly that
their glazed sides form level enameled
wall. The kitchen and similar offices
are in the top floor, smoke being taken
down through shafts to central chin
neys, where it is passed through a
gas furnace to produce complete com
Dustion of its carbon. The hot-water
boiler being at the top of the house,
every room has hot and cold water
without stint. Bedrooms have 1920
cubic feet of space to each person, and
no unnecessary articles of furniture or
spare clothing are allowed in them.
The streets have subways under the
pavement, and on one of these runs a
car track for heavy traffic. This SUBJ
way construction, combined with the
open arches under the houses, gives
maximum of cleanliness, economy, and
health in the management of gas distri-
button and of sewerage. Twenty hospi-
tails, or one to 5000 people, are seat
tered at equal distances through the
city. Public laundries are under the
direct control of the sanitary officers,
the washing of clothing in promis-
cuous masses being considered a
fruitful cause of disease. The in
habitants are not obliged to have
their washing done out of the
house, but the laundry business, so far
as it is patronized, is under strict sur
veillance. For similar reasons tailors
and other mechanics are not allowed to
do their work at home, buildings being
provided for them. In the city neither
liquor nor tobacco is sold. The dead are
disposed of by burial, but the cemetery
ground is filed with u highly carbona-
ceOus earth, cOtfins are forbidden, and
a heavy growth of trees is kept up.
In this city the author thinks infantile
diseases, typhus, typhoid, puerperal,
hospital, rheumatic, and other fevers,
and all the train of alcoholic complaints
would be wholly or almost unknown.
Smallpox would be under complete
control, while consumption and para
site diseases would be greatly lessened.
Over pneumonia, bronchitis, summer
complaints, and the round of children's
diseases the new city would have less
control. 1t will be observed that the
author considers it impossible to secure
the greatest health by any system of
construction, if the people are left to
arrange their own habits of life. He
therefore calls on the aid of govern
ment to prevent overcrowding, filthy
habits, and the communication of dis
ease by clothing. 1t has been cal
culated that if the death rate could
be reduced to an average of 81
per 1000, the average expecta-
ton of life would be raised to sc
years, and the probable mean duration
of life would be 12O years, while old
people would live to 100. With death
rate of per 1000 the expectation of
life would be 137 years, the probable
mean duration 100 years, and old peO-
pie of 25O years would be found. DIR.
Richardson, however, did not raise his
expectations above 90 years as the ave-
rage length of life. The effect upon
population of such death rate would
be simply revolutionary. England has
had for thirty-five years mean birth rate
of 33.S per 1000. With loss of . per
1000 the increase would evidently be
2S.S, and in five years "Hygeia," or
the city of health, would gain 15,34O
inhabitants, by natural increase.-Fe6-
ruary GALAXY.