ANNOUNCEMENT. THE purpose of this periodical is to diffuse popular knowledge on the laws of Health and Disease; to instruct how the one may be preserved, the other removed; to improve the sanitary condition, and add to the well-being, of the Industrious Classes; to afford competent and legitimate advice to the Invalid; to spare his purse, and lessen the unjust gains of the extorting quack and the advertising pill-vendor. DISEASES OF THE CHEST. BY T. H. YEOMAN, M.D. CATARRH.-" A COLD." THE symptoms of common catarrh are familiarised to the inhabitants of this climate by abundant experience in their own persons, as scarcely one man in ten thousand passes a winter without having a cold of some description; and, as every one esteems himself competent to be his own doctor, it may be thought little need be said of the treatment; indeed, in simple cases, the medical management may be safely confined to the usual domestic and popular remedies. When, however, we consider the serious and fatal complaints that have their origin in a slight cold; that it may be the prelude to various inflammatory diseases; and that comsumption may be one of its terminations, the propriety of commencing the history of disordered respiration with catarrh, will not be questioned. Catarrh is a febrile affection, in which there is some trifling inflammation of the mucous membranes, (especially those which line the air-passages,) and an increased secretion of mucus. The common cause of catarrh is cold, however applied to the body, but particularly when it is combined with moisture. Exposure to cold when the body is heated, thus arresting the perspiration; wet feet; remaining in damp clothes; insufficient clothing: a damp atmosphere; sitting in a room filled with smoke; sleeping in a strange bed; removing from one house, or from one town to another; in fact, everything that suppresses perspiration, or suddenly diminishes, or even alters, the temperature of the body and the immediate atmosphere, may be considered, in a greater or less degree, as near or remote causes. | [ONE PENNY, time and at the same place. Catarrh also affects other mucous from its invasion. membranes, and those of the stomach and bladder are not free COLD IN THE HEAD.-CORYZA. Cold in the head, although considered a very simple disorder, is one that causes the greatest discomfort; the whole body appears to be unhinged; flying pains are felt in different parts; the spirits are depressed, and the patient is miserable. The approach of an attack is generally announced by frequent chills and shivers; there is a sense of fulness in the head, and weight or pain in the forehead; the nostrils are dry and "stuffed-up," which renders breathing through them difficult, and induces frequent and ineffectual attempts to remove the obstruction by blowing the nose; afterwards there is a secretion of thin watery mucus, that rapidly increases in quantity, and is so acrid as to excoriate the nose and upper lip; the sense of smell is impaired, or altogether lost; the patient sneezes violently and frequently; the eyes are red, inflamed, and suffused with tears, which roll down the cheek; the throat is sore, and the act of swallowing painful; there is some tickling and irritation at the upper part of the windpipe, causing a constant dry cough: there is tightness and uneasiness across the chest, and sometimes difficulty of breathing. Rheumatic pains are felt at the back part of the head and neck, and the whole surface of the body is tender; the appetite fails, thirst increases; the tongue is coated and white, and the taste more or less perverted; the patient complains of being cold, whilst the skin is dry and parched, or burning to the touch; the pulse is accelerated, and towards evening all the symptoms increase in intensity. When the attack is severe, it is attended with more or less fever; violent pains and stiffness are experienced in the limbs and down the back and loins; the heaviness in the head becomes a stupor; the patient is weary, restless, and peevish; he is chilly, the least breath of cold air is acutely felt, and he creeps towards the fire; there is some hoarseness, and a sense of roughness and soreness in the windpipe; the chest feels tight, stuffed, and constricted; the breath is hot, the cough frequent, and the disorder then runs into catarrh on the chest. In some cases the throat and stomach are more particularly implicated; we then find the most distressing symptoms to be nausea and sickness, a burning heat, or gnawing pain in the stomach, which is increased on pressure, and loathing of food. As the complaint assumes different symptoms according to Catarrh has a disposition to travel, and generally begins above the part especially affected, I shall consider it, first, as cold in and proceeds downwards; the eyes and nose being first affected, the head (coryza), when the mucous membrane of the nostrils then the throat, and sometimes the eustachian tubes, which inand eyes are affected; secondly, as cold on the chest (pulmonary duces deafness; afterwards the gullet and stomach suffer, causing catarrh), when the mucous membrane of the air-passages is in-sore-throat, qualmishness and indigestion; or the trachea and flamed; and, thirdly, as influenza, when the attack is sudden and epidemic ;—that is, attacking a multitude of persons at the same bronchial tubes are inflamed, giving rise to cough, expectoration, and bronchitis; as it leaves the upper part it increases in severity in the lower, so that that which was a trifling cold in the head may become a serious affair in the chest. In ordinary and favourable cases the disorder is at its height about the third day, and then begins gradually to decline; the thin serous fluid secretion from the nose becomes thicker, and as it becomes thicker, it becomes less irritating also; it is also more viscid, opaque, and yellow: the swelling in the membrane of the nose subsides, it is less raw and sensitive, and is sometimes succeeded by an eruption or "breaking out" around the mouth. About the fifth day, the secretion resumes its natural quality and natural quantity, and on the seventh day the disorder is entirely removed. This is the course of cold in the head, when not complicated with inflammation in the trachea or bronchi. It should be recollected that the individual during convalescence is most susceptible of taking fresh cold from the slightest cause; and until every symptom is entirely banished, he should be careful of the least exposure to cold or damp air, as a relapse, or "fresh cold" always brings back the old symptoms in greater violence. Per HEALTH & DISEASE. HEALTH admits neither of definition nor description; of none, at least, which can be applied to any useful purpose. If we define it as the integrity of every structure, and the perfect and harmonious play of every function, we give a true definition, but not a useful one. The more lengthened description in which some physiologists have indulged answers no better end; for it establishes no standard of comparison, and that is what we are in want of. fect health, like perfect beauty, is perhaps an ideal, compounded of the perfections of many different individuals; or if it exists, it falls to the lot of few, and its phenomena have met with no accurate description. DISEASE. To define disease we must first define health, for the one is but the negative of the other. In like manner, the description and right understanding of disease depends upon the description and right understanding of health. Without attempting a formal definition of disease, it will be sufficient to state that disease is present when any structure of the body is changed (provided that change be not the direct and immediate effect of external injury), or where any function is either unnaturally active, or torpid, or altered in character. ON CHLOROFORM IN CHILDBIRTH, DR. SIMPSON, of Edinburgh, who, we must admit, is a prejudiced, but still Catarth in the head is frequently the forerunner of measles results of his experience, deduced from more than one hundred cases in his a just advocate of the efficacy of chloroform in childbirth, thus sums up the and small-pox; it usually precedes, if it does not cause, rheumaown practice, or in the practice of his personal friends. He says: "The tism; and although of itself seldom attended with any danger, effects of chloroform have been delightful. The mothers, instead of crying and yet it often lays the foundation of disease, which, in time yet to suffering under the strong agonies and throes of labour, have lain in a state come, may jeopardise life. A vigorous passage in Mr. Warren's of quiet, placid slumber, made more or less deep at the will of the medical attendant, and, if disturbed at all, disturbed only unconsciously from time to "Diary of a late Physician" is so applicable to the present subject, time by the recurring uterine contractions, producing some reflex or automatic and expresses my own ideas in language so much more elegant movements on the part of the patient,-like those of a person moving under and emphatic than any I could employ, that I adopt the sentence: any irritation of the surface, or from the touch of another, though stili in a "Let not those complain of being bitten by a reptile which they happy. I never saw mothers recover more satisfactorily or rapidly, or chilstate of sleep; nor have the ultimate consequences and resul:s been less have cherished to maturity in their own bosoms, when they might dren that looked more viable. And the practice is not a great blessing to the have crushed it in the egg. Now if we call a slight cold the patient merely it is a great boon also to the practitioner; for whilst it reegg,' and pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, asthma, consump-lieves the former from the dread and endurance of agony and pain, it both tion, the venomous reptile, the matter will be no more than relieves the latter from the disagreeable necessity of witnessing such agony and There are many ways in which this egg cancel and remove pangs and torture that would otherwise be inevitable. It pain in a fellow-creature, and imparts to him the proud power of being able to correctly figured. may be deposited and hatched. Going suddenly slightly clad transforms a work of physical anguish into painless muscular effort; and from a heated to a cold atmosphere, especially if you contrive to changes into a scene of sleep and comparative repose that anxious hour of be in a state of perspiration-sitting or standing in a draught, female existence which has now been proverbially cited as the bour of the however slight-it is the breath of death, reader, and laden with ing over a series of more perfect or more rapid recoveries; nor have I once greatest of moral suffering." Again: "I never had the pleasure of watchthe vapours of the grave. Lying in damp beds, for there his witnessed any disagreeable result to either mother or child. I have kept up cold arms shall embrace you; continuing in wet clothing, and the anaesthetic state during periods varying from a few minutes to three, four, neglecting wet feet; these and a hundred others, are some of the five, and six hours. I do not remember a single patient to have taken it who ways in which you may slowly, imperceptibly, but surely, cherish has not afterwards declared her sincere gratitude for its employment, and her indubitable determination to have recourse again to similar means under simithe creature, that shall at last creep inextricably inwards, and lie lar circumstances. All who happened to have formerly entertained any dread coiled about your vitals. Once more, again,-again,-I would say, respecting the inhalation, or its effects, have afterwards looked back, both ATTEND to this, all ye who think it a small matter to neglect a amazed at and amused with their previous absurd fears and groundless terrors. SLIGHT COLD." Most, indeed, have subsequently set out, like zealous missionaries, to persuade other friends to avail themselves of the same measure of relief in their hour of trial and travail; and a number of my most esteemed professional brethren in Edinburgh have adopted it with success and results equal to my own. All of us, I most sincerely believe, are called upon to employ it by every principle of true humanity, as well as by every principle of true religion." [To be continued in our next.] TREATMENT OF HYDROCEPHALUS.-WATER ON THE BRAIN.-Every one is acquainted with the difficulty of finding any effectual treatment for this disease, especially for that most dangerous form known as "tubercular meningitis." M. Hahn, physician to the hospital at Aix, recommends strongly the following method, in cases where the disease has already made some progress before the medical attendant has been called in. Dr. Hahn's method consists in employing tartar emetic ointment in friction on the scalp, which is previously shaved. The ointment is rubbed in for ten minutes at a time, and a piece of linen besmeared with it is then placed on the head. The frictions are renewed every two hours, until the pustules begin to appear. The effects are, of course, very severe. The whole scalp becomes inflamed, and numerous small ulcers are formed, which heal with difficulty, and generally destroy the points of the scalp in which they were situate. The author affirms that he has employed this severe, but absolutely necessary mode of treatment, with success for the last twenty years, having thereby saved more than a dozen children, whose lives would have been inevitably sacrificed but for it. | BURNS AND CHILBLAINS.-A correspondent in the Medical Times says:"I have had two opportunities of trying the effects of creosote upon burns, in both cases with the most complete success; the first, my own, a severe burn on the back of the hand, The pain was relieved almost instantly. Supposing that considerable analogy existed between burns and chilblains, I have tried the effect of creosote upon them, in several cases among my children, and in every instance the irritation has been allayed, and an almost miraculous cure has been effected. IMPORTANCE OF VENTILATION. IN consequence of a passage which occurs in a recent notification of the with 1,100 children, of whom nearly 300 were seized by cholera, of the breathed. ON PATENT MEDICINES. BY DR. CONQUEST. [We beg to acknowledge the courtesy of Dr. Conquest in permitting his admirable"Letter" to appear in our columns.] THE subject of this letter is one of the greatest importance, and connected with the interests of the nation, of families, and of individuals. It is one, the neglect of which has destroyed many more lives than the combined ravages of small-pox and measles, or than the havoc of war, even when that curse has most generally prevailed. It is nothing short of extensive murder by patent or quack medicines. The appalling mortality which prevails in our manufacturing districts may be traced to the murderous practice of the administration of quack medicines, and specifics of various kinds. It is a duty of every mother to assist, by her social influence, in causing appeals to be made to the legislature of this enlightened country, to suppress the sale of agents, notoriously the annual slaughterers of thousands of all ages, but especially of young and helpless children, whose lives are committed to their parents as a solemn trust, and which is thus fearfully abused. But to show that prejudice does not dictate these remarks, it is readily admitted that many patent medicines have done good when their exhibition has been guided by skill in those cases for which they may have been exclusively appropriate. To an unreflecting mind the admission may be dangerous; but the truth is, that this assumption and admission of benefits conferred proves nothing. Arsenic is a most deadly poison,-prussic acid more deadly still but who would place the administration of these agents, powerful for good or evil, in the hands of debased ignorance, selfish aggrandisement, and unflinching and unscrupulous pretenders and impostors? But if arsenic and prussic acid when known to us require so much care in their administration, how much care should be required with secret agents of unknown power! The cause of humanity demands an exposure of the iniquious practices and poisonous system of quackery; for the extent to which they are carried on in this country would reflect lasting disgrace on the most credulous, superstitious, and uncivilised nation. Were we to read in history of an ancient empire, the inhabitants of which aspired to the character of the especial citizens of the world, who were pre-eminent for their deeds of greatness and goodness, who respected property so much that "For years past I have recommended the adoption of such ventilating the severest punishments followed the smallest infringements on chimney openings as above described, and I devised a balanced metallic its rights, and who apparently valued life so highly that they valve, to prevent, during the use of fires, the escape of smoke to the room. The advantages of these openings and valves were soon so manifest that instituted state investigations into the cause of every sudden or the referees appointed under the Building Act added a clause to their obscure death, and yet found it recorded in the state documents, bill allowing the introduction of the valves, and directing how they were that all over the empire there were individuals who vended seto be placed, and they are now in very extensive use. A good illustracret substances, which they termed "medicines," but which tion of the subject was afforded in St. James's parish, where some quarters are densely inhabited by the families of Irish labourers. These localities produced an annual mortality of several thousands of the informerly sent an enormous number of sick to the neighbouring dispensary. habitants, who were misled by the false statements put forth Mr. Toynbee, the able medical chief of that dispensary, came to consult me to recommend these medicines; and that the government derived respecting the ventilation of such places, and on my recommendation had a revenue from the sale of these poisons, and thus encouraged openings made into the chimney flues of the rooms near the ceilings, by removing a single brick, and placing there a piece of wire gauze with a light this class of men,-what would we think? But yet such is curtain flap hanging against the inside to prevent the issue of smoke in the fact; and until our great men become wise, and cease to gusty weather. The decided effect produced at once on the feelings of the be the patrons of quacks; and until the legislature ceases to inmates was so remarkable, that there was an extensive demand for the new sanction their vile impositions, the difficulty of crushing their appliance, and as a consequence of its adoption, Mr. Toynbee had soon to report in evidence given before the Health of Towns' Commission, and in distressing ravages is insurmountable, and no hope can be enter-: other published documents, both an extraordinary reduction in the number tained of the complete abolition of so great a national curse and of sick applying for relief and of the severity of diseases occurring. Wide disgrace. Language too strong cannot be used to induce parents experience elsewhere has since obtained similar results. Most of the hospi: to flee the pestilential contagion of its spurious and mournfully fatal tals and poor houses in the kingdom now have these chimney valves; and most of the medical men and others who have published of late on sanitary deceptions. matters have strongly commended them. Had the present Board of Health Common sense, one would suppose, must convince every possessed the power, and deemed the means expedient, the chimney open-person blessed with reason, that the unknown and dangerously ings might, as a prevention of cholera, almost in one day, and at the expense active nature of the ingredients entering into the composition of of about a shilling for a poor man's room, have been established over the whole kingdom. in the lower, so that that which was a trifling cold in the head may become a serious affair in the chest. In ordinary and favourable cases the disorder is at its height about the third day, and then begins gradually to decline; the thin serous fluid secretion from the nose becomes thicker, and as it becomes thicker, it becomes less irritating also; it is also more viscid, opaque, and yellow: the swelling in the membrane of the nose subsides, it is less raw and sensitive, and is sometimes succeeded by an eruption or "breaking out" around the mouth. About the fifth day, the secretion resumes its natural quality and natural quantity, and on the seventh day the disorder is entirely removed. This is the course of cold in the head, when not complicated with inflammation in the trachea or bronchi. It should be recollected that the individual during convalescence is most susceptible of taking fresh cold from the slightest cause; and until every symptom is entirely banished, he should be careful of the least exposure to cold or damp air, as a relapse, or "fresh cold" always brings back the old symptoms in greater violence. HEALTH & DISEASE. HEALTH admits neither of definition nor description; of none, at least, which can be applied to any useful purpose. If we define it as the integrity of every structure, and the perfect and harmonious play of every function, we give a true definition, but not a useful one. The more lengthened description in which some physiologists have indulged answers no better end; for it establishes no standard of comparison, and that is what we are in want of. Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is perhaps an ideal, compounded of the perfections of many different individuals; or if it exists, it falls to the lot of few, and its phenomena have met with no accurate description. DISEASE. To define disease we must first define health, for the one is but the negative of the other. In like manner, the description and right understanding of disease depends upon the description and right understanding of health. Without attempting a formal definition of disease, it will be sufficient to state that disease is present when any structure of the body is changed (provided that change be not the direct and immediate effect of external injury), or where any function is either unnaturally active, or torpid, or altered in character. "The ON CHLOROFORM IN CHILDBIRTH. DR. SIMPSON, of Edinburgh, who, we must admit, is a prejudiced, but still Catarth in the head is frequently the forerunner of measles results of his experience, deduced from more than one hundred cases in his a just advocate of the efficacy of chloroform in childbirth, thus sums up the and small-pox; it usually precedes, if it does not cause, rheuma- own practice, or in the practice of his personal friends. He says: tism; and although of itself seldom attended with any danger, effects of chloroform have been delightful. The mothers, instead of crying and yet it often lays the foundation of disease, which, in time yet to suffering under the strong agonies and throes of labour, have lain in a state come, may jeopardise life. A vigorous passage in Mr. Warren's of quiet, placid slumber, made more or less deep at the will of the medical attendant, and, if disturbed at all, disturbed only unconsciously from time to "Diary of a late Physician" is so applicable to the present subject, time by the recurring uterine contractions, producing some reflex or automatic and expresses my own ideas in language so much more elegant movements on the part of the patient,-like those of a person moving under and emphatic than any I could employ, that I adopt the sentence: any irritation of the surface, or from the touch of another, though stili in a "Let not those complain of being bitten by a reptile which they happy. I never saw mothers recover more satisfactorily or rapidly, or chil state of sleep; nor have the ultimate consequences and results been less have cherished to maturity in their own bosoms, when they might dren that looked more viable. And the practice is not a great blessing to the have crushed it in the egg. Now if we call a slight cold the patient merely it is a great boon also to the practitioner; for whilst it reegg,' and pleurisy, inflammation of the lungs, asthma, consump-lieves the former from the dread and endurance of agony and pain, it both tion, the venomous reptile, the matter will be no more than correctly figured. There are many ways in which this egg' may be deposited and hatched. Going suddenly slightly clad from a heated to a cold atmosphere, especially if you contrive to be in a state of perspiration-sitting or standing in a draught, however slight-it is the breath of death, reader, and laden with the vapours of the grave. Lying in damp beds, for there his cold arms shall embrace you; continuing in wet clothing, and neglecting wet feet; these and a hundred others, are some of the ways in which you may slowly, imperceptibly, but surely, cherish the creature, that shall at last creep inextricably inwards, and lie coiled about your vitals. Once more, again,-again,-I would say, ATTEND to this, all ye who think it a small matter to neglect a SLIGHT COLD." [To be continued in our next. TREATMENT OF HYDROCEPHALUS.-WATER ON THE BRAIN.-Every one is acquainted with the difficulty of finding any effectual treatment for this disease, especially for that most dangerous form known as "tubercular meningitis." M. Hahn, physician to the hospital at Aix, recommends strongly the following method, in cases where the disease has already made some progress before the medical attendant has been called in. Dr. Hahn's method consists in employing tartar emetic ointment in friction on the scalp, which is previously shaved. The ointment is rubbed in for ten minutes at a time, and a piece of linen besmeared with it is then placed on the head. The frictions are renewed every two hours, until the pustules begin to appear. The effects are, of course, very severe. The whole scalp becomes inflamed, and numerous small ulcers are formed, which heal with difficulty, and generally destroy the points of the scalp in which they were situate. The author affirms that he has employed this severe, but absolutely necessary mode of treatment, with success for the last twenty years, having thereby saved more than a dozen children, whose lives would have been inevitably sacrificed but for it. BURNS AND CHILBLAINS.-A correspondent in the Medical Times says:"I have had two opportunities of trying the effects of creosote upon burns, in both cases with the most complete success; the first, my own, a severe burn on the back of the hand. The pain was relieved almost instantly. Supposing that considerable analogy existed between burns and chilblains, I have tried the effect of creosote upon them, in several cases among my children, and in every instance the irritation has been allayed, and an almost miraculous cure has been effected. relieves the latter from the disagrecable necessity of witnessing such agony and pain in a fellow-creature, and imparts to him the proud power of being able to cancel and remove pangs and torture that would otherwise be inevitable. It transforms a work of physical anguish into painless muscular effort; and changes into a scene of sleep and comparative repose that anxious hour of female existence which has now been proverbially cited as the hour of the ing over a series of more perfect or more rapid recoveries; nor have I once greatest of moral suffering." Again: "I never had the pleasure of watchwitnessed any disagreeable result to either mother or child. I have kept up the anaesthetic state during periods varying from a few minutes to three, four, five, and six hours. I do not remember a single patient to have taken it who has not afterwards declared her sincere gratitude for its employment, and her indubitable determination to have recourse again to similar means under similar circumstances. All who happened to have formerly entertained any dread respecting the inhalation, or its effects, have afterwards looked back, both amazed at and amused with their previous absurd fears and groundless terrors. Most, indeed, have subsequently set out, like zealous missionaries, to persuade other friends to avail themselves of the same measure of relief in their hour of trial and travail; and a number of my most esteemed professional brethren in Edinburgh have adopted it with success and results equal to my own. All of us, I most sincerely believe, are called upon to employ it by every princi ple of true humanity, as well as by every principle of true religion." IMPORTANCE OF VENTILATION. IN consequence of a passage which occurs in a recent notification of the Board of Health, Dr. Neill Arnott has addressed a letter to the Times, from which we subjoin some extracts. The passage in question is the fol lowing:-"Under such circcmstances, considerable and immediate relief may be given by a plan suggested by Dr. Arnott, of taking a brick out of the wall near the ceiling of the room, so as to open a direct communication between the room and the chimney. Any occasional temporary inconvenience of down-draught will be more than compensated by the beneficial results of this simple ventilating process." Dr. Arnott says: "A system of draining and cleansing, water supply, and flushing, for instance, to the obtainment of which chiefly the Board of Health has hitherto devoted its attention, can, however good, influence only that quantity and kind of aerial impurity which arises from retained solid or liquid filth within or about a house, but it leaves absolutely untouched the other and really more important kind, which, in known quantity, is never absent where men are breathing, namely, the filth and poison of the human breath, This latter kind evidently plays the most important part in all cases of a crowd, and therefore such catastrophes as that of the Tooting schol. with 1,100 children, of whom nearly 300 were seized by cholera, of the ON PATENT MEDICINES. BY DR. CONQUEST. [We beg to acknowledge the courtesy of Dr. Conquest in permitting his admirable "Letter" to appear in our columns.] THE subject of this letter is one of the greatest importance, and connected with the interests of the nation, of families, and of individuals. It is one, the neglect of which has destroyed many more lives than the combined ravages of small-pox and measles, or than the havoc of war, even when that curse has most generally prevailed. It is nothing short of extensive murder by patent or quack medicines. The appalling mortality which prevails in our manufacturing districts may be traced to the murderous practice of the administration of quack medicines, and specifics of various kinds. It is a duty of every mother to assist, by her social influence, in causing appeals to be made to the legislature of this enlightened country, to suppress the sale of agents, notoriously the annual slaughterers of thousands of all ages, but especially of young and helpless children, whose lives are committed to their parents as a solemn trust, and which is thus fearfully abused. But to show that prejudice does not dictate these remarks, it is readily admitted that many patent medicines have done good when their exhibition has been guided by skill in those cases for which they may have been exclusively appropriate. To an unreflecting mind the admission may be dangerous; but the truth is, that this assumption and admission of benefits conferred proves nothing. Arsenic is a most deadly poison,-prussic acid more deadly still but who would place the administration of these agents, powerful for good or evil, in the hands of debased ignorance, selfish aggrandisement, and unflinching and unscrupulous pretenders and impostors? But if arsenic and prussic acid when known to us require so much care in their administration, how much care should be required with secret agents of unknown power! The cause of humanity demands an exposure of the iniquious practices and poisonous system of quackery; for the extent to which they are carried on in this country would reflect lasting disgrace on the most credulous, superstitious, and uncivilised nation. Were we to read in history of an ancient empire, the inhabitants of which aspired to the character of the especial citizens of the world, who were pre-eminent for their deeds of greatness and goodness, who respected property so much that "For years past I have recommended the adoption of such ventilating the severest punishments followed the smallest infringements on chimney openings as above described, and I devised a balanced metallic its rights, and who apparently valued life so highly that they valve, to prevent, during the use of fires, the escape of smoke to the room. The advantages of these openings and valves were soon so manifest that instituted state investigations into the cause of every sudden or the referees appointed under the Building Act added a clause to their obscure death, and yet found it recorded in the state documents, bill allowing the introduction of the valves, and directing how they were that all over the empire there were individuals who vended seto be placed, and they are now in very extensive use. A good illustration of the subject was afforded in St. James's parish, where some quarters cret substances, which they termed "medicines," but which are densely inhabited by the families of Irish labourers. These localities produced an annual mortality of several thousands of the informerly sent an enormous number of sick to the neighbouring dispensary. habitants, who were misled by the false statements put forth Mr. Toynbee, the able medical chief of that dispensary, came to consult me to recommend these medicines; and that the government derived respecting the ventilation of such places, and on my recommendation had a revenue from the sale of these poisons, and thus encouraged openings made into the chimney flues of the rooms near the ceilings, by removing a single brick, and placing there a piece of wire gauze with a light this class of men,-what would we think? But yet such is curtain flap hanging against the inside to prevent the issue of smoke in the fact; and until our great men become wise, and cease to gusty weather. The decided effect produced at once on the feelings of the be the patrons of quacks; and until the legislature ceases to inmates was so remarkable, that there was an extensive demand for the new sanction their vile impositions, the difficulty of crushing their appliance, and as a consequence of its adoption, Mr. Toynbee had soon to report in evidence given before the Health of Towns' Commission, and in distressing ravages is insurmountable, and no hope can be enterother published documents, both an extraordinary reduction in the number tained of the complete abolition of so great a national curse and of sick applying for relief and of the severity of diseases occurring. Wide disgrace. Language too strong cannot be used to induce parents experience elsewhere has since obtained similar results. Most of the hospito flee the pestilential contagion of its spurious and mournfully fatal tals and poor houses in the kingdom now have these chimney valves; and most of the medical men and others who have published of late on sanitary matters have strongly commended them. Had the present Board of Health Common sense, one would suppose, must convince every possessed the power, and deemed the means expedient, the chimney open-person blessed with reason, that the unknown and dangerously ings might, as a prevention of cholera, almost in one day, and at the expense active nature of the ingredients entering into the composition of of about a shilling for a poor man's room, have been established over the whole kingdom. deceptions. |