THE LUNGS OF LONDON.
"Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new planted orchards
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you
And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves."—Julius Cæsar.
The preservation of public health in great cities is an object no less of paramount importance to the citizen, than of curious inquiry to the philosopher; and it is truly surprising to reflect, that in our own country we should have given to this subject so little serious consideration. Abroad, the means of conserving the public health, of disarming the malignity of epidemic diseases, and of preventing their too frequent recurrence, are investigated by the philosophic physician, are carried into practical operation by a code of sanatory law, and are sedulously watched over, as one of their most sacred and important public duties, by the government of the country. At home, the health, which is the life of the great mass of the population, is not considered worth a thought, except at times of impending danger, when thought is vain—when the pestilence rages in the midst of us, we run wildly about in search of relief—when, having completed its ravages, it finally disappears from our towns and our cities, we are too happy to dismiss it also from our thoughts, and to forget all enquiries as to the means of prevention for the future, in congratulation on our preservation for the present. Our Boards of Health, hastily and crudely organized in the hour of difficulty and danger, when the danger and difficulty, by the mercy of Divine Providence, have been got over, are immediately dispersed—the fast days and the thanksgiving days have had their day—the contests between the contagionists and the non-contagionists are contagious no longer—the advocates of tar water, and the advocates of hot water, lay down their arms—specifics and the people who recommended specifics are alike forgotten—cajeput oil is a drug in the market, and brandy is no longer consumed under false pretences!
The pestilence is over—but the danger is not; that which has been, may be again—and the best time to escape a danger is surely that, when our judgment is unclouded by the prospect of imminent risk, and we as yet contemplate the danger at a distance.
But the danger never is at a distance. There exists, in great cities, an under-current of pestilence at all times and in all seasons—typhus, for example, is ever at work among us—it is true, at work obscurely, because its ravages are among the obscure—among those who live precariously from day to day, in low, unventilated, and densely populated neighbourhoods, where bad drainage, bad air, bad water, and bad smells, perpetuate the epidemics they originate, and whose miserable inhabitants form the never-failing and ever-dying population of our fever hospitals. We know no thing of this—we see nothing of this; the progress of the sick poor from their miserable "rookeries" to the hospital, and from the hospital to the grave, is silent and unobserved. Let a brace of dukes, however, or a few members of the House of Commons, or even an East India director be carried off, and we begin to hear of the epidemic—it then begins to be "dreadful," "shocking," and so forth. "To think of the Duke of Doodle—so excellent a man, only seventy-six—being so suddenly cut off!"—and Viscount Noodle, too, in the prime of life—a man equal to two bottles of port a-day—'tis dreadful to think of!" The epidemic, dreadful to think of as it is, runs its allotted course, and the popular alarm keeps pace with it—infants yet unborn, and aged people yet alive, are reported to have died of it—topers are said to be dead, and have a narrow escape of being buried alive, who are discovered, on more minute examination, to have been only dead-drunk—and every soul, without exception, carried off during the epidemic, has been carried off, if you believe your ears, by the epidemic—physicians are "looking up," chemists and druggists in full work—post-horses, moreover, are in demand,
