TOPICS OF THE DAY.

FEVER IN LONDON.

As we glanced over the Chronicle on Thursday morning, our nerves were much shaken by a review of the Report of tlw Poor- law Commissioners;* " calculated: as the Chronicle said, " to fill the stoutest minds with apprehension. Nor was it a groundless fear ; since the writer went on to assert, that " there are at present causes in activity in the Metropolis sufficient to generate as ac- tive a pestilence as any of those which in former times ravaged it." Terrified with ideas of plague, sweating sickness, or the black death, we hastened to peruse the Parliamentary Paper; and having done so, we can assure the public that its health is much in the usual state. The rumour to the contrary, has arisen from the wonted endeavour of statists to impart interest to the dryness of their matter of fact, and the well-meant attempt of a publicist to kill three birds with one stone, by giving a lift to the Poor-law people, filling a good deal of his own space, and exciting his readers by something more stimulating (because more nearly touching themselves) than any murder. Having thus placed matters in general upon a right reviling, we will now proceed to examine the Report of the Commissioners; which contains many points

worth evolving. This Report originated in a defect of the new Poorlaw; which law does not seem to have been such a masterpiece of legislation as its admirers have said. By usage, many expenses for beneficial

parochial purposes were charged upon the pour-rates, which were not justified by the statute of ELIZABETH; and no provision was

made for their disbursement by the new act. Thus, if a man now runs away from his family and leaves them to the parish, he can- not be pursued, because the Auditors disallow the expenses: a parish cannot abate a nuisance, because whoever gives orders for the proceedings must pay the costs out of his own pocket : if a

well be disordered and water cannot be drawn out of it, or if it be uncovered and people tumble into it, so it, must remain, unless some liberal person disburse a few pounds for the sake of huma- nity: a stagnant pool cannot be drained to remove malaria— people must sicken, and be doctored by the parish—die, awl be burled by the parish—leaving destitute families, to be kept by the parish ; but the parish cannot at the expense of a few pounds privent the possible occurreece of human suffering, or the future exper,diture of hundreds of pounds. The Commissioners and the Home Office seem to have been in consultation upon this evil: a bill is talked of to legalize so no of these expenses ; Mr. S. M. PHILLIPS writes a letter to the Commissioners ; who make it the ground of a Report, and hitch, into said Report a view of the "epi- demics and infectious diseases " prevalent in the Metropolis or its vicinity. And now the courier has the origin of the story " calcu- lated to fill the stoutest miuds with apprehension."

Except as regards the business suggestions for the new bill, (which it issomewhat late in the session to begin to think about,) the Report is altogether grafted upon several documents in the Appendix; one of which, from Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH, we shall speak of presently in a manner proportioned to its merits ; another is from Doctors ARNOT and KAY, and its basis is as follows. The Commissioners have sent round circulars to different parishes, in effect asking "How do you do?" and the parishes have rarely an- swered " Pretty well." On the contrary, through the moot Its of their medical officers, or clerks, they have told their troubles to Somerset House. The mind of Camberwell is agitated by a stag- nant pool on the Green, which "ever since the frost, has sent forth such a terrible effluvia" as to threaten to disialiabit what was mare the Grosvenor Square of that:terra incao-nita. Fur sears tile people of Hammersmith have been ui:easy in r.their eainds,and bodies too, from "miasma, produced by a quantity of water which had been left stagnant on the surface of the ground after brickwakiug." Highgate is infested with a lodging-house, where people "sleep three or more in a bed ;" and soon. These documents, parish in their nature, written for the most part by persons of common mitt& and limited views, and embracing small facts which the observers have rarely sufficient power to genera!ize to any purpose, have been placed in the hands of Doctors ARNOT and KAY; who have also visited Wappieg and its vieit ity, mai thele found what most people find, unsavoury smas, preceLding from bad or from no drainage. From their reading and their traveilipg, the Doctths have drawn Up a report ; hich, when calmly examined by the e3e of rea- son, ields these results. The elements of febrile affections, from the constitution of the human body, and of the atmosphere, are latent in almost all of us. Ili the low situations of London—

meaning both low geogiaphically and low in the circumstances and habits of the residents—these elements are always more or less developed, from influenza up to typhus. Public authority can remove some of the causes, as they are resolvable into defer:- live drainage, and the accumulation of Lail and other impurities, Which by corrupting infect the air. Others—as the bad construc- tion of the houses, the closeuess with which they are cross tied to- gether, and the numbers inhabiting a single room—are not so easily remedied as the Duelers and Commissioners seem to think ; because improvement can only take place by a greater outlay

on the part of the landlord, who will require an increased rent ; and the poverty of the persons is the cause of their miser-

able state. The evils of dirt, scanty clothing, scanty Mod, and intemperance, have the same origin—abject unit utter poverty, or Lad habits induced by ignorance and reeklessuese, which no • House of Commons Papers, Na. 639. legislation can directly cure. From the reports before us, we do not clearly see that these causea of sickness or death, anioustst the classes who exist upon the social verge, are more active than at other seasons ; certainly not more so than might be expeeted from the state of the weather for the last six months, coupled anis the distress induced amatigst many by the severity of the winter and the high price of provisions. At till events. as we have been free from plague and pestilence for 170 sears, when the state of the Metropolis was far wurse than it is now, let us hope that we shall escape " as active a pestilence as oily of those which iti former Limes ravaged it."

The report of Dr. SourHwoon SMITH, Physician to the Fever Hospital, is confined to the Eastern end d London, chiefly Beth- nal Green and Whitechapel. It is striking from some powerful instances of sad distre-s and de-titution, and of fearful mortality, in, happily. a limited sphere. But its value is in the principle. which it embedies, and its exposition of the causes el fever. How perfectly, for instance, is the entire philosophy of malaria etnbraced in tire following extract : a ith what clearness me the results of experience first given, and then with what mastery are those of scientific analysis and experitnent presented to the mind.

o It is known to every one that the putrefaction of vegetable and animal matter produces a poison which is capable of exerting an injulions action on the human Maly. •But the extent to which this ;Jolson is generated, the cooditions favourable to its production, and the range nf its noxious agency, are not suffi- ciently understood and appreciated. " It is a matter of experience. that during the decompoiition of &ad organic substances, whether vegetable or animal. aided by beat and moisture, and other peculiarities of climate, a poison is generated, which, when in el stair of high concentration, it capable of prisliming instantaneous death, by a single inspire- t100 of the air in which it is diffused.

" Experience also shows, that this poison, even when it is largely diluted by ailleisture wit!, atmosphei ie air, and when, consequently, it is unable to prove thus suddenly fatal, is still the fruitful source of sickness and mortality, partly in proportion to its intensity, and partly in proton • to the length of time aud the constancy with which the body remains rimmed to it. Facto without num- ber, long observed—such as the great amount of Kickness and mortality in marshy districts, the fevers and ilysenteliest iocident to armies on their encamp- ment in certain localities, several hundred men being aumetisneli seized with disease in a single night, and gre.st numbers fly ing within twenty-four m thirty hour.; the dreadful destruction which ovens' lly took place in ships' crews, in ships in which cleanliness had liven neglected, and especially in vellieh the biles-adier hail been allowed to collect and putrify—sufficiently attested the pre- sence, in certain situations, of a deadly poismn. But this poison was too to be reduced to a tangible form. Even its existence was ascertainable only by its mortal influence on the human body ; and although the indurtion com- monly made :04 to its origin, namely, that it is the product of putrefyiug vege- tal& anti animal matter, appeared inevitable, seeing that its viruleme is always in proportion to the quantity of vegetable and animal matters present, and to the pel feet co obi:ration of the eircumstaucei favourable to tl.eir decomposition, still the ot ) i ll ion could only be regasded as an inference.

" But modern science has recently succeeded in making a most important step in the elucidation of this subject.

" It has now been demonstiated by direct experiment, that in certain situa. thins in which the air is loaded with poisonous exhalations, the poisonous mat- ter consists of vegetable and animal substance in a high state of putrescency. If a 'timothy of air in which such exhalations are present be collected, the vapour may be condensed by cold and other agents; a residuum is obtained, which on examination is found to he composed of vegetable or animal 'slitter, in a state of high putrefaction. This matter constitutes a deadly poison. A minute quantity of this poison, applied to an animal previously in sound health, destroys life, with the most intense symptoms of malignant fever. If. for example, ten or twelve drops of a fluid coutaining this highly putrid matter be injected into the jugular vein of a dug, the animal is silica with acute fever ; the actino of the heart is iuordinately excited, the respiration becomes ileede• rated, the heat increased, the piostration of strength extreme, the muscular power so rah:or-LA that the animal lies on the ground wholly unable to stir or to make the slightest effint ; and after a short time, it is actually seised with the black vomit, identical in the natule of the matter evacuated with that whiell is thrown up by a person labouring under yellow fever. By varying the intensity and the dose of the poison thus obtained, it is possible to produce fever of almost any type, endowed with almost any degree of mortal power. " It is proved further, that when this poison is diffused in the atmosphere, and is transpormd to the lungs in the inspired air, it enters directly into the blood, and produces various diseases, the ',afore of which is materially modified, ac- coldiag US the vegetable or the animal matter redo' ll i ll ates in the ',Mien. In the exhalittiona which arise fium marshes, bogs, and other uncultivated and uudraineil places, vegetable matter pred ates; such exhalations contain poison which pioducca, ptiuiipuhly, imermittent fever or ague, and remittent lever."

Here are some of the facts derived from frequent professional visitation in the districts alluded to—Betlinal Green and White- chapel.

" It appears, that in many parts of both these districts fever of a malignant and fatal character is always more or less prevalent. In souse streets it has re- cently prevailed in almost every hose; in some courts in every house; and in some few instances in every loom in every Mame. Cases me recorded, in which every member of a flintily has been attacked in succession, of whom In every such case several have died ; mime whole. families have been swept away. Instances are detailed iu which there have been found in one small room six permits lying ill of fever together: I have myself seen this, four in one bed and two in another. When fever once breaks out and becomes prevalent under circumstances such as these, the poisou acquires a virulence which not only moves unusually mortal to the persona immediately attacked and to those who attend on the sick, but the evil is frightfully increased by the extension of the infection to neighboul ing houses arid districts. The exhalations given off from the living bodies of those Wilt/ are afficted with fever, especially when such exhalations are pent up in a close and confined apartment, constitute by far the most potent poison detived from an animal The room of a fever patient in a small and heated apartment mu London, with no perflatam of fresh air, is perfectly analogous to a standing pool in Ethiopia full of the bodies of dead locusts. The poison generated iu both cases is the same; the difference is metely in the degree of its potency. Nato's!, with her burning sun, her stilled and pent-up whist, her stagnant mei teeming marsh, manufactures plague on a large and fearful Neale. Poverty in her hut, covered with her rags, Surrounded with her filth, striving with all tier might to keep out the pure ate and to increase the heat, imitates nature but too successfully : the process and the product us the sslue, the only difference is in the magnitude of the re- suit.' " But the magnitude of the result in London, if that magoitude be estimated by the numbers attacked, is not slight. From returns received from the Beth- n tl Green and Whitechapel Unions, it appears that, during the last year, there occurred of fever cases—

In the Bethnal Green Union 2,084

In the Whitechapel Union 2,557

-- Total 4,641

`Thus it eppeare, that the medical officers attached to these two Unions alone have attended no less than 4,641 fever cases. But these returns include only the persons attacked with fever who applied to the parish for relief. Fever, it is notorious, has prevailed extensively in both these districts amoug people above the rank of paupers—arming the people of the middle class, and, in numes roue inetancea, even in the families of the wealthy.

" It appears that the streets, courts, alleys, and houses in which fever *first breaks out, and in which it becomes most prevalent and fatal, are invariably those in the immediate neighbourhood of uncovered sewers, stagnant ditches and ponds, gutters always full of putrefying matter, nightman's yards, and privies, the soil of which lies openly exposed, and is Pe1.10111 or never removed. It is not possible for any language to convey an !ultimate conception of time poitionotts condition in which large portions of both thee e districts alwaye re- main, winter and summer, in dry and in rainy seasons, front the maxses of putre- fying matter which are allowed to accumulate. There is no strength of consti- tution, no conservative 'lower in wealth, capable of resisting constant exposure to the exhalations which are always arising from these collections of filth. But

the people who are obliged evermore to breathe the largest doses of tine poison, are for the most part in a very wretched condition. In Bethnal Green they are almost universally hand-loom weavers, with the enfeebled constitutions of this class of people. Not that if they had the constitutions of the inhabitants of Grosvenor Spare, tiny could permanently resist the malatia which they must breathe night and day : were they in robust health, and had they in every other respect the best means of continuing so; they must inevitably, enoner or later, by the mere residence in these place*, either fall into fever or stiffer from some or other of the diseases indirectly produced by time febrile poison : but, under the wretched circumstances in et hich these people are actu. ally placed, of course they become the victims of these maladies more easily and more generally.

"Moreover, these people ere exposed to much additional evil, from the damp- ness of their houses. A large portion of Bethnal Green is a swamp, baldly any part of which is drained. In rainy weather, some entire streets are under water ; and large collections of stagnant water cover. winter and summer, con- eideralile spaces of ground in every pal t of the district. The dampness of the houses is an evil almost universally complained of by the inhabitants, as well as the wet and muddy condition of the streets during a considerable pert of the year. In the less open parts of Bethnal Green, and in a considerable part of Whiteehapel, the closeness of the streets, lanes, alleys, end courts, is most oppressive. A fresh current of air can hardly ever reach them ; and the evil is greatly aggravated by the very general custom of the people per- manently to close the windows of their houses, partly for the sake of warmth, and partly to prevent the real or imaginary effects of the air on the silk used in their work.

" There is evidence, derived front the history of these very localities, that the formation of a common sewer, the tilling up of a ditch, the removal of stags flint water, and the drainage of houses, have rendered a ilistriet healthy, from which, before such measures wete adopted, fever. was never !simile This is strikingly exemplified in the present healthfulness of the upper part of the Hackney Road, in which an excellent common sewer has been recently made, the neighbourhood of which is tvell drained. In this part of the district no ease of fever is known to have occurred during the present epidemic; although formerly the houses, even in the principal thoroughfare, and more especially the streets, lanes, courts, and alleys adjacent, were the constant seats of fever."

In noting the tendency of the Poor-law people to glorify their doings however Wiling, and in endeavouring to prevent the public mind from being terrified by the exaggerations of their zealous but indiscreet clacqueurs, it must not be supposed that we are insensible to the propriety of drawing attention towards sanatory regulations, or that we would allow remediable evils to remain for time and the improvement of manners to remove. Some of the suggestions in the Commissioners' Report are very good ; and nothing but the dilatory habits of officials, and the. utter incapacity of the Reformed Parliament for work, prevents them from being accomplished at once. It is proper that expenses for the manage- ment or prevention of paupers should be paid out of the poor-rate ; it is proper that parishes should be enabled to re- move impurities of all kinds ; and, going beyond the Report, we think a power should be lodged somewhere for the sum- mary punishment of those who accumulate them, from wilfulness, wantonness, or laziness. It is requisite in many country places that parochial authorities should have power to originate or im- prove drains: but it must not be forgotten, that in London several cliques of irresponsible and self-elected persons flourish under the title of Comtnissioners of Sewers, whose bounden duty it is, nit indeed to drain a house, but to provide holises with sewers to carry off their drainings ; and who, at their own good pleasure, draw large sums of money from the public for this purpose. Un- less, therefore, these authorities and their powers be examined into and regulatisl at the same time that any powers of th kind suggested are given to parishes, there will be two clash- ing and taxing bodies in existence at the same time, and for analogous purposes. As Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH suggests, fever hospitals or receptacles, erected as separate from work- houses or other hospitals, might be permitted to Parishes or Unions, if any plan could be contrived to give the rate-payers a sufficient control in the matter. The idea of directing the " white-washing, cleansing, reparations," &c. of houses, is not abstractedly improper, but it partakes of the arbitrary character which has been attributed 10 the Poor-law Act, and most as- suredly would never pass if the landlords of these houses had any Parliamentary influence. Beyond this, all direct inter- ference would be ridiculous, because useless. Personal dirtiness may arise from idleness and long habit ; but if not caused by, it is mostly persisted in from the recklessness and depression of poverty and starvation. All beyond this is beyond the pale of law. Persons do not wear rags, or insufficient clothing, or eschew solid food, or stupify themselves with drains, or huddle together in eels tars or disease-breeding rooms, or seep without bed and bedding, or " pig in " three and four together, ss ithout the pressure of a stern necessity. The only mode of effectually remedying, for the present generation, these crying grievances, which annually sweep away thousands of people, is by stimulating the industry of the country, by regulating taxation, and abolishing monops. lies, which make and keep them poor. The vices of habit can only be got rid of hereafter by an enlightened system of' education, which should teach the arts of living as well as of reading and writing.