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He's as far From the enjoyment of the earth and air Who watches o'er the chains, as they who wear." DURING certain seasons of the year, all tropical climates are subject to epidemics of a most destructive nature.
To the simply conservative of mind, the idea of filling one's house with dirty East End hop pickers infected with typhoid seemed too radical. Surely he could have done something less extraordinary. Would everybody be expected to turn their houses into hospitals in case of village epidemics, now that he had established a precedent?
In his "History of France," from 417 to 591, Gregorius speaks of a malady under the name inguinale which depopulated the Province of Arles. In another passage this illustrious historian of Tours says that the town of Narbonne was devastated by a maladie des aines. We have records of epidemics in France from 567 to 590, in which bubonic symptoms were a prominent feature.
This explains why, in private practice and under civilized conditions, epidemics of this admittedly infectious disease are rare; while in jails, overcrowded barracks, prison ships, and winter camps of armies in the field they are by no means uncommon.
The police authorities are, nevertheless, vigilant, and the magistrates severe, so that many desperadoes are brought to justice. The suburbs of New Orleans lie low, and the swampy soil emits a poisonous miasma. This is, without doubt, the cause of virulent epidemics that visit the city annually with direful effect.
They seemed comfortable; gossipy they were, and fond of mothering the girls. But now and then one of them would start to weep, cry for an hour together, with her white head on a spotty desk-blotter, till she forgot her homelessness and uselessness. Epidemics of hysteria would spring up sometimes, and women of thirty-five or forty normally well content would join the old ladies in sobbing.
The French army arrived at Mayence; if, indeed, one may give the name of army to a few masses of men destitute, dispirited, and exhausted by fatigue and privation. On the arrival of the troops at Mayence no preparation had been made for receiving them: there were no provisions, or supplies of any kind; and, as the climax of misfortune, infectious epidemics broke out amongst the men.
Winterham, aware that our missionaries in that distant land had been compelled to wear native dress by the arrogant chiefs, and so fallen victims to numerous chills and epidemics? George replied that he considered the treatment abominable, believed that the matter occupied the mind of the Foreign Office night and day, and would be glad personally to subscribe to any relief fund.
What else can be expected than an excessive mortality, an unbroken series of epidemics, a progressive deterioration in the physique of the working population? Let us see how the facts stand. That the dwellings of the workers in the worst portions of the cities, together with the other conditions of life of this class, engender numerous diseases, is attested on all sides.
One cannot nowadays imagine in what abominable putrescence the city of the popes, the Roma sporca which artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses lacked even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares were used for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for sewage, the princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets were perfect manure beds which fostered frequent epidemics.
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