orm strictly to these rules and all avoidable disease will be
annihilated. On the other hand, where hygienic and sanitary science is
not enforced, filth, decay and putrifying matter is sure to
accumulate. In this we have suitable material for the propagation of
disease germs, which cause all communicable and contagious diseases.
These minute organisms exist in the atmosphere everywhere, and
multiply by their own peculiar method of procreation; such as filth,
heat and moisture.

A population under the influence of vice, poverty, filth, debauchery,
foul air, poorly prepared food and crowded dwellings, or in low, damp
localities, with no rule regulating their eating or sleeping, clothing
or exercise, is sure to have a great degree of mortality.

With our thorough knowledge of how to prevent epidemics, most of the
diseases that enter the body through the respiratory, digestive,
cutaneous, circulatory, nervous, and genito-urinary systems should be
less frequent. Taking the facts which I have here given into account
one may see that not only do health and longevity depend upon laws
which we can understand and successfully operate, but man has it in
his power to modify to a great extent the circumstances in which he
lives, with a view to the promotion of his well-being and
preservation.

We know that the draining of a marsh pond banishes malaria; a change
from the city to the country reinvigorates, and that those who live in
the high, well drained portions of our cities have the smallest degree
of mortality and that the greater comforts possessed by the affluent
secure for them longer life than the poor who are not so favored. To
diminish the mortality in the Southern cities will depend upon both
the individual and social efforts as well as upon the public measures
of the legally constituted authorities.

The dirty neglected portions of our city where refuse and rubbish,
animal and vegetable matters are deposited and allowed to rest and
send up their poisonous odors from house to house, must be looked
after. The dwellings of our people must be improved. The old,
dilapidated stables, in the narrow, filthy alleys; the low, damp
basements and dark cellars, often below the ground, with an
insufficiency of both light and air; the clusters of homes built in
the bottom and low places, closely pent up, back to back so as to
prevent ventilation with only one entrance to each, and a privy
between; the over-crowded conditions of the