[Sidenote: Fumigations.]

Let no one ever depend upon fumigations, "disinfectants," and the like,
for purifying the air. The offensive thing, not its smell, must be
removed. A celebrated medical lecturer began one day "Fumigations,
gentlemen, are of essential importance. They make such an abominable
smell that they compel you to open the window." I wish all the
disinfecting fluids invented made such an "abominable smell" that they
forced you to admit fresh air. That would be a useful invention.

II.--HEALTH OF HOUSES.[7]

[Sidenote: Health of houses. Five points essential.]

There are five essential points in securing the health of houses:--

1. Pure air.
2. Pure water.
3. Efficient drainage.
4. Cleanliness.
5. Light.

Without these, no house can be healthy. And it will be unhealthy just in
proportion as they are deficient.

[Sidenote: Pure air.]

1. To have pure air, your house must be so constructed as that the outer
atmosphere shall find its way with ease to every corner of it. House
architects hardly ever consider this. The object in building a house is
to obtain the largest interest for the money, not to save doctors' bills
to the tenants. But, if tenants should ever become so wise as to refuse
to occupy unhealthily constructed houses, and if Insurance Companies
should ever come to understand their interest so thoroughly as to pay a
Sanitary Surveyor to look after the houses where their clients live,
speculative architects would speedily be brought to their senses. As it
is, they build what pays best. And there are always people foolish
enough to take the houses they build. And if in the course of time the
families die off, as is so often the case, nobody ever thinks of blaming
any but Providence[8] for the result. Ill-informed medical men aid in
sustaining the delusion, by laying the blame on "current contagions."
Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed
hospitals do for the sick. Once insure that the air in a house is
stagnant, and sickness is certain to follow.

[Sidenote: Pure water.]

2. Pure water is more generally introduced into houses than it used to
be, thanks to the exertions of the sanitary reformers. Within the last
few years, a large part of London was in the daily habit of using water
polluted by the drainage of its sewers and water closets. This has
happily been remedied. But, in many parts of the country, well water of
a very impure kind is used