own imprudence
that disease and debility are incurred, and one remedy is to be found
in knowledge. Once let the mass of the people be instructed in their
own frames; let them understand clearly that disease is not an
accident, but has fixed causes, many of which they can avert, and a
great amount of suffering, want, and consequent intellectual depression
will be removed.--I hope I shall not be thought to digress too far,
when I add, that were the mass of the community more enlightened on
these points, they would apply their knowledge, not only to their
private habits, but to the government of the city, and would insist on
municipal regulations favoring general health. This they owe to
themselves. They ought to require a system of measures for effectually
cleansing the city; for supplying it with pure water, either at public
expense or by a private corporation; and for prohibiting the erection
or the letting of such buildings as must generate disease. What a sad
thought is it, that in this metropolis, the blessings which God pours
forth profusely on bird and beast, the blessings of air, and light, and
water, should, in the case of many families, be so stinted or so mixed
with impurities, as to injure instead of invigorating the frame! With
what face can the great cities of Europe and America boast of their
civilization, when within their limits thousands and ten thousands
perish for want of God's freest, most lavish gifts! Can we expect
improvement among people who are cut off from nature's common bounties,
and want those cheering influences of the elements which even savages
enjoy? In this city, how much health, how many lives are sacrificed to
the practice of letting cellars and rooms which cannot be ventilated,
which want the benefits of light, free air, and pure water, and the
means of removing filth! We forbid by law the selling of putrid meat
in the market. Why do we not forbid the renting of rooms in which
putrid, damp and noisome vapors are working as sure destruction as the
worst food? Did people understand that they are as truly poisoned in
such dens as by tainted meat and decaying vegetables, would they not
appoint commissioners for houses as truly as commissioners for markets?
Ought not the renting of untenantable rooms, and the crowding of such
numbers into a single room as must breed disease, and may infect a
neighborhood, be as much forbidden as the importation of a pestilence?
I have enlarged on