BELINAYE ON THE SOURCES OP HEALTH AND DISEA SE.
THIS is a book which will repay a perusal : its popular style will render it perhaps more useful than a more original or scientific work. Unluckily, persons on whom the general condition of towns in a great measure depends, are those who may not be ap- proached through the medium of science. In a light and agreeable manner, mixing anecdote and exposi- tion, Mr. BELINAYE runs through all those considerations which affect the health of men congregated in large towns ; and lays down the measures winch ought to be taken to purify localities, and protect the inhabitants from mephitic exhalations. He traces the connexion between disease and certain states of the circum- ambient atmosphere ; and points to causes of malady existing al- most everywhere, and everywhere disregarded, which, before any society can hope to reduce its mortality to a minimum, must be diminished or altogether destroyed. Magistrates, Members of Parliament, and others, are seldom accessible to Hygienic rea- soning ; and, in fact, generally contrive, except perhaps on a Sunday at church, and now and then in other places, to keep themselves in a tolerably pure atmosphere : and as for the poor, filth and poverty have been so long intimately associated, that their separation is either deemed impossible, or at best no concern of those who dwell in well-ventilated mansions.
Regulations the necessity of which arises from the congregation of men in society, ought to be made in society ; they ought not to be left to either the caprice or the means of individuals : when the welfare of all is at stake, all should act by their delegates or representatives. It must not be left to crowded and condemned masses of impoverished and over-labourinc, individuals, to attend to measures that cannot be well conducted except on a great scale, and which, as not apparently and absolutely necessary to the exist- ence of the day, are sure to be neglected. If all the money that has been devoured in feasts, by city and country corporations, had been spent in constructing common sewers, and establishing baths and comfortable washing-houses for the working classes,—if all the mental and physical energy that has been spent on such orgies had been employed in ac- quiring information respecting the conduct and management of their mtillicipia, and in seeing after the wellbeing and general health and cleanliness of their local constituents,—very different would be the amount of health and virtue in our large towns. By thiS is not meant, petty interference with individuals and their in- terests—an evil of over-government; but a thorough discharge of public duty. The ignorance and idleness of such creatures as coun- try aldermen, for instance, except in boroughmongering, is noto- rious, and as injurious as it is universally known. Police, in their narrow view, is confined to the apprehension of burglars ; whom, however, they always permit to do their worst mischief before they interfere with them. One of the results of the impartial investiga- tions of a Reformed Parliament, will be a uniform and efficient municipal and rural Police, branching off' into boards of health, of building, and other great proceedings, in which private interest al- ways requires to be checked by coasideration for the public good. Dr. KAY'S pamphlet on the horrible state of Manchester, in all points respecting health, morals, and social comfort, may be taken as a starting-point : no one can read it without seeing that masses should never be allowed to congregate except under certain sana- tory regulations—that no proprietor should be allowed to build, except where provisions have been made for the supply cf water, and the carrying off of excrementitious matter. But there are folks even blinder than aldermen of corporate towns: such are they who always assemble during many hours on one holy day in each week, in crowds over the miasmata ex- haled from the putrescent remains of thousands of dead ancestors. The faint and oppressive odour of a church is familiar to every one; and, as has been observed, ideas of religion, in common minds, are always associated with the gloom and horror of the damps and pestiferons atmosphere of the church. The health of the soul is here contaminated as well as the health of the body : the place of devotion, which should be dressed in the purest and most dia- phanous images, is surrounded by the thick and stinking fog of mortal corruption ; and the idea of worship becomes repulsive.
Man is a very dirty creature, unless he is kept very clean. Alive, he requires a constant process of washing and scouring; his secretions are abominable; the very rheum from his eyes would cor- rode iron. His habitation should be built on a stream, and no morn- ing should pass without thorough ablution; and if his employment is sedentary, every part of his frame should be braced with a spung- ing application of a solution of vinegar. His breath, when con- fined, is poisonous : too many persons in a room are every instant shortening their existence • and unless his garments are changed and purified sufficiently Often, he becomes a regular hotbed of Terrain. But, suppose him not one, but a myriad, dwelling on a spot prejudicial to human life to begin with, in the midst of accumu- lated masses of putrescent filth, every instant exhaling steams of poisonous vapour, living scantily and on poor food, overworked, unwashed, dejected in heart, subdued, emaciated, and almost mace- rated, by sweat and breath and steam : can we wonder that life is .ahortened? Should we not rather wonder at the extraordinary tenacity of life and vigour of constitution which can resist such a combination of mischief for years, and only exhibit its effects in a Meagre body and a gaunt and pallid face? At length, however, come fever and death; and the suffering body is turned into an inflicting mass of active evil. Instead of being removed to some solitary spot, over which lhe airs of heaven blow, and scatter and dilute the mischief, he is carried to rot in the place of weekly wor- ship; where, in death, he evaporates in revenge upon society the ill he has suffered during a life of protracted misery and privation. Akin to this melancholy error, is the shameful one of permitting slaughterhouses of cattle in the midst of a crowded population, and the blood and offal, and other ordurous matters necessarily attendant upon such places, to grow putrid in and about the dwellings of the inhabitants. Markets also, for the sale of cattle, ought to be in four suburban spaces assigned for that purpose on each side of the metropolis. When great numbers of animals are driven to Smithfield, at the risk of human life, and with an im- mense loss per annum (calculated at 50,000.) from such as are killed or injured by blows, they poison the atmosphere with their ordure, mixed with all the impurities of a crowded street ; and the meat thus deteriorated, itself produces injurious effects upon those who partake of it.
The health of a town is capable of being regulated on scientific principles ; the cleansing and purification of it, and the construc- tion of it, with a view to render such processes complete, are sus- ceptible of being laid down in rules. The supply of water, for in- stance, might be so managed, that while through one orifice pure water was given for household consumption, by another it should sweep certain passages and drains, bound to be placed under every house, and under the regulation of the municipality, in such a manner as to carry away daily every Vestige of filth.
In the remoter streets of the motropolis, and in many of the ways of close, old country towns, every description of filth may be observed accumulating in the corners and even in the centre of the streets : a mischief to be remedied by the active exertions of the mu- nicipal scavenger, as well as by enacting that all buildings should be constructed with a view to cleanliness, and also by public esta- blishments and arrangements with the same view. The importance of such considerations will be appreciated by those who, though they may not have previously attended to the subject, will read the work of Mr. BELINAYE ; after which, the authorities he refers to may be consulted with great advantage. The followitui observations on premature interment will serve . as a specimen of i1r. BELINANE'S light and agreeable manner of treating difficult subjects.
The delay which precedes burial in England, would appear sufficient to pre- clude the possibility of a person's hi ng buried alive; but, as covering the lethargic or apparently dead, with the coffin-lid, and still more screwing it down, may I); attended with equally fatal results, death from premature interment may occur in England as elsewhere. The record of all who have been buried alive, in all countries and ages, would form a fearful volume, and strongly guard us against a too hasty presumption of death. Even in the time of Pliny, alarm had begun to be felt on this subject • and he dedicates a whole chapter to it. Bodies have been found in burial-vaults, which had turned upon their faces or sides—which had bled—which had marks of self-inflicted violence upon them, &c. &c. Surgeons have, through inadvertence, opened bodies which have only parted with life on the application of the scalpel : this occurred to Vesalius. Again, in 1763, a clergyman, supposed to have died from apoplexy, emitted a groan at the first incision of the knife by a surgeon deputed to investigate the cause of his death. La Place being informed of the circumstance, and asked what was to be done, replied, " Genur et se taire." Persons may, moreover, remain very long in a state of torpor, without pre- senting any appearance of animation.
An 'List:ince proving what latent energy may subsist in the human body, oc- curred in the family 'of 'a friend of the author. The nephew of this gentleman, a boy seven months old, was supposed to have died of a cerebral inflammation. The physician, on making his visit, found the uncle alone with the corpse. He examined the child, and supposed him to be dead, but proposed to the uncle (a gentleman of great scientific attainments) to try an. experiment ; to which the latter assented. A napkin was dipped in a saucepan of hot water, that WS simmering on the fire, and then put round the dal, which, notwithstanding, showed no signs of sensation. The child's feet were then placed in a bow], and water from the fire poured upon them. The body of the child was then con- vulsed—its eyes opened—and a day was added to its existence. On a post-mor- tem examination, matter was found upon the brain. Every body. is acquainted with the singular instance of an extraordinary re- surrection recorded on a monument in a church of this city; and whoever is disposed to peruse many most marvellous and well-authenticated instances, will find them in Foder6, and other authors, who have written expressly on the subject.
in the Journal des Seasants, 1749, we find it recorded, that a woman, in 1795, after having been put into her coffin, being to all appearance dead, was delivered, by artificial process, of a child, which betrayed no more signs of life than its mother. This infant, when every means of restoration had apparently proved fruitless, spontaneously revived, after the departure of the medical at- tendant. He on being recalled, had the mother taken out of her coffin, and laving resorted ineffectually to every stimulant to bring her to life, left the house ,once more, recommending that means of resuscitation should be continued. Four hours after his departure, the brother-in-law of the deceased came to in- Arai him of her recovery.
The absence of rigidity of limb, of extreme discolouration, of coldness, and in- . . .cipient putrefaction, &c., that characterize death, are so many reasons why we :should pause ere we consi,gn the body to the grave. Apoplectic persons, and .others who have died suddenly, appear, for the most part, to have fallen victims to this serious error ofjudgment. Honourable to the feelings of the nution as all must consider the procrastina- tion of interment in England, it is not without its bad consequences. The
effluvium of a dead body, diffusing itself ia a house, where the minds and vital
energy of its occupants are depressed by sorrow, and where the distressed rela- tives, perhaps, refuse necessary nutriment, may produce the worst effects. To parry these evils, and the still more awful errors of interring the dead alive, a consultation of competent persons might be appointed to examine the dead, as soon as possible after decease, and decide on the measures to be adopted. The civil law of France has made an enactment on this subject, which, if strictly adhered to, would go far to prevent these three evils—crime, burying the living by mistake, and keeping the dead to infect the 'Mug. So deeply and awfully have some people been impressed with the horrors of premature interment, that, in one of the old imperial towns of Germany, a plan has been devised and adopted, as a security against this, as well as the other evils we have enumerated. Every person, after death, is carried to a well-ven- tilated room, constructed for that purpose, near the church ; the corpse is warmly covered, and laid upon a table—the hands connected with strings, com- municating with bells suspended in an adjacent room, where a watchman is constantly on duty. To insure his vigilance, he is compelled, every quarter of an hour, to advance the finger of a dial, which will only move at that interval of time. We relate this from recollection, which, however, is accurate in an essential particulars. Two persons were saved by this expedient.
The philosopher, who studies the errors of man, will not find the display of his passions least absurd, with respect to the disposal of the dead. The strongest- minded man may, after death, become an unresisting puppet in the hands of false sentiment, caprice, fashion, and superstition. If we deride other nations—if we smile at the Abyssinian, who, as soon as his relative is supposed to be dead, hermetically seals his mouth and nostrils, &c. &c.—we shall find also, upon in- quiry, that many civilized nations are not less singular in other respects. The fulsome mummeries and inexplicable customs of some other European nations, though revolting to good sense, Christian humility, and belief, are, nevertheless, harmless pieces of vanity, compared with the pride, which, in this country, lays claim, at the expense of the living, to place and distinction, even for the tenant of the grave. For a striking instance of this pernicious absurdity, we need go
no farther than the new church of M For the sum of thirty pounds, we may there purchase the privilege of poisoning the living with the body of some departed relative. The body is laid on a trap-door, which (as an apology for the solemnity of "Duet to dust ") is strewed with a little sand. It then de- scends with its load to the bottom of the vault :—porters start from their hiding-places below, and as quickly disappear with their prize ; and when the noise and bustle of their operations have subsided, you are invited into the depths of this fashionable "Avernus," to see the remains of your friend, duly exalted above the coffins of his predecessors. All that is indecorous at the mo. ment, and prejudicial afterwards, may be avoided, by obeying, to the letter, the awful words of the service (which convey more than one emphatic meaning)-.- " Earth to earth."
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