A brief narrative of the commencement and progress of the fetid irrigations and foul water pits around the city of Edinburgh : with proofs of their operation in creating nuisance, and in producing disease.

  • Ellis Daniel.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief narrative of the commencement and progress of the fetid irrigations and foul water pits around the city of Edinburgh : with proofs of their operation in creating nuisance, and in producing disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    where this insalubrity in former times was never felt, are now in summer visited by it, as the Quirinal, the Palatine, Sec.; and the villas Rorghese and Pamfili, in the suburbs, are deserted from the same cause. The country around Rome was one* extremely populous, though it be now a wilderness almost without inhabitants. During the summer and au- tumnal months it is so unhealthy that the shepherds and others come every night to take shelter within the walls of Rome, to avoid the danger to which they would be exposed by passing the night in the country. (Letters written from Italy by Chateauvieux, Edinburgh Review, No. 55, p. 57.) Whilst the desolation kept at a certain distance from the walls, the indifference with which men too often view the calamities of their neighbours, might prevent the citizens of Rome from sympathizing deeply with the inhabi- tants of the country; but that the present inhabitants of that city should be under no alarm,—that the Government should be taking no steps to discover the cause or the remedy for this great calamity, is not easily explained. Were liberty to restore to Italy that activity and exertion which once prevailed in it, there is reason to think that the same effects would result from it which took place in former ages ; and that the insalubrity of the Campagna would either be exter- minated, or reduced within narrow bounds. If measures of this kind are not pursued, the consequences must be fatal. “ The great city, which has arrogated to itself the name of ‘ Eternal,1 which has already experienced the extremes of good and bad fortune ; which, after being reared by heroes, has suffered itself to be ravaged by barbarians, and finally to be governed by priests; which, in the days of its prosperity, conquered the world by its arms, and in the tlays of its weakness enslaved mankind by its opinions :—That city is about to fall a prey to an invisible enemy, which a vigilant and wise administration would have enabled it to resist.” (Ibid., p. 58.)