Volume 1

Public health: a popular introduction to sanitary science : being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the close of the war of the French revolution in 1815 / by William A. Guy.

  • Guy, William A. (William Augustus), 1810-1885.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public health: a popular introduction to sanitary science : being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the close of the war of the French revolution in 1815 / by William A. Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    cattle and the culture of a few fruits, and when manufac- turing industry was limited to the production of coarse clothing, frail and combustible habitations, and imple- ments for warfare and the chase, they were the prey of frequent famines and pestilences, and subject to a rate of mortality of which, in these days, we have happily no ex- perience. How much the contests of rival chiefs, the in- security of life and property, the condition of serfdom, the absence of roads, the huge unreclaimed tracts of forest and marsh, must have weakened production and strengthened disease, it is not difficult to imagine. Passing on to the time when men began to collect in cities, and to fortify themselves by walls and moats against lawless violence, when the culture of grain took the place, to some extent, of the care of cattle, we still find both town and country, the dwellings and the habits of die people, hostile to health, favourable to the produc- tion of disease at home and the reception of pestilence from abroad. And even when we arrive at times that may claim to be called civilized^ when we had attained to a central and stable government, had long thrown off the incubus of serfdom, had established flourishing manufactures and were carrying on an extensive commerce, had largely im- proved our agriculture, and taken our first lessons in horti- culture, our cities and houses were so squalid and filthy that the plague found itself quite at home in them. Then, little by little, as civilization advanced, the twin virtues of cleanliness and temperance asserted their rights. Men bathed and washed oftener, submitted to frequent changes of linen, and admitted tea, coffee, and chocolate into competition with beer, wine, and spirits. They came by degrees to live in better houses and cleaner towns. We saw the last of the plague, and were in the right way to rid ourselves of some, at least, of our home-bred pestilences.