The term, Black Death, is
heard no more; and ague, from which the London physician once made a
fortune, is now a rare tax even on the skill of the hardworked Union
Medical Officer.
From the study of the past we are warranted, then, in assuming that
civilisation, unaided by special scientific knowledge, reduces disease
and lessens mortality, and that the hope of doing still more by
systematic scientific art is fully justified.
I might hereupon proceed to my project straightway. I perceive,
however, that it may be urged, that as mere civilising influences can
of themselves effect so much, they might safely be left to themselves
to complete, through the necessity of their demands, the whole
sanitary code. If this were so, a formula for a city of health were
practically useless. The city would come without the special call for
it.
I think it probable the city would come in the manner described, but
how long it would be coming is hard to say, for whatever great results
have followed civilisation, the most that has occurred has been an
unexpected, unexplained, and therefore uncertain arrest of the spread
of the grand physical scourges of mankind. The phenomena have been
suppressed, but the root of not one of them has been touched. Still
in our midst are thousands of enfeebled human organisms which only are
comparable with the savage.
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