HEALTH OF TOWNS, AS INFLUENCED BY DEFECTIVE CLEANSING AND DRAINAGE. AND ON THE APPLICATION OF THE REFUSE OF TOWNS TO AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES. BEING A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE RUSSELL INSTITUTION, MAY 5, 1846. BY WILLIAM A. GUY, M.B., CANTAB. PROFESSOR OF FORENSIC MEDICINE, KING'S COLLEGE; PHYSICIAN ΤΟ Second Edition. LONDON: HENRY RENSHAW, 356, STRAND. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. SINCE the first edition of this Lecture was published, its subject has derived new interest and importance from two events which are well fitted to follow the one upon the other. The one is, the probable repeal of the cornlaws, by which English agriculture is opened to competition, and the other, the reference to a select committee of the House of Commons of the bill of the Metropolitan Sewage Manure Company, and of the general question of the application of the refuse of the metropolis to the purposes of agriculture. The increased importance thus conferred on the subject-matter of the second part of this Lecture has induced the author to exercise much care in its revision, and to make slight alterations in the text, and some additions to the Appendix. The Lecture was originally printed at the instance of several gentlemen who were present at its delivery. Its object was to promote the cause of sanatory improvement by connecting the health of towns with the important question which has lately engaged so much of public attention; and, especially, to prove that the waste of health and life at present taking place is closely connected with a waste of the raw material of food. It is scarcely necessary to state that the lecture takes a popular rather than a profound view of the subject. Such alterations have been made in it as were rendered necessary by the want of the tables and diagrams by which it was illustrated, and a series of Appendices have been added, which will be found to contain additional illustrations of the leading positions advanced. LECTURE. GENTLEMEN, IN seeking this opportunity of addressing you on the Health of Towns, I have been influenced partly by a sense of the great and growing interest which attaches to this subject, and partly, but in a still greater degree, by my own deep conviction of its surpassing importance. It is this conviction which has induced me, on more than one occasion, to offer my services, as a lecturer, to the Health of Towns' Association; and in doing so, as in addressing you this evening, I feel that I am acting in the spirit which has influenced the most distinguished members of my profession, who have ever esteemed it both a duty and a privilege to make known the means by which disease may be prevented, and health preserved; knowing full well, from their own daily experience, how much more is to be effected by the simplest methods of prevention than by the most skilful attempts at cure. The great and growing interest, which, as I have |