Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/185

Rh man of the expediency of removing graveyards from the abodes of the living; and here and there among the annals of sanitation are instances of sickness and death that can be traced directly to their baneful proximity.

We next come to what may be called the medical and physiological ameliorations of the woes of humanity. Thousands and thousands of lives are now saved annually in the hospitals, refuges, homes, etc., provided by Christian charity, which have mostly come into being within the last century. Multitudes of lives have been saved by antiseptic surgery alone. The hospitals have afforded such facilities for the study of disease that a partial mastery has been gained over many, especially those known to be contagious, so that when an outbreak of one of these occurs it is soon confined to the smallest possible area; isolation and disinfection do much, and the private burial of persons so dying helps to limit the mischief. Of what may be called the medical control of disease, vaccination surpasses all others in its benefits. The deaths in London alone from small-pox during the last century fell but a trifle short of two hundred thousand, and so common was it that Macaulay says a person without a pitted face was the exception; while the numbers rendered blind, deaf, and hideous as well as wretched by it are pitiful to think of. In New York, in 1878, in a population of eleven hundred thousand, there were but fourteen cases, thanks to vaccination; and in the German army, where vaccination is compulsory and also revaccination at stated periods, the disease has been effectually eradicated. Anti-vaccination cranks are specially invited to read the above.

Sanitation, which works so beneficently among civilians, soon gets itself applied in the army and navy. The navies of the world furnish striking examples of the prolonging of life, and, as careful records are kept in them, it doesn't remain an ambiguous quantity. Discipline can enforce cleanliness both of the man and the ship, and a good example set in the ships of one country is soon followed in those of another. The production of pure distilled water on shipboard has done much to abolish alimentary diseases among sailors, and the power of vegetables and lime-juice to defend them from scurvy appeals to the selfishness of the ship-owners, though redounding to the long life of Jack. Dampness is one of man's mortal foes, and when it is aggravated by heat it becomes ten times worse. Damp heat between decks aggravates yellow fever and is the great cause of disease in the tropics. Formerly every day saw the decks washed down, but this operation is now left to the discretion of the commanding officer. The wisdom of this arrangement is apparent from the following record of Captain Murray, commander of H. B. M.'s ship Valorous: "In 1823, after two