Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/201

 in places where exhalations from the soil, and every description of human miasmata must be almost constantly detained and concentrated. Narrow passages are sufficiently unhealthy, but they have greatly the advantage of the courts to which we refer, since, in the former, there are, for the most part, two open extremities which allow a pretty free current of air, while in the latter, all perflation is obstructed by the quadrangular arrangement of the buildings. When it is borne in mind that the areas are often half-filled with deposits of the refuse of animal and vegetable matters, as well as with other impurities, it must be evident that few circumstances are wanting for the production of all the morbific agency of which buildings are capable. But even those parts of the city formerly tenanted by the wealthy citizens, seem to have been as little exempt from the character of closeness as those which gave shelter to the more needy. The truth of this statement is strikingly confirmed by the name of Broad-street. What must have been the width of the other streets when this received its distinctive appellation!

In the important particulars of drainage and sewerage, some districts of the city suffer great disadvantages. Before the floating harbour was constructed, every facility was afforded for the removal of filth, by the unobstructed course of the rivers; but after the accomplishment of that work, the accumulation of the matters discharged by the drains in a stagnant body of water, occasioned no slight inconvenience to the citizens for many years. It is proper, however, to mention that, previously to the formation of the floating harbour, those parts of the