In the
decade between 1851 and 1860 there died of diseases attributable
to defective drainage and impure water over four thousand persons
in every million throughout England: these numbers have declined
until in 1888 there died less than two thousand in every million.
The most striking diminution of the deaths from such causes was
found in 1891, in the case of typhoid fever, that diminution
being fifty per cent. As to the scourge which, next to plagues
like the Black Death, was formerly the most dreaded--smallpox--there
died of it in London during the year 1890 just one person. Drainage
in Bristol reduced the death rate by consumption from 4.4 to 2.3; at
Cardiff, from 3.47 to 2.31; and in all England and Wales, from 2.68
in 1851 to 1.55 in 1888.
What can be accomplished by better sanitation is also seen
to-day by a comparison between the death rate among the children
outside and inside the charity schools. The death rate among
those outside in 1881 was twelve in a thousand; while inside,
where the children were under sanitary regulations maintained by
competent authorities, it has been brought down first to eight,
then to four, and finally to less than three in a thousand.
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