THE GREAT HEALTH-STEALER

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GREAT HEALTH-STEALER

IS LONDON RUINING THE COUNTRY? Among most people the belief prevails that, as London is the healthiest of cities, it is a very healthy place to live in. It really is no such thing.

The low death-rate is deceptive, for it results not from the healthiness of London, but from the fact that there is a continuous tide of delicate natives ebbing out of the metropolis, and a greater tide of the best men and women of the country always flowing in. All cities are '' destructors" of human beings, and London is no exception. Indeed, a very appropriate legend to attach to every signpost pointing to London would be: — "Healthy men and women taken in and done for."

This subject has been scientifically studied by many eminent medical men. and they have proved beyond doubt that London is sapping the vitality of the kingdom.

Starting with the theory that a high condition of vitality can only be maintained where the air contains ozone. Dr. Cautlie showed, some years ago, that London must necessarily be a sickly place. Ozone, it may be explained, is oxygen in a very energetic condition. Now, Dr. Cantlie stationed observers one day at the following points to look for ozone: —Rrownswood Park, N.E. ; Maida Vale. N.W. ; Hyde Park, Bushey Park, Wandsworth, and Barnes, S.W. At Brownswood Park a faint trace of ozone was found : but at no other point did they find a single molecule. This does not say much for lirownswood Park, however, for the wind was blowing from the north-east, and that place got the first of it as it came in from the country laden with ozone. Were the wind blowing from the south or south-west, a little ozone would be found at Croydon or Catford ; but none in any other part of London. It is reasonably supposed that dwellers within the four-mile circle get a breathe of ozone only once in a quarter; while probably it has not found its way to the Strand. Fleet-street, Holborn, or Cheapside for the last eighty or a hundred years. What are the consequences? The first is that Londoners are mostly pale, and the second that their muscles weaken and grow flabby. In the polluted air there is little desire for exercise. And. even when exercise is taken, it does not do much good. Indeed, a man who goes in for a great deal of exercise in London will die sooner than if he took none, for he breathes too much of the air that has been breathed before by several other people. Of course, there is much lung disease. Consumption is very bad in London. So is English cholera in the summer, owing to the fact that there is no ozone to kill the microbes. Cancer is making great headway, too, because the debilitated constitutions of Londoners are unable to- resist it. The digestion is bad, the chest small, and there is little power of endurance. These are the consequences to the individuals who live in London during the greater part of their lifetime. When it comes to their children and grandchildren, the case is much worse. The doctor quoted above, when setting about his investigations on the health of Londoners, had first to decide what is a Londoner. He defined him as a man whose parents and grandparents were born in London, and lived in it all their lives. But, though, lie made an exhaustive search, he could not discover a single specimen ! Perhaps some reader can supply an instance. He found, however, three people v,!_. e grandparents came to London from toe country, and whose parents were born and lived in the metropolis. People in weak health would be unlikely to have children who could live "beyond the years of infancy, and therefore the conclusion is that, if no fresh blood came in from the country, Londoners would die out in the third generation. In other words, if all inlets were stopped, the population would have become extinct within seventy or eighty years.