SYDENHAM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4682, 2 May 1883, Page 3

SYDENHAM.

Its Real Sanitary Condition.

[By thh Stab's Special Mbdicai CoxMISBIOHEB.J (Concluded.) Sinco the previous roport was written I have had an opportunity of visiting Sydenham during heavy rain— on the morning of Tuesday, May 1. I found that water was lying in shallow pools in all the paddocks, and in many of the gardens round houses. The surface drainage is therefore imperfect, as might naturally be expected in such a flat. There remains now to be considered the main object of thiß inquiry, "What is the real sanitary condition of Sydenham P In previous papers I have described aa fully aa the materials at my disposal enabled me to do, the number, social oondition, habitations, and general surroundings of the population of Sydenham, so as to be able to form an impartial judgment on the question submitted to me. The reports of the Health Officer have also beon carefully examined, and tho statistics he has givon have been duly studied. Account has been taken of some circumstances which Dr Nedwill does not allude to in his reports, at le»st such as I havo seen, which bear very materially on this question. For instance we must not forget that Sydenham isa new town, that its streets and drains have all boen formed at the expense of the present inhabitants, and within a very short time ; that they have, for the most part, boen persona of small means, who have bought their own seotions of land and built their own houses, and that a large number of them havo done theio things by means of the oare* fully hoarded savings of years of industry, sobriety and self-denial. Suoh people are the very cream of onr population— the kind Colonists who are the most valuable members of our community — the working bees who make honey for othera, and save some for their own consumption in the wintery weather. Wo must not oxpoct in a town suoh as this to find all the appliances, end all the Banitary improvements which may justly be looked for in towns that have been in existenoe even for forty or fifty years, arid where capitalists using largo and expensive buildings oan contribute without personal inconvenience to the coßt of expensive worko. It may oost only £15 to connsot a closet with a sewer, and £15 may seoma very trivial Bum to the owner of a large hotel, or to a wealthy merchant occupying a palatial range of buildings, but it is a very serious Bum to a working man who has to maintain a wife and . family out of his earnings, to pay two shillings in the pound of ratc9, and perhape either to pay interest on v. heavy mortgage, or to pay up his shares in a building sooiety. Of this we may be quite sure, that the olass of men who form the bulk of the householders in Sydenham will take a proper pride in their little properties ; they will bo anxious to make the house they lire in, and in whioh their children live, as wholesomo aB they can ; they will not ullow filth or dirt to accumulate about their dwelling!, and aa far as their moans will permit thoy will adopt all sanitary improvements whioh they are oonvinced will be useful -to them. But it is in vain to attempt to force sanitary improvements, on them vi et artnis. They are mostly of the John Bull race, and of all animals in the world, none is worse to drive along a road he does not like than John Bull. You may coax him, or persuade him, or convince him ; but nobody has ever yet been able to force him to do what he did not choose to do. Aad the more you drivo him, the more he won't go„ Now, is Sydenham in suoh a filthy condition aa to be really injurious to health? To this I think we mast reply deliberately, Ifo. The death rate, whioh taking the mean of the last three yeara has only been a fraction over fifteen per thousand, conclusively proves this. Dr Nedwill states that " in many streets of tbe Borough, it is quite unsafe to live for want of drainage." Now this is either a nice rhetorical expression, or it means that the risks to life are notably greater in theso parts of Sydenham than the average risks. Does Dr Nedwill seriously mean that if a person living in one cf these streetß wore to appear before him to be examined, for Lifo Insurance, he would be prepared to recommend the Insurance Company to decline the life beoaused he lived in certain parts of Sydenham, or to " load " it with a number of additional years. Ib there a Binglo Btreet in Sydenham in which a healthy man, woman, er child might not tako up his or her residence, with the confidenco that his or her life would be juat as likely to last the average timo, as if the residonce were in any other town ? How is it possible to say of a goodsized town with a population of 9000, and a death rate laßt year of 'only thirteen per thousand, that it is unsafe to lire on account of its want of drainage ? Where is there a town of the same size and density of population with a lower death rate ? Dr Nedwill attaoks Sydenham on account of ita " filth." .Now wo have in typhoid or enterio fever emphatically a " filth " diseaso. Mr Simon, C.8., the late medical officer of the Privy Oouncil, one of the greatest living authorities on sanitary matters, waa in his reports constantly dwelling upon typhoid fever, as a " filth " disease. In Sydenham we find that there have been exactly four deathß from typhoid fever in fifteen months, The " fiith" in Sydenham must hava lost its poisonous properties. I mako no account of the number of reportod cases, for the reasons given in the third of these papers. It is not credible, unfc?l far better evidence iB produced, that 49 casos of typhoid fever wore treated with only a single death in Sydenham. The sanitary defects of Sydenham are those common to all Colonial towns, and particularly as most of them, liko Bydenham, are built on a flat. Naturally onough, people seize oa a flat Bite for a now town. It ia less trouble to the surveyors to lay out a township on a flat ; it iB less expensive to form tho streets j the haulage of timber for building purposes costs less; provisions and furniture and other necessaries of lifo are moro easily carted to and about a flat than thoy are on a hill side. The water supply is move certain, and genorally more übundant j tho soil is often well adapted for gardon cnlturo, and in a now town in a Colony, people aro generally obliged at first to grow thoir own vegetables. For theßo p.nd many other reassna peoplo prefer a town built on a flat. It has its advantages no doubt, but from the Eanitarian'a point of view it has groat disadvantages. It is nearly alwoys damp, and ofton t-wampy; it is difficult to drain ; the soil is ofton a soft alluvium, which forms in rainy weather a tenacious rdud ; there is no rapid outfall for liquid refuse, and when tho rains como thot would sweep awoy, in a few hours, from a town built on a hillside, everything that can corrupt tha air by its decay, it makes matters in a flat town worse than they wore before. But for all this, tho town onco built and settled upon, will oontinua to be inhabited. Business centres are formed, proporty becomes valuable, and the only thing that oan bo done by pooplo who have not made their fortunes, is to try to do the best thoy oon to improve the place in spite of the disadvantageous sito. That tho people of Sydenham havo done their fair share in this work, I am more than ever satisfied by my inspeotion made during the heavy rain. All is not perfeot, and many things might be done at comparatively trifling expense to improve the drainage of the ground about the houses, which might be pointed out, if it wero within the scopo of this report to do so. The predominant defect, is that in building the houses thoy have not been raised high enough above the ground. There is nothing more important in building houses of one storey than to havo that storoy raised at least two or three foot abovo the ground. In tropioal countries, when the

malaria from the ground at night is so deadly, Europeans cannot live in one- storied housea unless they are raised four or five feet from the ground. Even then their health suffers, and all who can, prefer to sleep in up-stairs rooms. The malaria only rises about seven of eight feet above the ground, and above thia you are breathing a far purer atmosphere. Another defect iB in tho want of sufficient ventilation for the house when shut up at night. About this I have already written, so that I need not dwell upon it. Were these two defects remedied, I venture to say that Sydenham would be the healthiest town in the Colony (if it is not so now), because it contains such a very large proportion of detaohed houses. AU sanitary improvements require time and money, and if we attempt to enforce costly works on people of limited moans, we shall drive them away from tha place, or compel them to deprive themselves of tho comforts or even necessaries of life. We shall subject them to pecuniary cares and anxieties which are far more injurious to health than even a dirty gutter, and we shall make them dissatisfied and discontented with the system under which they live, and excite in their minds an obstinate prejudice against even the most unquestionable improvements. At preaent the inhabitants of Syoenham are greatly irritated against Dr Nedwill, who has forgotten Talleyrand's maxim " Surtout point de zele" but let them not overlook tho faot that the advice he gives is good and aound, and that every gutter into which house refuso iB cast, every overflowing cesspit, and every choked up drain, contributes something to that poisoned state of the atmosphere whioh haa been indisputably proved to be one of the greatest causes of the mortality of epidemic diseases.