The means of accomplishing this most desirable result consist of a perfect system of sewerage, in which no part or section of the city whatever shall be neglected—and in an organized plan, whose details should be overseen by the police, for gathering and carrying away daily all the garbage and refuse of the city; and these details should be joined with a rigid and perpetual sanitary inspection of every block in the city, every street, every alley, every yard. But could this be done? Of course it could be done; and the day will arrive when it will be done. Then the airs of our streets, instead of being reeking and pestiferous during the hot season, will not offend the most delicate nostrils.
There is, however, much in cities, it remains to be said, which is not sufficiently appreciated as offering great advantages for health. The markets, with their luxuries, afford their selection from a list of simple articles, to him who realizes the importance of attaining a fine physique, primarily through the stomach, the careful choice of his daily aliment. This is no trifling advantage, and it is one which is often deficient in the country; there the prevailing food is apt to be salt meat, vegetables, &c., which (the truth may as well be told,) are by no means the articles most favorable to produce a race of clearblooded and sound-conditioned men. The often-mentioned superiority of the country receives a great drawback on this account.
And with respect to the matter of good air, it is to be recollected that it is of serious importance only through the three or four hot months of the year. We do not intend to deprecate its vital bearings upon health, but are not willing to have the truth overstated, or made worse than it is. During the fall, winter and spring, most of our cities are as healthy as any country place. Nor let it be forgotten that a very large proportion of country places are pervaded with an atmosphere more or less bad and unwholesome. Exhalations and vapors rise and spread around, often in neighborhoods where everything looks fair and inviting to the eye. The frame-racking and blood-thinning disease of fever and ague, which annually ruins its tens of thousands of men, is one of the results of country air.
In general terms, it may be stated that the rude forms and florid complexions of healthy specimens of country life, are to be attributed to their more natural hours, early rising, exercise, open air, and their being less under the influence of the artificial habits and overtaxed mentality which mark the life of the citizen. If citizens would only make a reasonable use of their many priceless advantages, knock off some of their artificial habits, and take daily exercise, avoiding all dissipations, they would soon show not only equally noble specimens of health with the country, but superior to them.
[CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.]
