Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), March 1, 1845, vol. 1, no. 9, p. ??

[page 129:]

REVIEWS.

THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE LABORING POPULATION OF NEW YORK. With suggestions for its improvement. A discourse (with additions) delivered on the 30th December, 1844, at the Repository of the American Institute. By John H. Griscom, M. D., Fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons; Physician of the New York Hospital; late Physician of the city and eastern dispensaries. Now York; Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff street. 1845.

(Second Notice.)

ALTHOUGH Dr. Griscom's labors are mainly in behalf of the poor, yet he very clearly proves to the rich that their own welfare is closely connected with that of the lower orders.

“At all seasons of the year, there is an amount of sickness and death, in this, as in all large cities, far beyond those of less densely peopled, more airy and open places, such as country residences. Even in villages of small size? there is an observable difference over the isolated country dwelling, in the proportionate amount of disease prevailing; proving conclusively that the congregation of animal and vegetable matters, with their constant effluvia, which has less chance of escape from the premises, in proportion to the absence of free circulation of air, is detrimental to the health of the inhabitants.

“These circumstances have never yet been investigated in this city, as they should be. Our people, especially the more destitute, have been allowed to live out their brief lives in tainted and unwholesome atmospheres, and be subject to the silent and invisible encroachments of destructive agencies from every direction, without one warning voice being raised to point to them their danger, and without an effort to rescue them from their impending fate. Fathers are taken from their children, husbands from their wives, “ere they have lived out half their days,” — the widows and orphans are thrown upon public or private charity fur support, and the money which is expended to save them from starvation, to educate them in the public schools, or, perchance, to maintain them in the workhouse or the prison, if judiciously spent in improving the sanitary arrangements of the city’ and instilling into the population a knowledge of the means by which their health might be protected, and their lives prolonged and made happy, would have been not only saved, but returned to the treasury in the increased health of the population, a much better state of public morals, and, by consequence, a more easily governed and respectable community.”

The amount of suffering in our city, as detailed in pamphlet, from causes within the power of our municipal government to remove, is much greater than we had supposed could exist. One great cause of disease, as shown by Dr. Griscom is the practice of sub-tenantage, which prevails to a very great extent among the very poor, and which is, perhaps, wholly beyond the power of the Corporation to remedy; but the greatest evils grow out of filthy streets, and these the Corporation have entirely under their own control; but the people have suffered so long from this grievance, that the now seem hardly conscious of its existence, and sit down contentedly in their Glenburneyism, without making an effort for its removal. Yet we believe that any party which will give us clean streets for six months, will be kept in power forever by the people, out of gratitude for their good works. As Dr. Griscom truly observed, New York is more favorably situated than any other City in the world for the preservation of health; yet with all the advantages that nature has so bountifully bestowed upon us for the increase of happiness, we continue by the most violent departures from obvious rules of health to cultivate as great an amount of disease and suffering as any Other city on the Continent. [column 2:]

Dr. Griscom devotes a good part of his pamphlet to the subject of ventilation, on which our people need enlightening to a fearful extent. The wealthy classes are generally as deficient of knowledge on this important subject as the laboring poor, and not unfrequently suffer acutely for lack of fresh air, of which they ignorantly deprive themselves. In remarking on the necessity of making physiology as applied to the laws of life, and the preventive of diseases, a study in all our private, public and common schools, the author says

“It is needless to say to an ignorant adult apparently free from sickness, that he lives, works and sleeps, in too confined an atmosphere — he will answer that he is well enough, and a change would be irksome, and cost money, and he will not believe what you say, for he cannot be easily made to understand the importance, or even the right use, of air. But bring up his child in a knowledge of the value and necessity of pure fresh air, by teaching him the relations which it bears to the blood, the digestion and other functions — teach him never to fear it, that it is his immediate and incessant source of life and health, give him a knowledge of the diseases and dangers to which its absence will subject him, and think you he would not avoid its impurities, as he would poison or the pestilence? In his school-room, his sitting-room, his chamber or his work-shop, he would seek for a pure clear atmosphere, as when thirsty he would seek the cool water, as the weary “hart panteth after the water brook.” “Ventilate, Ventilate,” would be his natural demand, in tones of earnestness proportioned to the necessity which his expansive lungs, and ever freshened feelings, would readily discover. The humble tenement of the laborer, would then, though but a single room, be no longer shut night and day, unvisited by the refreshing air of heaven; the work-shop would then be no longer a receptacle of foul effluvia of human and other origin, and our churches, public rooms, and lecture halls, be no longer unventilated. (En passant, what a strange inconsistency is it, in the refined and polished, to object to sip a mouthful of water from the same glass as another, in which there can be no possible contamination, and yet swallow over and over again, the breath of others shut up in the same apartment, and which has passed through hundreds of lungs, perhaps diseased, and over teeth in every stage of decay.”)

The appropriation of the Common Council the present year for the Alias House, amounts to $197,000. Probably one quarter of that sum expended in keeping the residences of the poor in a healthy condition, would save another quarter at least, as may be seen from the extracts which follow.

“As upon the condition of health of an individual are based his physical and mental strength, his ability for self-maintenance, his personal happiness, and that of others dependent on him, and also his usefulness to his family, to the community and his country; and as the community depends for its prosperity upon the performances its members, individually and collectively, in the measure of influence committed to them respectively, so does the health of the people affect the capacity and interests of the state.

“As upon the individual, when sick, falls an increased pecuniary burden, with (in general) a suspension of income, so upon the state or city, must rest, not only the expenses of removing an unsound condition of public health, but also, from the attendant loss of character, a diminution of its resources.

“When individuals of the pauper class are ill, their entire support, and perchance, that of the whole family, falls upon the community. From a low state of general health, whether in an individual or numbers, proceed diminished energy of body and of mind, and a vitiated moral perception, the frequent precursor of habits and deeds, which give employment to the officers of police, and the ministers of justice.”