On the connexion of atmospheric impurity with disease

Abstract

In the observations I am about to make, the subject may be said to resolve itself into one of bodily health, or wellbeing, or the best means of avoiding those departures from integrity and soundness, which we term disease. On the part of all classes, high, low, rich, and poor, there is a great, though, of course, varying, departure from the conditions essential to the preservation of health. Who would believe that in a large, flourishing, intelligent town like Belfast, and in the very face of an approaching pestilence, a black, sewer-like stream, worse than the London Fleet, should be suffered to pollute the air with exhalations the most virulent and intolerable. My conclusions, indeed, are stringently and unconditionally urged, but, if so, they are the result of much experience, as well as of protracted, earnest inquiry.