HH62/2/SUTHER/23

Transcription

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be faithful in describing that which I know and have seen and believe
to be facts; and, in depicting the state of each district or village, I
have tried to perform my task, not by invidiously or with prejudice
selecting some places for undeserved prominence, nor purposely
leaving unmentioned others which have also some sanitary defects.
I have to state this so as to forestall any misconception, and pre-
vent wrong inferences from being drawn when the whole case comes
to be considered by the administrators of the remedy mentioned
hereafter.
In any case, no one can be offended when I say that in the past
there has been non-feasance rather than misfeasance as regards the
duties incumbent on Local Authorities, with the result that no other
diagnosis than the above could be made, and so imperfections rather
than improvements occupy my report till now.

THE CAUSES
of disease are many of them Natural and non-removable, as com-
pared to others which happen in an artificial state of society and are
largely removable. The conditions of health are now very much in
our own hands, and the diseases which occur when there are devia-
tions from the known laws of health are mostly all capable of
prevention by the alteration of the conditions of their existence, or
by so limiting them that though the germs of disease do light on us
they shall not find a suitable environment for their further diffusion.
To remove other causes of diseases, many of the Habits and
Customs of a people have to be altered. Every one will admit that
many diseases are caused by a more faithful adherence to customs
and traditional habits than to the dictates of reason or the directions
of skilled advisers as to the best way of preventing disease, or in its
treatment when it gets a start.
Of the conditions which affect the acceleration or retardation of
a people's march to the grave, none are so important as the state of
the Dwelling-Houses used by the inhabitants. In this county they
are aggregated in villages at a few points round the coasts, or
sparsely spread in units over the rest of the county; and in the
villages they are so disposed in many cases that disease cannot be
expected to do otherwise than find a footing, on account of defect in
position or structural deficiencies, or the surrounding insanitary
circumstances. No prophet would be required to prophesy disease
and death to be certain to occur from the condition of many houses,
but it is only believed when it does occur and is seen.
There not having been any skilled supervision at the time when
they were first laid out, the people who built these houses and
villages in many cases did so where they could, after the pattern of
the old Highland houses, which were singly built in their own plot
of ground on a slope, with every convenience well considered and
selected for water supply and drainage; but it can readily be seen

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how houses not wisely planned and spaced in a village formed on
this principle would be apt to acquire many disadvantages, especially
when the drainage of one would foul the water supply of those
situate on a lower level. In most instances the people had no option
as to the most desirable places to plant villages. Groups of houses
are consequently found to-day in positions where water is scarce or
most difficult of access, and where the tendency to use foul water
would grow unchecked, seeing there was no sufficient inducement to
go farther for a purer supply.
Filth Diseases, such as Typhoid, Diphtheria, and Diarrhœa, are
readily caused and spread in such circumstances, and where the
excreta are only removed at long intervals, as when required for
agricultural purposes, these diseases could be, and were, endemic for
many successive years, because the virus was continually spread on
the fields or polluted the water and milk. Illustrations of this fact
could be given from every village in the county - particularly in
Brora, before introduction of water, Portskerray, Melness. and Embo.
And putrid sore throats, not distinct enough for Diphtheria, occurred
not uncommonly after the yearly fouling of air in the vicinity of
dwelling-houses with the unhealthy emanations of offensive middens.
And again, in the nature of the structures, many coigns of
vantage could be taken possession of by the germs of disease, to be
there treasured up in all their potency till again alighting on a suit-
able soil for the propagation of more disease. Dust from the earth
floors, sodden with the saliva and sputa of men, and the excreta, in
many cases, of domestic animals, is yet produced in those parishes
where divot-and-stone houses, thatched with heather or straw, and
dark or reeking with smoke and damp, are still largely used as habi-
tations by a mass of the people. An earth floor is not uncommon
even in better-class houses of stone and lime, with slated roofs. It is
a bad kind of flooring, as is also that of flagstones in those rooms
which are occupied, as so many kitchens are, by children, who get
colds, bronchitis, and croup from sitting on, or being exposed to the
damp, cold air of, these unsuitable floors.
Wall-coverings, such as Paper-hangings, may be exposed to
diseased air for many years, and ultimately get covered up by a
new layer of paper, instead of being removed, charged as
they are with the organic particles which are the very
life of disease. Rooms are occupied sometimes by day,
but particularly by night, by a disproportionate number of
inhabitants (children not being reckoned on as needing very
much air, whereas they need really, if not quite, as much air
as adults) who breathe and rebreathe their own air; and for the
removal and renewal of which no proper arrangement is or will be
made; and while some laud the trim and neat new houses recently
put up in all our parishes, I have my doubts as to their being in all
cases such healthy houses as they are supposed, merely because of
their appearance, to be. All with a knowledge of physics will admit