The poisoned city: How environmental decay forged the cycle of urban poverty and illness

“ But it seems to me also, that in such a state of society, when—as it was once well put—“every one has stopped running about like rats:”—that those who work hard, whether with muscle or with brain, would not be surrounded, as now, with every circumstance which tempts toward drink; by every circumstance which depresses the vital energies, and leaves them an easy prey to pestilence itself; by bad light, bad air, bad food, bad water, bad smells, bad occupations, which weaken the muscles, cramp the chest, disorder the digestion. ”

“ if those who rule the destinies of nations would but remember this—if they would but think how hard it is for the very poor to have engendered in their hearts, that love of home from which all domestic virtues spring, when they live in dense and squalid masses where social decency is lost, or rather never found—if they would but turn aside from the wide thoroughfares and great houses, and strive to improve the wretched dwellings in bye-ways where only Poverty may walk—many low roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the loftiest steeple that now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime, and horrible disease, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from Workhouse, Hospital, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for years. ”

“ As the health affects the brain, and the brain the morals, all healthy and unhealthy influences have a moral bearing.
Bad air, bad water, bad drainage, bad ventilation, damp and dark streets and houses, dirtiness and over-crowding, all tell against the health, against the health of children most seriously, and all help on the deadly progress of degeneration. ”

“ The home, too, will be where shelter can be cheapest bought; in quarters where commonly there is least fruit of sanitary supervision, least drainage, least scavenging, least suppression of public nuisances, least or worst water supply, and, if in town, least light and air. Such are the sanitary dangers to which poverty is almost certainly exposed, when it is poverty enough to imply scantiness of food. And while the sum of them is of terrible magnitude against life, the mere scantiness of food is in itself of very serious moment.... ”

“ Those who are poor and hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive: They will cut down forests; their livestock will overgraze grasslands; they will overuse marginal land; and in growing numbers they will crowd into congested cities. The cumulative effect of these changes is so far-reaching as to make poverty itself a major global scourge.
9. On the other hand, where economic growth has led to improvements in living standards, it has sometimes been achieved in ways that are globally damaging in the longer term. ”

“ I should argue (as indeed I have already argued here) that the main conditions which constitute the unhealthiness of towns are definite, palpable, removable evils; that dense over-crowding of a population—that intricate ramification of courts and alleys, excluding light and air—that defective drainage—that the products of organic decomposition—that contaminated water and a stinking atmosphere, are distinct causes of disease and death; that each admits of being definitely estimated in its numerical proportion to the total mortality which it contributes to cause ”

“ Social conditions quite irrespective of the sanitary condition or the natural salubrity of a district have an important influence on the death-rate. Poverty and all that it connotes, necessarily involves a higher death-rate than occurs among the well-to-do. ”

“ Thus when a watershed deteriorates, poor farmers suffer more because they cannot afford the same anti-erosion measures as richer farmers. When urban air quality deteriorates, the poor, in their more vulnerable areas, suffer more health damage than the rich, who usually live in more pristine neighbourhoods. ”

“ Poverty is a bad preparatory school for this contest; a weakened organism will succumb more easily to temptation. And generally this is accompanied by a lack of education and of the development of the higher faculties.
In following the course of life of a proletarian we see that the child of the proletariat carries, often from his birth, the signs of degeneracy, since his mother was forced to work hard during her pregnancy. From his childhood he is ill nourished, and grows up in an unhealthful environment. ”

“ One of the most constant sources of the pollution of the air in inhabited localities is the decomposition that takes place in the ground. Refuse of every kind gets into it. Our sewers are leaky, and putrefaction is constantly going on. The soil down to the limit of the ground water contains a large amount of air. ”

“ The organic impurities and bacteria found in the soil are especially abundant in large cities, and are a cause of the evil influence of soil upon health. The impurities are allowed to drain into the ground, to pollute the ground water and the source of water supply, and to poison the ground air, loading it with bacteria and products of putrefaction, thus contaminating the air and water so necessary to life. ”

“ When the soil, naturally impure from the presence of carbonic-acid gas, is honeycombed, as in this city, with cesspools, and saturated with leakage from sewer-pipes, gas-pipes, and the soakings of filth-laden streets, the danger of contamination of houses from ground-air assumes considerable importance. ”

“ Air may be contaminated by the products of organic decomposition rising from the ground and drawn into the house through furnace-flues, etc.
Ground-air contains from 1.49 to 80 parts per 1,000 of carbonic acid, and frequently contains products of organic decomposition. A damp soil is also very unhealthy, as shown by Bowditch and others. “A persistently low ground-water, say fifteen feet down or more, is healthy; a persistently high ground-water, less than five feet from the surface, is unhealthy ”

“ A moment’s consideration will suffice to show that, if this be true, the higher levels of the metropolis will be exempt from the disease, only in proportion as they exempt themselves from the local conditions which invite it—only in proportion as they avail themselves of those natural advantages which their situation enables them to command. Let a district be defective in house-drainage, so that its soil is excavated by cesspools and sodden by their soakage; let its sewers be ill-constructed and foul, so that offensive gases are ventilated into the immediate breathing-air of the inhabitants ”

“ The crowning cause of crime in the metropolis is, in my opinion, to be found in the shocking state of the habitations of the poor, their confined and fœtid localities, and the consequent necessity for consigning children to the streets for requisite air and exercise. These causes combine to produce a state of frightful demoralisation. The absence of cleanliness, of decency, of all decorum—the disregard of any needful separation of the sexes—the polluting language and the scenes of profligacy hourly occurring, all tend to foster idleness and vicious abandonment. ”

“ Epidemics of many kinds, typhus, ague, plague—all diseases which were caused more or less by bad air—devastated this land and Europe in those days with a horrible intensity, to which even the choleras of our times are mild. The back streets, the hospitals, the gaols, the barracks, the camps—every place in which any large number of persons congregated, were so many nests of pestilence, engendered by uncleanliness, which denied alike the water which was drunk and the air which was breathed ”

“ We know that extra labor and care are necessary on a vessel to maintain the air in a tolerable state, quite irrespective of ventilation. In cities, where dwellings and shops are built not only closer together, but are literally piled up on each other, the general contamination is likewise bound to become unwholesome unless special care is taken in disposing of waste matter that may find its way into the air. ”

“ Therefore we insist on fresh air, especially for children in schools, for employees in factories, for clerks in offices. All places of public resort should be provided with proper ventilation. The breath from the lungs is loaded with poisonous organic matter, and if continually re-breathed poisons the blood. The smell of a room is often an indication of whether the air is pure or not, especially in the nostrils of one entering from the outer air. Let all windows be kept open day and night, and let fresh air and sunlight continually flood the room. Nothing will kill disease germs quicker. ”

“ Unsanitary housing, poisonous sewage, contaminated water, infant mortality, the spread of contagion, adulterated food, impure milk, smoke-laden air, ill-ventilated factories, dangerous occupations, juvenile crime, unwholesome crowding, prostitution and drunkenness are the enemies which the modern cities must face and overcome, would they survive. Logically their electorate should be made up of those who can bear a valiant part in this arduous contest, those who in the past have at least attempted to care for children, to clean houses, to prepare foods, to isolate the family from moral dangers ”

“ People naturally despair of cleansing that which a day’s exposure to the atmosphere blackens again with soot; or they keep their windows shut, breathing a fusty and unwholesome air, in the hope of excluding the inconvenience. Now, when it is remembered that all the smoke of London is but so much wasted fuel, it must surely be felt that the enforcement of measures for its consumption would be to the interest of all parties ”

“ But these germs, though continually carried into the lungs of almost all, do not develop in all. The healthy body can resist them, and it is only in the body which possesses little resistance, owing to a low state of health, that they take root, and so start the disease.
Want of pure air, such as is caused by badly ventilated rooms, dark, damp, and dirty houses, want of good food, or bad food, alcoholic drinks, frequent illnesses, dirty habits, are powerful causes in producing this low state of health, which is so favourable to the growth of the consumptive germ. ”

“ They do so in virtue of better resisting power, rather than because no seeds of disease ever reach them. In case of epidemic, then, besides daily sponging with acetic acid or vinegar, and scrupulous cleanliness, everything should be done to increase health and vitality in the household. Plenty of fresh air and sunlight, open windows day and night, and good plain food, are most powerful aids to resisting disease. The milk and water used in the household should all be boiled and allowed to cool before use, the boiling lasting half-an-hour. ”

“ Fresh air kills the microbes of certain diseases, e.g., consumption, and is hostile to all disease. The stools of typhoid patients should be disinfected, and great care taken that no water or other fluid is contaminated by them through imperfect sanitation, etc. (see Fever, Typhoid) . Seeing that the seeds of disease are all around us, the best method of warding off their attacks is to keep the body in a state to resist their inroads by strict attention to diet, exercise and ventilation. ”

“ Every one will agree that good ventilation is necessary in a hospital, because people cannot get well without fresh air. Do they not see that by the same reasoning good ventilation is necessary everywhere, because people cannot remain well without fresh air? Let me entreat those who employ women in work-rooms, if they have no time to read through such books as Dr. Andrew Combe’s ‘Physiology applied to Health and Education,’ and Madame de Wahl’s ‘Practical Hints on the Moral, Mental, and Physical Training of Girls,’ to procure certain tracts published by Messrs. ”

“ After we have taught the condition of health, we must teach also the condition of disease; of those diseases specially which tend to lessen wholesale the health of townsfolk, exposed to an artificial mode of life. Surely young men and women should be taught something of the causes of zymotic disease, and of scrofula, consumption, rickets, dipsomania, cerebral derangement, and such like. They should be shown the practical value of pure air, pure water, unadulterated food, sweet and dry dwellings. ”

“ The value of healthy habitations, of personal cleanliness, of pure air and pure water, of various kinds of food, according as each tends to make bone, fat, or muscle, provided only—provided only—that the food be unadulterated ”

“ To the actual diseases, special weaknesses, and unsound constitutions resulting from unfavorable heredity, add now the environment of poverty, with its usual accompaniments of ignorance, carelessness, and inefficiency on the part of the parents, resulting for both parents and children in privation of food, clothing, shelter, and fuel, and we begin to have some faint conception of the perils which surround infant-life in a large proportion of cases. ”

“ In these districts the deprivations of light and air, the poverty, the diseased conditions about them, render the poor moody, morbid, and despondent, and raise in their minds a feeling that life is not desirable. ”

“ Much is left to chance. There is either fatalism or stolid indifference upon the matter pervading highest society, and the poor, driven as they are from [147] richer districts into poorer neighbourhoods, can scarcely help themselves; they lose at last all healthy communication with richer or better neighbours, and all taste for pure air and healthy pursuits; they pack close, they descend a little, often a great deal, toward the lower animals, and so live neither for this world nor the next.”
“There are 7,000 houses in this parish. ”

“ How far wrong we should be in such an environment simply to contrast the delinquent with the honest man! It is two social states that are contrasted; the one is based upon comfortable means, sociability, mutual protection, useful work, and thrift; the other upon poverty, isolation, egoism, and unproductive labor. And in the great urban agglomerations, pauperism, mendicity and vagrancy, idleness, the spirit of adventure, prostitution, the dissipation of strength, everything, in short, naturally concurs in developing social anemia. ”

“ Sustainable development has been described here in general terms. How are individuals in the real world to be persuaded or made to act in the common interest? The answer lies partly in education, institutional development, and law enforcement. But many problems of resource depletion and environmental stress arise from disparities on economic and political power. An industry may get away with unacceptable levels of air and water pollution because the people who bear the brunt of it are poor and unable to complain effectively. ”

“ Developing-country cities are growing much faster than the capacity of authorities to cope. Shortages or housing, water. sanitation, and mass transit are widespread. A growing proportion of city-dwellers live in slums and shanty towns, many of them exposed to air and water pollution and to industrial and natural hazards. Further deterioration is likely, given that most urban growth will take place in the largest cities. Thus more manageable cities may be the principal gain from slower rates or population growth.
54. Urbanization is itself part or the development process. ”

“ Thus the laws of health are disregarded; and when fever comes, it finds a wide field to work upon: in undrained and filthy streets and back-yards,—noisome, pestilential districts,—foul, uncleansed dwellings,—large populations ill-supplied with clean water and with pure air. There death makes fell havoc; many destitute widows and children have to be maintained out of the poor's-rates; and then we reluctantly confess to ourselves that Ignorance is Power. ”

“ Society suffers in the same way. It leaves districts undrained, and streets uncleaned. Masses of the population are allowed to live crowded together in unwholesome dens, half poisoned by the mephitic air of the neighbourhood. Then a fever breaks out,—or a cholera, or a plague. Disease spreads from the miserable abodes of the poor into the comfortable homes of the rich, carrying death and devastation before it. The misery and suffering incurred in such cases, are nothing less than wilful, inasmuch as the knowledge necessary to avert them is within the reach of all. ”

“ That an average death-rate of nearly 25 per thousand per annum prevails in the City; that three-eighths of your mortality consists in a premature extinction of infant life; that fatal disease, in more than two-fifths of its visitations, [189] is of a kind which operates endemically and preventably;—these are the facts to which I have appealed, as my evidence of the need for sanitary activity and perseverance.
On other occasions I have endeavoured to set before you what are those agencies hostile to life, which affect the masses of an urban population ”

“ But there also needs the active co-operation of the dwellers in poor men's homes themselves. They, too, must join cordially in the sanitary movement; otherwise comparatively little good can be effected. You may provide an efficient water supply, yet, if the housewife will not use the water as it ought to be used,—if she be lazy and dirty,—the house will be foul and comfortless still. You may provide for ventilation, yet, if offensive matters be not removed, and doors and windows are kept closed, the pure outer air will be excluded, and the house will still smell fusty and unwholesome. ”

“ And let not the inquirer too easily admit what will be urged by less earnest persons as their pretext for inaction—that such evils are inalienable from poverty. Let him, in visiting those homes [xi] of our labouring population, inquire into the actual rent paid for them—dog-holes as they are; and studying the financial experience of Model Dormitories and Model Lodgings, let him reckon what that rent can purchase. He will soon have misgivings as to dirt being cheap in the market, and cleanliness unattainably expensive. ”

“ When all is said and done, the most important thing is that people shall live in decent houses and not in pigsties. I have seen too much of slums to go into Chestertonian raptures about them. A place where the children can breathe clean air, and women have a few conveniences to save them from drudgery, and a man has a bit of garden to dig in, must be better than the stinking back-streets of Leeds and Sheffield. On balance, the Corporation estates are better than the slums ”

“ If need were removed, if every human being were assured from birth of physical well-being and ample opportunity to develop mentally to the full extent of his capacity, these distressing results of involuntary poverty would not long exist to menace the peace and health of communities and fill reformers and eugenists with alarm. The cities where human beings are crowded together under conditions subversive of health and decency would be gradually emptied of their surplus population. ”