Annual address before the Medical Society of the County of Albany, November 8, 1859 / by Sylvester D. Willard.

  • Willard, Sylvester David, 1825-1865.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual address before the Medical Society of the County of Albany, November 8, 1859 / by Sylvester D. Willard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    life : such living—rather such attempts to live—in violation of natural laws is a criminal experiment and should be pre- vented by sanitary restrictions; for, says an experienced writer, however graciously God may deal with the heart, all our experience proves that he will never pardon stomach, muscles, lungs or brain. The law punishes the man who by an immediate act deprives his fellow of life ; but it will allow him to rent to his neighbor a damp cellar for a residence, in which the principles of vitality are excluded — a man-trap where the head of a family and every member of it are exposed to influences that deprive them not only of their earnings, but of health, and slowly of life, or where the inroads of disease are ingrafted upon the constitution to be reproduced in other generations. The public authorities arrest a man for crime, and then criminally consign him to a prison which, in many instances, is but a hot bed for the development of disease. Sanitary science should interpose its influence to prevent in any case the deprivation of health, and we as its expounders have the work to perform. But are we not too indifferent, too willing to let the subject alone ? The duties that impose and enforce requisite measures are irksome, and we lack enthusiasm to incite us to the exertions they demand. Another feature indicated by mortuary returns, is the average duration of life, to which sanitary measures add. Upon it most important calculations are based. It opens the subject of life assurance, its benefits to the community, and the influences that react in the springs of commercial enterprise, but upon this point I will not enlarge. Nor less grave are these results as affecting the growth of cities. The wealth of a state consists in the life and health of its citizens, and in proportion as they enjoy the latter, is the former valuable to themselves and the state. The axiom is true in its application to cities. The saving of five thousand lives—the estimated number sacrificed in the city of New York every year—is an item of surpassing