THE DRAINAGE OF THE TOWN.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume II, Issue 132, 6 December 1873, Page 3

THE DRAINAGE OF THE TOWN.

TO TUE EDITOB. Sib, I was much pleased with tho remarks in a recent issue in reference to the question of drainage. Tho necessity for attention to sanitary matters generally is, unfortunately, seldom realised by small communities such as ours. It is to bo hoped, however, that Tauranga will bo au exception to the rule, and that its sanitary affairs will be guided by a liberal policy which will look well ahead. Tho following extracts from Dr Andrew Combes’a “ Principles of Physiology ” show how much tho health of a community depends upon its own exertions :—“ Tho progress of knowledge and tne increasing ascendency of reason have already delivered us from many scourges which were regarded by our forefathers as unavoidable. In tho days of the ancient Homans their capital and territories were frequently almost depopulated by plague and pestilence, from which tho present generation is by means of a stricter observance to the conditions of health entirely exempted. In Loudon tho same contempt of cleanliness, ventilation, and comfort, which was so fatal to tho homans, produced similar results, and swept off its thousands and tens of thousands, til] a fortunate disaster—the great fire —came in tho place of knowledge, and, by destroying the crowded Janes and other sources of impurity , which man had shown himself so littio solicitous to re me-vo, procured its inhabitants a perfect immunity from one of the deadliest forma of disease, thus teaching them tho grand practical truth that such awful visitations are but tho direct consequences of the neglect of those conditions by which tho various vital functions arc regulated, and by conforming to to which alone health can bo preserved.”—l am, Ac., D.K.