“Litchurch-street is situated in the southern suburb of Derby, from which indeed, although forming a part of the Derby union, it is separated by intervening fields and nursery-grounds belonging to the General Infirmary. Its course is nearly east and west, running down the side of a gentle declivity. The houses in Litchurch-street have not been built many years; are rather small, but are double houses, having a front and back room on the ground floor, and over these a front and back bed-room. “Descending the hill to the remaining 24 houses (below those infected), and which, from their standing upon lower ground, might reasonably be expected to have fared worse, I soon discovered from whence their protection came. The land adjoining the Litchurch-street gardens belongs, as I have already stated, to the General Infirmary, and the governors of that institution had eight years before built a wall in the former course of the ditch, before spoken of, which wall extended from the foot of the hill as far up as the house No. 24; at the same time they had filled up the ditch, carrying its contents by a drain away from the gardens below and into the nearest public sewer: now reference to the list detailing the amount and progress of the fever on this occasion will show that No. 25 was the first house affected. The connexion therefore between the facts here furnished and the tragedy of the six houses is too obvious to require further comment. “I shall conclude this part of my subject by adding, that from motives of both humanity and economy, the Board of Guardians and the governors of the infirmary jointly exerted themselves to get rid of so serious a nuisance, that the latter, at an expense of more than 50_l._, extended the wall of separation between Litchurch-street and their own lands, but that, in all other respects, the evil remains now (two years since) as it was then; nor was there found any law that would compel its removal, the place complained of being private property. “My friend Mr. Harwood, surgeon of the Derby union, informs me that in Canal-street (district 5 of table 1) five sisters in one family were successively attacked with typhus fever, caused by the escape of foul air from a drain. “It appears that a drain, coming from some neighbouring privies, had been carried so near to the house in which they resided as to form part of the boundary wall of the cellar, which had for some time previous become too offensive to be used. “Four months elapsed before this family became free from disease; no return of which, however, has taken place since the removal of the drain, which now passes at a greater distance. “Taken altogether, I think that in large towns (and villages also) there is hardly any source of disease more powerful as to its pernicious influence, or more general as to extent, than defective drainage.”