Excerpt from A Manual of Practical Hygiene, Vol. 2 In other words, perfect purity and cleanliness of the air are the objects to be attained. This is the fundamental and paramount condition of healthy habitations; and it must override all other conditions. After it has been attained, the architect must engraft on it the other conditions of comfort, convenience, and beauty. The inquiries which have been made for the last forty years in England have shown how badly the poorer classes are lodged, both in town and country, and how urgent is the necessity for improvement. Various Actsl have been passed for the purpose of improving laborers' cottages and other small dwellings, but either from the powers being insufficient, or from the difficulty of proving that a dwelling is injurious to health, unless it is in extremely bad condition, these Acts have had only partial effect. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.