No person who values a sound state of body would ever travel in the present Omnibuses, if it were generally known how absolutely destructive are these public conveyances to the health of every one who frequents them.

It is our intention to demonstrate some of the leading objections to these carriages as fit and proper conveyances, and to accomplish this in the reader's attention must first be directed to the construction of the carriage, which indeed may be said to comprise the chief source of all the other objections.

What we first perceive upon the mere glance at the build of these vehicles is, that the coachmaker has shown a most wary regard to certain principles which are now so universally acted upon by makers of every thing who are themselves personally interested in a quick and ready disposal of all they make, vix. a niggardly economy of material and a most sparing expenditure of labour. In no one manufactured thing produced from any factory in the kingdom, is the abuse of this disgraceful practice so conspicuously seen as in the build of the Omnibuses; the whole ingenuity of the builder being directed to cheapen the production of this destructive engine of human health....[...]

A gentleman, of a full habit of body, had for some time been suffering from what his family medical man in the country conceived to be a disturbed state of the digestive functions; but finding that a fair trial of the usual remedies for such disorders availed him nothing in getting rid of the complaint, he was induced to resort to further advice, and for this purpose he came to town, and consulted several eminent physicians, all of whom were of opinion that he laboured under an organic disease of the heart, consequent upon a rheumatic attack, and palliative treatment was advised, enjoining him to avoid all exciting causes of the hearts action, amongst which, it is not presumed that omnibus exercise was enumerated, and it was not likely to occur to the patient that this mode of travelling would prove injurious, as he never complained after it of either pain or uneasiness.

Upon examination of the body it was ascertained that he had recently partaken a full meal of animal and vegetable food, which had been interrupted in its digestion, no doubt, by the jolting of the Omnibus.

The blood vessels of the chest and those about the stomach were unnaturally full and this had impeded the proper flow of blood to the diseased organ - the heart - and was quite sufficient to give rise to the fatal catastrophe.

But there is another way in which the greatest possible mischief is occasioned, when these muscles become fatigued; it is the excitement and often the injury produced in the brain itself. Every shock now given to the lower part of the trunk is conveyed, with terrible precision, from one vertebra to the other, up the spinal column to the base of the skull.

The functions of the brain are in this way affected. Persons may at the time feel only either exhilarated, or more than ordinarily excitable; a rapid flow of ideas rush across the mind; in some the imagination is morbidly at work, and all kinds of fanciful creations are engendered; a quick succession of thoughts upon a variety of subjects pass before the mind with very little connection, and are too transient to be retained by the memory afterwards.

There are many to whom these sensations are so disagreeable, that it is the greatest torture to be exposed to their affliction.

To some persons such sensations may appear only temporary in their effects, whether they are accompanied either with disagreeable or pleasurable excitement; nevertheless, the condition of the brain, at the time we feel them, is a morbid one, and in some respects resembles that state which is produced by drinking any highly stimulating liquor, - a determination of the blood to the head is the result, and the habitual excitement of this morbid action, no matter how it is produced, provokes disease of the brain in the healthiest subject, and of course aggravates it excessively where there is the slightest natural tendency to it. The headache, which is so commonly complained of, after travelling in these carriages when the attendant noise and excitement has subsided, is a positive proof of the disturbed functions of the brain.

GIBBONS, William, M.D. 1840. OMNIBUSES; Their Injurious Effects Upon The Public Health, The Monthly Chronicle; A National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. Vol.VI, July-December,Longman, Orme, Green, and Longmans, London, UK. (pp.73-77).

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