The public health a public question. First report of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association on the chief evils affecting the sanitary condition of the metropolis, with suggestions for their removal; and containing the proceedings of the public meeting held at Freemason's Hall, Feb. 6th, 1850.

  • Metropolitan Sanitary Association (London, England)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The public health a public question. First report of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association on the chief evils affecting the sanitary condition of the metropolis, with suggestions for their removal; and containing the proceedings of the public meeting held at Freemason's Hall, Feb. 6th, 1850. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they required, at the smallest possible rate of cost. He would state a most remarkable proof in corroboration of the fact, stated by the Eight Eev. Chairman, of the gratitude with which the people received advan¬ tages of this nature. It was communicated to him a few days ago, by Mr. Lindley, an eminent English engineer, who was employed upon the rebuilding of the city of Hamburgh, after it had been destroyed by the late fire. That gentleman carried out in that great work the sanitary principles laid down in this city ; he provided Hamburgh with a due supply of water to every house and in every room. How¬ ever poor the party might be, he had a perpetual supply to any extent he pleased, and at any moment. There was no stint, no limit. He might have 2000 gallons or 10,000, and all he had to pay was just Is. 2(7. for the twelve months. Were the people indifferent to this great boon ? No. Two days before Mr. Lindley left Hamburgh, not a fort¬ night ago, he went to the hospital, and the physicians there told him he had worked a complete reform in Hamburgh, because, since there had been this abundant supply there had not been a single case of itch; and, so far as they knew, there had been scarcely any cutaneous disease in that city. It would be admitted, he thought, to be a disgrace that this prodigious capital, the centre of civilization, art, industry, and wealth, should be thus thrown into the background, as regarded the greatest means of sanitary improvement, by the small and comparatively insignificant city of Ham¬ burgh. Such being the state of the case, what were the financial and social consequences of allowing it to exist ? At least one-third of the pau¬ perism of the country arose from the defective sanitary condition of large multitudes of the people; and he had no hesitation in saying, upon the authority of experienced persons, that if the population of their great towns were placed under proper sanitary regulations, in less than ten years the poor rates would be reduced 2,000,000^. annually. What had been the effect produced upon the parish of Lambeth by the ravages ' of the cholera, a large proportion of which might have been prevented by suitable sanitary measures ? He had the official return of the number of persons becoming chargeable to the parish, in consequence of deaths from cholera, between the 16th of June and the 16tli of October, 1849. There were—orphans 310, widows 74, total 384 persons.If the cholera had sent 1000 orphans and widows to the poor house in a few weeks, typhus was permanently sending hundreds and thousands there to become chargeable upon the rates payable by those parties, who, if B