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27
by your officers, respecting which it has not been found necessary
to occupy your valuable time.
CONCLUSION.
I feel that this report is far from being complete. Many subjects
have been omitted, and many subjects have not received the
consideration that ought to have been devoted to them, These
omissions have occurred from the fear that I should weary you with
a too lengthened detail.
What I am desirous of doing, as your Medical Officer, find
which I have always endeavoured to do, is to point out to you the
unhealthy localities of your District, the various nuisances therein
arising detrimental to the public health, and to suggest those measures
which are required for their permanent improvement.
Having done this, the public will look to you for an earnest
co-operation in enforcing the execution of these improvements,
whereby the atmosphere will be so depurated of its impurities as to
lessen the sickness that prevails, and also still further diminish the
present rate of mortality.
To those, perhaps, who reflect that after all the age of man
(as I mentioned in an earlier part of this Report) is but "threescore
years and ten," it may appear that the pretensions of Sanitary
Science to prolong life rests on a very slender foundation; but I
think you will agree with me, that our efforts are not required to
surpass this standard of human life, but rather to attain it. It is
only by vigilance and energy in the work of self-preservation that
this appointed average can be attained; and it is when we consider
the number of lives that are annually carried of by, what may be
termed, preventible diseases, that we feel the importance of the
duty imposed upon us of employing to the utmost the remedial
means that we have at our command.
The foregoing are, doubtless, the essential and pressing reasons
for Sanitary reform and Sanitary measures in this and every other
part of the kingdom. But there are other and numerous incidental
advantages to be derived from the carrying out of the beneficial
system which I have recommended, and which, it is to be hoped,
will in future be obtained in this neighbourhood; and, not the