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19
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1860.
epidemic as in requiring walls to prevent the spread of fire." Yet where one is destroyed
by fire, how many thousands are there by disease, the indirect result of such erections.
Only in the one case death comes suddenly and in the awfullest of forms, whilst in the
other it comes softly and more slowly, but not the less surely.
It is high time that there should come an end to the building of the like habitations,
only good for the manufacture of disease, and for men, women, and children to be huddled
together in " their rags and laughing savagery."
However, even from this dark outlook there arises hope in the far distance, and the
confident expectation of better things. Landlords are fast coming to the knowledge that
these places do not pay: that where sickness is, there poverty abounds. Mr. W. Little,
a builder, in his evidence before the Health of Towns Commission, stated that three-fifths
of the loss he sustained from the lower classes of houses in rent was from sickness. And I
have no doubt but that this statement would be borne out by most landlords. Self interest
and humanity here fortunately go hand in hand, being agreed. The tether to which all
wrong doers are fixed is but of limited extent: and whilst much woe and suffering may,
and do arise from that margin of liberty, yet it is certain there must come an end to it.
Numberless are the checks which he around on every hand, and act when needed. And so
this appeal to the pocket, if one of the lowest, will not be the least powerful in its result.
Perhaps I should not omit mentioning what has been done in the way of improvement
of dwellings, by the erection of model lodging houses, and which have proved so
salutary to those occupying them; by preventing disease, reducing greatly the mortality of
children, and preserving them unscathed amid the ravages of the cholera epidemic. These
have been followed up, and improved upon by Miss Burdett Coutts, who has lately had
erected comfortable dwellings, for the industrious poor, and at rents to meet their means.
They are fitted up so as to satisfy every sanatory requirement; and as if they were intended
for man to dwell in. If prevention is better than cure, then is this the most legitimate
way of spending money for beneficial purposes. Par better than leaving so much for the
cure of disease when created. It costs a great deal to make sickness, and it costs more to
cure it: why not then prevent it ?
We are desperately careless about our health; and apparently esteem it of small
value. A great modern author has truly and emphatically said, "The first wealth is
health .... No labor, pains, temperance, poverty, nor exercise that can gain it must be
grudged. For sickness is a cannibal which eats up all the life and youth it can lay hold of,
and absorbs its own sons and daughters. I figure it as a pale, wailing, distracted phantom,
absolutely selfish, heedless of what is good and great, attentive to its sensations, losing
its soul and afflicting other souls with meanness and mopings, and with ministration to
its voracity of trifles."
HENRY BATESON, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health.
May 6th, 1861.