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15
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1873—4.
Model dwellings show fairly the benefit of healthy homes. Still in these cases there
needs a due watchfulness and care over the occupants, to prevent them fallingjinto apathetic
and slovenly habits, and so turning their habitations into "little nurseries of disease." What
they cannot do for themselves must be done for them, and what they can do for themselves
ought to be enforced. The death_rate in Peabody's Buildings presents a favourable return.
There were 20 deaths in a population of about 1130, or nearly 18 in 1000 persons living,
or about one in 57 persons living.
We have as yet little knowledge of the power we can exercise over the prevention of
disease. The disastrous fear of expense is a mighty obstruction. Pounds are willingly
paid for cure, where ha'pence would be grudged to prevent. Some diseases we can create;
most we can propagate and send on their errand of misery and destruction. Neither smallpox,
nor measles, nor scarlet fever can we start as far as we know de novo, but we can by
carelessness and recklessness spread them to an untold extent. Disease is not an accident;
it neither comes, nor stays, nor departs by chance. All is order and harmony, and governed
by laws as rigid as the ebb and flow of the tide, the return of day and night, and the change
of the seasons. " Pitiless law avails itself of our success when we obey it, and of our ruin
when we contravene it."
If the town population is increasing over the urban population, we must adapt ourselves
to the fact, and bring the couutry into the town. It is grievous to witness the way in which
our open spaces are built upon, and the manner in which most of the buildings are put up.
However in spite of our shortsightedness and unwise proceedings, there is in all our doings
a tendency to the ideal. Within us are implanted certain intuitions, from which arise the
love of the good and beneficial, and hatred of the bad and injurious, a desire for justice
and truth, and a dislike of injustice and falsehood ; and besides these there exists an undying
hope of brighter and better days yet to come. Events may not be hurried nor retarded.
"We might as well stand on the shore of some atlantic bay, and shout to frighten
back the tide or urge it on. What boots the cry ? Gently the sea swells under the moon,
and, in the hour of God's appointment the tranquil tide rolls in, to inlet and river, to lave
the rocks, to bear on its bosom the ship of the merchant, the weeds of the sea."
HENRY BATESON, M.D., Lond.
June 30th, 1874.