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9
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1874—5.
Parish of Saint George the Margr, Southmark.
ANNUAL REPORT
MADE TO THE VESTRY
by the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
FOR THE YEAR ENDING LADY DAY, 1875.
Mb. Chairman and Gentlemen,
It is now my duty to place before you another Annual Report. This is the 19th year
of your endeavours to improve the health and standing of this District; and if during that
time your labours have increased in extent and responsibility, so also have increased the
health and position of the District. It has been lifted a stage higher in civilization.
For the greater part of the year now ended, no change has occurred, in a sanitary point
of view, to increase our hope or to induce our despondency. Always, excepting the overhanging
threat that Vestries as now established should be abolished. This the Government
may do, but there is one thing neither the Government nor any other power can do, and
that is, destroy the work done and the good brought about. This is too deeply written in the
improved condition of the Districts ever to be effaced by the ebb and flow of events.
The name of Vestries may perish, their work never.
Progress in sanitary science is manifest. The health of the people occupies the thought
and consideration of an ever increasing number ; and more than this, it has claimed the regard
of those high in authority, and to whom power belongs. The necessity for its so doing
may not be doubted when we have the head of a strong Government declaring that " the
sanitary question lies at the bottom of all national well-being." A statement so true and
bo important, we should hope and believe cannot but be followed by the most vigorous
action : for what can be more necessary than a nation's well-being ? In this the whole
duty of a Government is included.
The Bills now before Parliament indicate that the Government are serious in their intentions.
Only, I fear the promises made will far outrun fulfilment. There are in them
many serious faults both of omission and commission, which will make them as difficult to
carry out as those they succeed The Adulteration Bill contains terms and expressions
which^will render it almost inoperative. This Bill needed revision in many respects. It