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APPENDIX B.
SECOND ANNUAL REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF THE PARISHES OF ST. MARGARET
AND ST. JOHN, WESTMINSTER, BY BARNARD HOLT, F.R.C.S.,
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
To the Members of the District Board of Works.
Gentlemen,
The Monthly Reports with which you have been already
furnished have so fully embraced all that has been effected daring the
past year, that the present second Annual Report will be chiefly devoted
to a comparison between the last and previous years in that for which
the appointment I have the honour to hold was mainly instituted, viz.—
the comparative health and numerical death-rate occurring amongst the
inhabitants of the United Parishes of St. Margaret and St. John. In
doing this, I must observe, that no supervision can materially decrease
the deaths arising from those infantile diseases which are incidental to
childhood; but the hope must be still entertained, and the great object
of my appointment is, to ascertain to what extent deaths arising from
fever, diarrhasa, bronchitis, pneumonia, &c., which form so large an item
in the Annual Return, and which in a great measure result from causes
within our control, are capable of being diminished by stringent sanitary
measures.
I do not purpose to again enter into a consideration of the different
elements necessary for the efficient maintenance of health, but simply to
revive some of the suggestions I have thought necessary to make during
the year.
One of the greatest social evils existing in this and other Parishes
consists in the indiscriminate intermingling of the sexes, I regret to say,
to an extent which must have the most material influence in destroying
natural modesty, and blunting those feelings which maintain the social
relations of the community. Numerous examples of men, women, and
children occupying the same room, and frequently the same bed, have
beeu met with and reported, but without remedy; and there not being
at present any power to interfere, the most pernicious practices result,
and a foundation for prostitution is laid, which is aptly termed the "social
evil" of the age.
Another point to which I desire to draw your attention consists in
the overcrowding of rooms. Incredulous as it may appear, the Legislature
have provided a remedy against any house being dangerously