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3
1912
REPORT
OF THE
Medical Officer of Health
FOR THE YEAR 1912.
INTRODUCTORY.
It is a fact, which it is almost impossible to gainsay, that as the separate
entities, wliich form the great County of London, become closer and closer
knit together through the extension of their buildings, so that it. is no longer
possible to recognise where one borough begins and another ends, the
great body of their residents take less and less interest in them. Thus, to
mention only the older of these places, the citizens of London, the residents
of Westminster, or of Chelsea, or of Islington, take less pride in the place in
which they were born, or in which they dwell, than preceding generations of
their dwellers did. They have become more and more citizens of the great
commune known generically as London, and less and less Londoners,
Westminsterians, Chelseans, or Islingtonians; and consequently their
interest in the great localities in which they dwell become of less importance
to them in their historical, archaeological, and political associations than they
were to their forefathers.
Nevertheless, the history of these places is full of the deepest interest, and
well deserves the study and attention of their citizens, for it is not only
closely connected with the material progress of London itself, but with that of
the nation. But when it is admitted that the interest of Londoners is mainly
concentrated on London as a whole, yet even such interest falls far short of that
which the Novocastrian takes in Newcastle, the Manchester man in Manchester,
the Liverpudlian in Liverpool, the Bristolian in Bristol, or the citizen of any
great town of the country in the city of which he is a native, and whose pride
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