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throughout the parish have this year been examined and
reported on. It is my pleasing duty to state that, with the
exception of a few alterations and improvements in ventilation,
necessitated by the Act of Parliament, there was
nothing to complain of in any of these places, all being found
to be clean and wholesome, in substantial repair, and
regulated, in every respect, in accordance with the requirements
of the law.
There can be no doubt the construction of efficient
sewerage, the abolition of cesspools, the removal of innumerable
nuisances, and the adoption of stringent sanitary
regulations under the directions of the Local Board, have
done much during the past seven years towards depriving
disease of its virulence, and in removing many of those
causes or agencies which engender, as well as promote, the
diffusion of fever.
Dr. Milroy, in speaking of the origin and spread of
fever, has said that "Wherever there is little fever, there
the mortality from many other diseases—all those, for
example, of the scrofulous or tuberculous family; not to
mention also Dysentery, Erysipelas, &c., is almost invariably
at a low average upon the whole. The frequency of fever
thus becomes a pretty sure test of the general salubrity of
a place, and at the same time may be fairly taken as a
standard to judge of the efficacy of all sanitary propositions
and reforms."
That these observations apply, in their fullest force, to
this sub-district, I believe myself to be in a position to
speak with some confidence. Cases of fever of a low,
typhoid character were, a few years ago, not only very
frequent for so small a population, but very fatal, particularly
amongst the poor. Now they are seldom met with,
and when they are, they prove, generally speaking, of much