View report page

85
There has occurred during the year no other event
specially applying to this Sub-district that calls for particular
notice, though, it may be remarked, there are some
few measures now before Parliament, or on the point of
receiving the sanction of the Legislature, which will be
watched with much interest by sanitarians generally, and
by none more so than by those who, in this Sub-district,
are looking forward to the supply to the artizan and
poorer classes, of improved and healthy dwellings, to an
efficient water-supply on the long-promised constantservice
principle, and to that, which is of equal importance,
a greater amount of, and easier applied, protection against
the fraudulent adulterations of food &c., than the law at
present prescribes.
The importance of imparting to Children in Schools
a knowledge of Elementary Physiology and of the Laws cf
Health.—The present educational movement forces upon
the consideration of all interested in the welfare of that
large class for whose especial teaching School Boards have
been called into existence, the question whether such
Boards are sufficiently alive to the advantages of affording
the means of popular instruction in schools on the above
subjects? It must occur to all reflecting persons, that
if sound morality depends upon the inculcation of correct
principles in youth, equally so must a sound physical
organization depend on a correct physical education during
the same period of life. A most fruitful source of physical
suffering amongst very large numbers of the population is
unquestionably a want of knowledge of the structure and
functions of their own bodies, and there are no doubt
thousands—-nay millions—of human beings suffered
to grow up in utter ignorance of the truth that the
unerring laws of nature, according as such laws are
obeyed or disregarded, have the most intimate bearing
upon the maintenance of life and vigorous health on
the one hand, and on the production of pain, misery, and
disease on the other.