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13
the essential conditions of an effective sanitary
superintendence.
Through the kindness of the Registrar-General,
and through the friendly co-operation of my able
professional brethren, the Poor Law Medical Officers
of the City of London, I have been kept continuously
informed of all those local fluctuations of disease
and mortality, which indicate the temporary pressure
of sanitary evils. Thus, by voluntary aid, has been
supplied the one element for which your own
constitution had omitted to provide; an element
indeed of primary importance, since certain kinds
of disease and death are abnormal phenomena,
constituting the evidence of abnormal causes; and
since it therefore becomes a first need for the
sanitary operations of any local authority, that they
should be fully cognisant of such evidence, so far
as it relates to places within their jurisdiction.
From this simple commencement, expanded
year by year according to circumstances, there has
started that system of inspection, now prevalent in
the City, which embraces in its operation about
seven thousand houses; which has had for its
immediate result the entire abolition of cesspools,
the almost universal adoption of domestic waterservice,
the enforcement of periodical house-cleansing,
the mitigation of innumerable nuisances;