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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF
HE ALT F0R THE YEAR 1908.
To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons
of the Corporation of London.
Public Health Department,
Guildhall, E.C.,
16th March, 1909.
Gentlemen,
In conformity with the requirements of the Local Government
Board, i have the honour to present my ninth Annual Report as Medical
Officer of Health for the City of London. During four months of the year
Dr. Herbert Williams acted as Medical Officer of Health, and I would specially
direct attention to an investigation made by him into the danger of rat virus
(see p. 24).
The improvement that has taken place in the sanitary circumstances
of the City of London during the last sixty years is remarkable. One has
only to read of the deplorable conditions under which the poorer citizens
lived in the day of the pioneer sanitary reformer, the late Sir John Simon—
the first Medical Officer of Health of the City of London—and compare the
state of things then obtaining with those now existing, to be able to appreciate
the growth of reform.
Thus, in .1849, reporting on house drainage, Sir John stated:
"So far as I can calculate from very imperfect materials, I should
"conjecture that some thousands of houses within the City still have
"cesspools connected with them. It requires little medical knowledge to
"understand that animals will scarcely thrive in an atmosphere of their
"own decomposing excrements ; yet such, strictly and literally speaking,
"is the air which a very large proportion of the inhabitants are
"condemned to breathe."
"In the City of London, the supply of water is a fraction of what it
"should be. Thousands of the population have no supply of it to the
"houses where they dwell. For their possession of the first necessity of
"social life, such persons wholly depend on their power of attending at
"some fixed hour of the day, pail in hand, beside the nearest stand.cock,
"where, with their neighbours, they wait their turn—sometimes not
"without a struggle, during the tedious dribbling of a single small
"pipe."