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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Edmonton,
March 30th, 1904.
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present to you herewith the Annual
Report on the health and sanitary condition of this District for the
year ending December 31st, 1903.
Although I participated in the work of the District for but a
short period of the time under review, it has been deemed advisable,
both by your late Medical Officer and myself, that this report
should take its present form, rather than that we should present
separate statements for those portions of the year with which we
were respectively concerned.
In preparing this report, therefore, I have been at pains to
consult Dr. Adamson on such matters as related to the period during
which he held office, and I have derived the year's statistics from
the register kept by him up to the time of my succeeding him, and
continued by me from that date till the end of the year.
In dealing with the subjects of Infantile Mortality and Phthisis,
I have dwelt at some length on the extent to which the problems
involved in these two questions may be affected in the future, by,
in the case of the first, the new powers, acquired by the Council
under the Education Act, and in the case of the second, by the
hoped for acquisition of suitable means in the future for controlling
the spread of consumption in the county.
I wish to express to the Sanitary Committee and the Council,
my appreciation of the support they have given to the public
health work of the District, and at the same time to Mr. Butland
and the staff of my department for the zeal and efficiency with
which they have carried this work out.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
A. W. J. MacFadden,
Medical Officer of Health.