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REPORT, &c.
Gentlemen,
Upon receiving my appointment as your Medical Officer of
Health, I lost no time in making myself thoroughly acquainted with
every portion of the Parish, giving especial attention to those localities
which were found upon all recurring occasions to be the foci of
epidemic diseases. I have, with the assistance of Mr. Lovett, and
occasionally of Mr. "Wood, your Inspectors of Nuisances, examined
the majority of the houses inhabited by the poor, and have reported
to you from time to time, during the past year, the conditions in which
I found them. I have given you detailed accounts of the Potteries,
Camden Place, Jennings'-buildings, Palace-place, Hooper's-court, Newcourt,
Sloane place, and other parts of the parish of a similar character.
I have also attended the regular meetings of your Sewers and
Sanitary Committee, and reported upon numerous isolated cases: I
have from time to time informed you of the manner in which the
majority of these have been disposed of; and it now devolves upon
me to lay before you, in as condensed a form as possible, the sanitary
condition of the entire parish.
The information afforded by a detailed statistical account of the
district will be of much interest to you as guardians of the public
health ; and will also, I trust, direct your marked attention to certain
plague-spots, too little noticed—places unfit for human habitation,
in which our poorer inhabitants are forced to reside.
The information which I must lay before you concerns our
physical and social condition ; our rate of mortality, and the relation
which it bears to that of other parishes; our meteorological and
geological position; and our facilities for drainage.
I shall submit to you a minute analysis of our drinking waters—
procured from springs, and from the different "Water Companies as
obtained from their new sources: this latter information will, I
believe, be of much value, as I am not aware that any complete
chemical analysis of these waters has ever yet been published.
In this part of my Report it will I trust be seen that I have spared