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regard to Educational and Poor Law matters equally. But
Sanitary administration in its fullest sense—including vaccination
and registration, might with advantage be placed under the
control of the County Council, the executive business being
carried out upon identical lines by the District Councils.
" The subject is not new to me, having been fully dealt
with in my presidential address delivered before the Society of
Medical Officers of Health, in 1883, wherein I pointed out that
the unity of Sanitary administration, so necessary to efficiency,
might be brought about in either of two ways : (1) by sweeping
away the existing Sanitary authorities and creating a new
authority to rule over an undivided London ; or (2), the present
local machinery being retained, a Central Board might be
established—to take charge of all great matters affecting the
Metropolis as a whole ; to lay down the principles on which
Sanitary administration should be carried out, by framing byelaws,
&c., and generally to exercise a supervising control over
the work entrusted, under the Local Management Acts, to the
Vestries and District Boards. Such Central Board,' I said,
would be, as it were, legislative in its functions, the local boards
executive, and thus substantial unity might be attained with a
minimum of change.' A copy of the address was, by desire,
placed in the hands of every member of the Vestry, and it may
be remembered that I expressed my preference for the second
of the courses above indicated, finding it difficult to believe
that a system which has worked so well, and conferred so many
benefits on the Metropolis, should be cast aside in order to give
trial to a new, a vast, and a doubtful experiment such as that
involved in the adoption of the first course.' I proposed that 'the
new authority (regarding it as I did purely from the sanitary
standpoint) should take over, among other duties, those now
discharged by the Asylums Board with regard to hospital
provision, &c., together with the hospitals and ambulances ;
that it should have power to acquire, on equitable terms, the
property of the water companies ; that it should be the vaccination
authority ; and in addition to medical and other officers