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the Magistrate, upon legal proceedings being taken by the Board, inconsequence of
the owners neglecting to comply with the requirements of the Inspectors; and if your
Board had sanctioned the further proceedings of your Medical Officer of Health, in
giving directions to the Inspectors to serve notices on all owners whose property was
in an unhealthy condition from defective paving; it is probable that very few of the
private courts, which are not thoroughfares, would at this time be unpaved. The
necessity of causing all courts to be well paved, I have, in my Quarterly Reports,
more than once alluded to; and I again most respectfully, but earnestly entreat the Board,
at once to carry into effect this most necessary measure.
A more favorable time than the present for proceeding with sanitary improvements
is never likely to occur; we are free from the prevalence of any epidemic, and
hence our sanitary improvements can be judiciously carried into effect, and without
hurry; for when works are begun hurriedly, under the panic of a devastating
pestilence, it is seldom that they are completed in a satisfactory manner. Sanitary improvements
have hitherto, for the most part, been made under the influence of fear,
and when it has passed away, things have been allowed to relapse to their
former condition, until the same fear is again excited by the recurrence of the pestilence.
If the minds of the public at large were only as thoroughly convinced of the importance
of exercising a constant Supervision over the crowded localities of large towns,
as are the minds of those who have devoted long and anxious attention to the subject,
most of the sanitary defects in them would soon be remedied, and the rate of mortality
of the people consequently be still further reduced, and greater happiness be the lot of
all mankind. The legislature has at length wisely entrusted the local Boards with
ample powers to enforce the removal of those sanitary evils, which in the opinion of
the Medical Officers of Health, are causing, or are likely to cause disease; and the benefits
resulting from the exercise of such powers are clearly shown in this, and in my former
Reports—in the reduction of the rate of mortality,—in the diminution of those cases of
low fever, which were so prevalent among the poor, and in the general reduction of the
poor-rate.
I must now direct your serious attention to the most important subject, in a sanitary
point of view, which can be brought before you. I allude to the existence of
cesspools, more especially to such as are situated either in the cellars of inhabited
houses, or in the small back-yards which are surrounded by the walls of houses filled
with lodgers. Experience has proved to us, that it is in these places ill health is always
to be observed, and this lowering of the system renders the inhabitants prone to receive
the poison of any prevailing epidemic; for although we may not be able satisfactorily to
demonstrate that the poisonous exhalations of cesspools actually produce epidemic
diseases, there can be no doubt of the fact that the greatest number of victims of pestilential
diseases are to be found in those localities where such nuisances exist.
That the exhalations of cesspools are poisonous, is now universally admitted, for
they have been made the subject of direct experiment. Dogs have been subjected to