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19
Sanitary Authority in 1837.
Before the formation of you, Board the Board of Guardians was the
sanitary authority of this District; and several nuisances of an unhealthy
character were then either abated or removed—notably that of a patent
manure manufacturer, conducted by a Frenchman of the name of
Poittevin, situated only 100 feet from the walls of the old Spitalfields
Workhouse—now the site of the Union Workhouse.
Mr. Samuel Byles, Surgeon to the Spitalfields Workhouse, in his
evidence before the Magistrate at Worship Street Police Court, stated
that, whenever the wind blew from the defendant's premises, the smell
was in the highest degree offensive, and calculated to produce the most
pernicious consequences. On such occasions he found that whenever
diseases happened to prevail in the Workhouse they exhibited a great
tendency to putrescence, and assumed a most malignant and intractable
character. Whenever the effluvium became powerful the adult portion
of the inmates were attacked with severe diarrhoea, which invariably
subsided as soon as the wind changed; and he felt satisfied that the
nuisance in question was the proximate cause of their illness.
The evidence of Mr. Byles was confirmed by Mr. Burch, the resident
Apothecary in the London Hospital, and myself.
Mr. Hammill, after hearing the evidence, said that this was clearly
a monstrous evil, and, as he could not allow the health of the inhabitants
of a densely peopled district to be sacrificed to the pecuniary interests of
a private individual, he must refuse to sanction any suggestion which had
not for its object the immediate and total suppression of the cause of
the mischief.
I record the proceedings taken in this case to show that attention
was paid by the Guardians and Medical Officers of the Union to the
existence of unhealthy nuisances ever since 1837; and I can state that
attention was given to the sanitary condition of the District generally.
The beneficial result of their labours may be seen in the table
showing the annual rate of mortality from 1838 to the present time.
The beneficial result of sanitary improvements is most satisfactorily
shown in the Report of the Registrar-General for 1876. On page XIX of
that Report there is a table exhibiting the average annual mortality in
thirteen districts in different county registration districts, in which the
average annual rate of mortality, owing to an improved health administration,
has been steadily reduced in Hull from 31 per 1000, which was
the rate of mortality in the decade 1841-50, to 26 per 1000 in the
decade 1861-70. In North Witchford, Cambridgeshire, in the same
decade, the annual rate of mortality has been reduced from 27 per 1000
to 20 per 1000; and in the four years 1871-4, the results are still more
remarkable, the mortality being reduced to 17 per 1000. This district,