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8
FULHAM DISTRICT.
THIRD ANNUAL REPORT, OF MEDICAL
OFFICER OF HEALTH, 1858.
PRESENTED TO THE SANITARY COMMITTEE, APRIL 21, 1859.
Gentlemen,
At a time when the Metropolitan District is just emerging from a
period of more than usual mortality and sickness, it is not without
interest that this my Third Annual Report should be presented to you.
By this you will be informed how far they have affected the Fulham District,
and be induced probably to consider what moral lessons are deducible
therefrom. It is by reflection on such matters as these that the public
eye is led to take a retrospect of events, and is at the same time carried
forward to survey the probabilities and possibilities of the future, to
reflect on the penalties already incurred, or to ponder on the dangers
happily escaped.
It is well for that community which takes advantage of these
seasonable warnings (perchance to others), neither indulging on the one
hand in paralyzing despair, nor sinking into listless security on the other.
Sanitary Science and experience has full clearly proved to how great
an extent the prevention of disease and its extention rests with us. It is
not ours to rule the wind either in its force or its direction, neither have
we power to regulate its temperature, its moisture, or its electricity, which
exercise so great and manifest an influence on the human economy. It
does, however, remain with us to see that none of our excreta or refuse be
left to fester round our dwellings, that over-crowding in our cottages be
prevented, domestic cleanliness enforced, unwholesome food prohibited
from use, that good supplies of pure and wholesome water be provided,
that Pigs and other offensive animals be not kept too near our houses, and
that proper sewerage be constructed.
Neglect of these precautions has ever carried with it heavy penalties.
The debilitating fever and the exhausting flux in this find pabulum to feed
on. The poisonous atmosphere, loaded with exhalations, has done its
work upon the system, and produced a fitting soil for the zymotic ferment
to germinate in. It is by wrestling with these proegumal agencies that