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FULHAM DISTRICT.
FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT
of
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH,
1859.
presented to the sanitary committee.
Gentlemen,
After a lapse of four years, devoted to the prevention
and removal of conditions prejudicial to health, it is due from
sanitary science that we should be able to show some marked and
tangible evidence of its effects on the people, but in proportion to
the facilities, natural or otherwise, available for the purpose, so
must the results be commensurately anticipated, and estimated when
realized.
In a District situate at an advantageous level, and more or less
supplied with the opportunity for carrying-out effective house
drainage, we should cæteris paribus expect a far greater change in
the social state than where the opposite circumstances prevail. In
reviewing our own position on the sanitary ladder, we must not
lose sight of these important elements of success. The non-existence
of effective outlets must ever operate (however great the labour
bestowed) in retarding the progress of sanitary improvements, and
however favourable other conditions may be, this radical defect will
assuredly and most unerringly influence the well-being of any community
subjected to it.
A large proportion of the Fulham District is thus circumstanced,
and the efforts of the Sanitary Committee have consequently been
much impeded, and, indeed, the duties of your Officers thus indefinitely
multiplied. Palliatives of an evanescent character have been
applied instead of effectual remedies, and constantly recurring
nuisances have taken place where it would have been more profitable
to all finally to have obliterated them. It would be easy to
point to instances within our area of every possible disadvantage
arising from the absence of this first great fulcrum on which all
permanent improvement turns, but we may also look with