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10
"the constitution of a Board of Health, not only excluded practitioners
"of medicine, but did not so much as contemplate the necessity of
"providing moans for securing their advice; nay, that the whole Bill
"was constructed on the theory that the care of the Public Health was
"a question in which medicine has so little concern, that from beginning
"to end the words "Modicine." "Mcdical Profession," "Medical
"Practitioner," or "Medical Officer," are not to be found. To perform
"the play of "Hamlet", omitting Hamlet, is the exact counterpart of
"this."*
I may here mention that this defect was remedied by the Select
Committee of the House of Commons to which the Bill was referred,
and in its amended form received the Royal Assent on the 14th
August, 1855,
On you, the Fulham District Board of Works, for 20 years has devolved
the responsibility and the task of watching over, and locally
legislating for the wants of now quite 70,000 people, a population far
exceeding that of many towns and cities enjoying municipal charters,
and it is with reference to the way in which you have exercised this
power that I have to do in this report.
In the early part of 1856, when I was honoured with the appointment
as your Medical Officer of Health, I found the district beleaguered
with disadvantages.
The "Highway Act" and the original "Nuisances' Removal Acts"
of 1848 and 1849 had been the only statutes applicable to our local
wants and how meagre and inefficient these were, experience had
taught us.
A house to house inspection of the entire district pourtrayed a
lamentable deficiency in Sanitary regime, as is most fully shown in the
voluminous schedules attached to my first general Report presented to
you in May of that year.
To assort that at that time all London was undrained is not too much
to say; and, if so, what picture would be drawn of our condition
westward of it.
To the rescue came the "Nuisances Removal Act," 1855, and the
"Metropolis Local Management Act," already spoken of.
It, was for the genius of a Bazalgette to deliver the City of the World
from almost impending decadence. The excrements of nearly three
millions of people were being thrown broadcast into the Thames, and
some of our legalized Water Companies were drawing their supply
from the same polluted source. The outlets of our cwn surface ditches
were in close proximity to the intake of our own water supply, and a
very moderate amount of filtering appeared to satisfy the public mind.
The records of our Cholera Epidemics in this country point many
moral lessons on the questions of purity in drinking waters.
But to return to the General Sewerage of the Metropolis. Could
the present generation draw a map of the site of London free
from houses the Seven Hills of Rome would fall into absolute in-
* Lancet, March 24th, 1855.