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ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE FULHAM DISTRICT.
May 1st, 1880.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—
I beg to present to you my Annual Report on the
health of the Fulham District during the year 1879. Sanitary
science is playing no small part in the world in the present day.
It is satisfactory to notice what an interest is taken in Hygiene
not only by sanitarians, but also by a very large proportion of
the well educated. That interest has a tendency to increase
the more it is indulged in. We may look upon such a fact as an
indication of improvement in the minds of men in general, for
nothing is a better indication of improvement in moral character
than a lively interest in the welfare of others. A high moral
character is particularly shown when a person can feel an
interest in the well being of those with whom he has no personal
acquaintance. It is a question whether the greatness of
countries will not in future to a very large extent depend upon
the standard of public health. Let statesmen see to it whether
or not the commercial failure of so many agriculturists during
the past year does not to a very large extent depend upon the
fact that for many years we have been ultimately pouring the
fertilizing properties of our lands into our rivers and seas,
without making any adequate compensative return to the land
from whence it was taken. So poor at length have the lands
become in many parts of the kingdom, that in prosperous years
the farmer can with difficulty make sufficient money to pay his
expenses. The result of a single bad season was seen last year
in the ruin of thousands of industrious individuals. Nature
intended that the produce of the land should return to the same,
but the ingenuity of man has contrived to discharge millions of
tons of fertilizing elements into the sea. This is a question that
could only be taken up with any chance of success as a national
undertaking by the House of Commons. Let our cities and
towns and villages be well drained by all means, but let the
excretion and refuse of the same be returned in a dry state to