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72
ANNUAL REPORT
of the
Medical Officer of Health
of the
FULHAM DISTRICT,
For the Year, 1883.
Broadway House, Hammersmith,
September, 1884.
To the Fulham District Board of Works.
Gentlemen,
During the past year it has been my duty to present to you
four Quarterly Reports. In these reports 1 have laid before you at
the end of each quarter, a statement as to all matters relating to the
sanitary work of my department, together with other statistical details
of the state of the public health of this district. It is yet my duty, in
accordance with the Metropolis Local Management Acts (18 and 19
Yict. c. 120, sec. 198, and 25 and 26 Vic., c. 102, sec. 43), to present
to you an Annual Report, containing an account of the vital statistics
for the past year, together with a statement as to the sanitary work
carried out under my advice, with the sanction of your Board.
Last year was a very healthy one, and a very successful one as regards
sanitary work. Many serious nuisances which had existed for a
great many years were done away with, besides which a great improvement
has taken place in the way the sanitary work was performed.
With the present system properly carried out, we may hope for a great
improvement in the sanitary condition of the district, and more particularly
so in reference to the dwellings of the poor. Sanitary
officers who perform their duties zealously, must expect to receive for
their reward great unpopularity. So many are the vested interests
that they are obliged in the performance of their duty to interfere
with, that they must be prepared to meet with injustice and opposition
in almost all directions. They must only hope for one reward —
a reward not to be despised by any means, the conscientiousness that
they have done their dutv, and have been the means of benefitting
their fellow creatures. It is not at all surprising that the dwellings
of the poor in London should be in an unsanitary condition, seeing the
great obstacles public sanitary officers have in the performance of their
duties.