London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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St James's 1862

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St James's, Westminster]

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33
the action of parish organisation, has been amended
during the past year. I have called your attention
to the new powers which it gives you in the
management of slaughter houses and cow-houses, and
in the erection of public fountains. It also gives you
power to supply houses with water which are deficient
in the supply of this necessary article of daily use.
It also gives you power to improve streets, a power
which, for the sake of your overcrowded and afflicted
population, you ought not to hesitate to make use
of. It also gives you the power of paving and of
draining courts and allies, and thus removes from out
of your way the difficulties which have hitherto
obstructed some of the most desirable improvements
in the parish. Under this great sanitary Act the
improvement of the health and the diminution of
the mortality of London is surely, though slowly,
proceeding. It has called into existence the gigantic
system of sewerage, by which the whole of London
will be relieved of those pestiferous exhalations
which have formed the hot-bed of fever, cholera,
and other destructive diseases. It is educating a
body of men in parochial management, who are
aiming at the advancement of their fellow-citizens in
intelligence and morality, by removing from amongst
them those causes of disease and death which are
the fertile sources of poverty and crime. I commend
to you the study of this Act, as one which in its
spirit and aim has for its object the maintenance of
the health and life of the community, through the
c