View report page

49
This last law should be applied to all infectious
diseases. Such a measure, if properly carried out,
would probably lead to the saving of 100,000 lives
annually, and a sum of money equal to £10,000,000
sterling.
Sixteen Years of Sanitary Work.
At the end of sixteen years it may not be amiss
to glance at the results of the sanitary work done in
the parish. We have, fortunately, the means of doing
this by comparison of the death rates before and
after the introduction of the Metropolitan Management
Act, by which the Medical Officer of Health
and his duties, were constituted.
In the ten years previous to 1856, the average
death rate of the parish was 790. The average
death rate of the parish for the past 16 years has
been 700; hence it would appear that upon an
average there has been sixty less deaths every year
since your sanitary operations commenced. This
makes nine hundred and sixty lives. If you
recollect that when, by sanitary measures, you save
one life, you protect twenty others from sickness,
debility, and incapacity to work, you will be enabled
to estimate the enormous saving to the community
of this great work. I am afraid to place before you
the money value that this saving of life and
health has secured—it is so enormous. Yet
every one must feel that human work is carried
on by human life, and that the result of work is
D