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Is it any wonder, then, we find a high mortality? He
states that the death-rate for 1849, 1850 and 1851, as well
as in 1853, amounted to 13.6 per thousand. The effect
of the sanitary improvements was shown by the fall in the
sickness rate from fever, diarrhoea, and influenza, from 10
per thousand inhabitants in 1851 to 5.7 per thousand of
1853."There was neither Cottage nor Isolation Hospital,
no District Nurses, and no "Babies' Health League"
watched over the infants. The Rev. Dr. Vaughan was
Chairman of the Local Board, and Head Master of the
Harrow School. The Rev. J.W. Cunningham was
Vicar, and Mr. Thomas Hewlett, F.R.C.S., was District
Medical Officer, Surgeon to the School, and a Member of
the Local Board of Health. Their names should ever
be held in honour as pioneers of sanitation in Harrow.
HARROW OF TO-DAY (1907).
The contrast between Harrow of half a century ago
and Harrow of to-day is highly instructive. It proves the
value of sanitation in preventing sickness and lowering the
death-rate, and leads us to expect still further improvement
from a sound sanitary policy. From a country village
with less than 3,000 inhabitants Harrow has now become
a town with 15,000. General physical conditions remain
practically unchanged, but the sanitation is immensely
improved. Whilst the average death-rate for the last ten
years has been 9.7, the corrected rate for 1907 is only 6.9,
and the uncorrected, which is calculated on the same basis
as the rate for 1853, is only 6.5. Had the death-rate for
1907 been the same as it was in 1853, there would have
been 105 more funerals in Harrow than there were in
the past twelve months, and calculating the number of
cases of sickness at ten times those of the deaths, there
would have been 1,000 more sufferers. Many people still
die in Harrow from preventable causes with which the
Sanitary Authority can deal, such as Consumption,
Influenza, Whooping Cough, Measles, etc., but there are
also a large number of deaths for which individuals are
solely responsible. Many tragedies recorded under other
names are caused by a reckless disregard of the simplest
laws of health. There is frequently an absence of healthy
and wholesome views of life and duty. Unstable moral