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

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Shoreditch 1888

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch, Parish of St. Leonard]

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92
commerce of a nation depends on the well-being of every
individual, so the welfare of a city is dependent on the healthy
arrangements of each dwelling. In health everything works
easily and can be re-constituted if damaged; and such should
be features of dwellings in large cities, for the larger the collection
of houses, and the more complicated the social relations,
the more singled and simplified should be the elementary
arrangements and conveniences. Every house should have its
own independent water supply, its own drainage, its own closet
and other accessories.
This independence has another great value; it tends to
maintain family interest and family emulation, in other words,
domestic life. Mothers and housekeepers generally take a pride
in their dwellings, where it is practicable to keep such dwellings
clean, attractive, and altogether in good order; and that promotes
orderly feeling, and healthy desire in members of the
family or household, and one family encourages by example
another family, until it is commonly remarked that the street is
well kept, and the community is justly pleased with the single
and general respectability.
These remarks your Medical Officer is called upon to make
in considering the value of these improvements, and it is a
pleasure to acknowledge that the owner of these houses has
done his part to aid the health of the parish, and further it
affords an opportunity of noticing what is the aim of the
Sanitary Authority in its proceedings from year to year.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES NOTIFICATION BILL.
It has been the duty of the Medical Officer to report to your
Vestry on two occasions in the past year, respecting the
"Infectious Diseases Notification Bill," which, if enacted,
would require that where an inmate of a dwelling is suffering
from any one of the following diseases:—Small pox, cholera,
diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, scarlet fever,