Fever, in its relations to sanitary reform, being the address in medicine, delivered ... [to the] Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / [William Davies].

  • Davies, W. (William), 1818?-1893.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fever, in its relations to sanitary reform, being the address in medicine, delivered ... [to the] Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / [William Davies]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    towns, especially those wherein extensive manufactories exist; and that it is Utopian, in the present state of our knowledge, to imagine that anything the wit of man can devise, shall have the effect of banishing typhus from our country, until fluctuations in labour, commerce, and the price of provisions shall cease to exist, and every individual of the community shall be so circumstanced as to have within his power a sufficiency of food and clothing to preserve his body in health and vigour; and then the predisposing causes of typhus, as of nearly all other diseases, will have no existence, and we shall cease to have epidemic diseases, because we shall have no class of our population among whom disease can become epidemic. It is with some satisfaction that I am enabled to quote the following extract from the Report by the Committee of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, appointed to consider any bills that may be brought into Parliament for the improvement of the health of towns, and the applicability of such measures to Scotland.* The Committee consisted of Professors Alison, Christison, and Gregory, and Drs. Stark and Spittal. The remarks already made, as well as those which are to follow, were written before the Report came under my observation; some of them, indeed, more than five years ago, before the subject had attracted any great share of public attention; it is, therefore, with the greater pleasure that I give the following quotation:— “ The Committee think it necessary to add, that while they fully concur in the importance of the measures in question, they do by no means indulge in any such sanguine anticipations as to their immediate consequences, as are contained in the Report of the Committee of the Health of Towns’ Association, in London, and in other recent publications; and they consider this a point of great importance, because, if the public are led to form such expectations of the result of these measures as cannot be realized in practice, the necessary consequences must be,—-first, that other measures, which may be equally necessary for the health and comfort of the inhabi¬ tants of towns, may be neglected ; and afterwards, that a little experience of the state of the public health, after other measures shall have come into operation, may cause a general and hurtful feeling of distrust as to the principles on which they are founded. Thus, there is a great risk of the real efficacy of such measures being first over¬ estimated, and afterwards undervalued, in both cases to the public disadvantage. “ In particular, the Committee cannot concur in the statement (at 10 of the Report above quoted,) that f science might secure to the whole population of this country such sanitary measures, involving protection from disease, suffering, and premature death, as are actually extended to the inmates of well-regulated prisons y’ * British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, April. 1848.
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