Preface to reports relating to the sanitary condition of the City of London / by John Simon.

  • John Simon
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preface to reports relating to the sanitary condition of the City of London / by John Simon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which we, who prescribe them, cannot answer within a margin of cent, per cent.; or in penny- worths of poison being handed across the counter as nonchalantly as cakes of soap.* Surely, before he had been six months in office, he would have procured some enactment to remedy this long neglect of the legislature, by providing that the druffsrist’s trade be exercised only after some test of fitness, and in subjection to certain regulations. Within his province, likewise, it would fall to be cognisant of all that relates to the constitution of the Medical Profession. The difficulties which have baffled successive Home-Secretaries might soon find their solution in the less divided attention which he could bring to their study. Amid con- flicting opinions and an apparent scramble for power, he would soon distinguish where might be the strife of jealousy and covetousness, where a truthful zeal for the honour and efficiency of medi- cine. I think he could not be long in curing our more scandalous anomalies. Probably — unless human bowels require other doctoring in London * Without referring to what may he considered rare—the sale of poison for the purposes of intended homicide, I may remind the reader of the very dreadful facts collected by the Commissioners on Trades and Manufactures, as to the immense sales of opium in our principal manufacturing towns, for the purpose of quieting—and with the effect of killing, children, while their poor mothers are absent from home in their several occupations.
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