Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

Jamaica. Central Board of Health

Date:: 1852

Credit: Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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$the public weal. By a faithful and strict observance of the laws a vast amount of existing evils might be overcome. As soon as these are put into achial ope- ration, others may be devised, having for their object general internal sanitary arrangements, and other reme- dial measures. 2d. A continuous and plentiful supply of water for the irrigation of the streets, and for all pur - poses of internal cleanliness. 3d. Sewers and ces- pools, to carry off, to the remotest distance, all the noxious fetid fluids now collected and retained in most yards, a large portion of which afterwards run into the streets and lanes. 4th. The prohibition of washing clothes in the town. 5th. Tlie destruction of all old decayed and filthy hovels. 6th. The tax on dogs, to be imposed and enforced ivitluml distinction^ so that the town may be rid of the superfluily of these pests by night and day. 7th. The immediate aboli- tion or removal of that pre-eminent grievance, preg- nant at all times with danger, The marUet of abo- oninations kept at the west end of Kingston.— 8th. And, second to none, an amended and stringent enactment to rid the town of all hogs and goats ; at all events to exclude or keep them confined out of the town, as is done in Barbados. 9th. And last, though not least, a special sanitary police, appointed and paid to carry out the ordinances and laws in all such matt(M-s which have been hitherto neglected and al- lowed to moulder on their shelves. The late police and the present constabulary force are ineligible for such a service ; and if reasons were required to be ad- duced for such assertion, they shall be furnished, even as plentiful as black-berries. I have refrained from touching as yet, except in a partial manner, upon a source of malaria I consider as pestiferous as any— I allude to privies of the whole metropolis, it is supposed that their numbers are not much below three thousand. 1 believe I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that none have been emptied (an act of cleanliness—a duty seldom neglected in former days) since emancipation. ]\ight-men are no longer T$