Proceedings of the Sanitary Association of Scotland : with papers read at the annual meeting held at Perth, July, 1890 / edited by James Christie.

Sanitary Association of Scotland. Congress 1890 : Perth, Scotland)

Date:: 1890

Credit: Proceedings of the Sanitary Association of Scotland : with papers read at the annual meeting held at Perth, July, 1890 / edited by James Christie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$boasts. And when I see the disgraceful state of the atmosphere in many of our principal Scottish towns, I am convinced that a lai'ge improvement in public health as well as in public comfort might be effected were our local authorities to display only a fraction of the firmness in dealing with the rich manufacturers, chiefly responsible for this smoke, that they display in dealing with the poor, who at anyrate are themselves most directly the sufferers from such nuisances as they create. The means have been invented by which, at comparatively small expense, the smoke nuisance can be vastly limited, if not altogether got rid of, and you have only to enforce the law that manufacturers must cease to create that nuisance for means to be forthcoming to put Glasgow and Paisley, Dundee and Greenock, into as satisfactory a state as has been brought about in London. But, gentlemen, I have already trespassed too long on your time. I might have easily addressed you on more novel and possibly more interesting topics connected with sanitary science, but my object has been to inculcate a few fundamental principles of public sanitation on which the distinguished sanitarian whose death I commenced by referring to laid supreme stress—to show that, much as has been done, much more remains to be accom- plished ; that the best results can be assured in sanitary work, as in most other matters of administration, by following up, whenever possible, the line of least resistance; that expenditure and efficiency are by no means synonymous terms ; and that, for motive force, subventions for public funds are as nothing when compared with self-interest. These fundamental principles cannot be too often enunciated or too cleai-ly recognized, and precisely as their recognition becomes more general—as it permeates our legislature, our Police Boards, our Managers of the Poor, and our County Councils—will the importance of the Medical Officer of Health and Sanitary Inspector as the guardians of life and health be recognized, and their position and status be exalted and improved. [In what he called the postscript to his address, Dr. Cameron said their position as sanitarians was about to be recognised in a way in which it had never been before, and he congratulated them upon the fact that, by the provisions of the Local Taxation, Customs and Excise Bill, a sum of £14,000 or £15,000 was to be set apart for the benefit of medical officers and sanitary inspectors in Scotland. In this way the anomaly which existed between England and Scotland would be removed, and he trusted the money would be distributed by the Secretary for Scotland in such a manner as would effectively put an end to that state of things in which sanitary inspectors were paid one, two, three, four, or five pounds for the discharge of their most important duties, and tend still further to improve the very creditable position, in regard to sanitation, which Scotland already held among the nations of the world.]$