Memorandum for the chairman of the Sanitary Committee, to accompany a map of the sanitary districts of Glasgow / by the Medical Officer of Health, November, 1865.

  • William Tennant Gairdner
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorandum for the chairman of the Sanitary Committee, to accompany a map of the sanitary districts of Glasgow / by the Medical Officer of Health, November, 1865. 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.

    10/14 page 10
    of those causes, arranged according to Sanitary Districts, would lead to results of great importance as regards prevention. This, I need scarcely say, is necessarily a task for the future; it will require great care in examining and classifying details, and repeated examinations, at intervals, of the facts accumulating from week to week in the Registrars’ returns, at present comparatively unfruitful and void of interest. It is not my wish to raise ex£>ec- tations which may be only partially fulfilled; but to attempt, at least, something in this direction, commencing with January, 18G6, is part of the plan I have in view. It remains to bo added that the possible advent of cholera, and the necessity wliich would thence arise for systematic house-to- liouse visitation, has been steadily hold in view in planning these 54 Sanitary Districts. Each of these may be generally described as an aggregate of from 12 to 20 enumeration di.stricts, having a population, speaking generally, of from 6000 to 9000 persons of all ages, and accurately corrcs2)onding with the boundaries of enu- meration-districts adoj)ted and carefully recorded by the late Dr. Strang at the time of last census, the records of which are fully j)reserved in the books of the City Chamberlain. Transcripts of these records, in convenient forms, are now beuig made for the use of the Sanitary Office, and in the event of a necessity arising, they will be used as the basis of a district medical superintendence on the plan of a daily house-to-house visitation of epidemic localities. The sanitary districts in the parts of the city ej)idemically affected, would thus become sei3arate centres of organisation of medical relief, subject to the general superintendence of the Sanitary Medi- cal Staff. It would be of no public advantage, liowever, to ])ursue in this memorandum the details of a Scheme in regard to which my most eaimest hope is that it may not require, for a long time to come, to be brought into operation; and I only allude to it now with the view of giving an assurance that the subject has received, and will receive, most careful consideration as i>art of the general scheme of sanitaiy districts. W. T. GAIRDNER. iC-
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3