Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Poor Law Medical Officers' Association. Quarterly address. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![the most on medical relief, she is rewarded by having th smallest death rate ; and what will be more interesting to some, by having infinitely the less poor rate expenditure. Now I do not wish to convey the impression that the whole of these deaths are those of poor people, but as the gross number of the labouring classes has been put in England and Wales at some 4,500,000, and as it has been further estimated that at least one half of these are sick every year, it is evident that they make u]) by far the largest portion of those cut off by zymotic disease, for as the character of their surroundings is the most markedly unhealthy, so are they necessarily the first to suffer, and that too the most severely in any epidemic outbreak. Again, I do not intend to assume that the general hygienic conditions of the two countries are the same. I am well aware that we have here a large urban population, and that in Ireland it is mostly rural. I know perfectly that the sanitary condition of onr towns contrasts unfavourably with our country districts, but though 1 grant all that, yet I will still assert there remains enough to prove my argument, which is that much of our excessive mortality would have been prevented, if our legis- lators (undeterred by the clamorous ignorance of some of their tenantry who are poor law guardians) had simply paid as much attention in Parliament to the preservation of the health of the poor, as they have at all times given to that of their cattle. But it is not that the community have suffered only in augmented mortality and additional expenditure on pauperism by this neglect of the health of the poor, but to bring the fact more home to our governing classes, there can be no doubt that many an occupier of a palatial mansion has sustained the death of relatives, whom he would not have lost, if zymotic disease had not been allowed to fester and develop into fatal activity in the neighbouring cottage. With the view of proving the correctness of this deduc- tion, and showing how krge a relative proportion of the deaths from zymotic disease must come under the observa- tion of the dispensary physician and consequently affect the poor, I have obtained the gross number of cases of scarlatina,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21962327_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
