A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon.
- MacKinnon, Kenneth
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the public health, climate, hygeine [sic], and prevailing diseases, of Bengal and the North-West Provinces / By Kenneth Mackinnon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![CHAP. I.] PUBLIC HEALTH. SUGGESTIONS TO IMIMIOVE THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE SYSTEM OF MEDICAL POLICE. If I tliought that what I have to say upon this sultject would meet with much attention, I should consider this by tar the most important j)art of my essay—fur wliat can exceed in interest, and importance to liunianity, that branch of police which has for its object measures for tlie improvement of pub- lic health ; or the consideration of the institutions, domestic and moral habits, of a people ? As they affect the same, subject, I shall merely allude to the latter, althou>rh they affect the public health of a community more than can be well apjireciat- ed, unless we go deeply into the subject. 'I’he physical causes which operate on the health of the natives of Tirhoot, are those which 1 purpose chiefly to iu)tice. 'I'hey are capable of alteration by physical and municipal operations ; the others we must only expect to remedy, by changing the moral condition of the population. In this rich and populous tract of country, w'here medical aid is only available to one out of thousands of the population, (this is no figure of speech) measures of a general natura to avert disease become greatly more necessary ; yet have such measures received very little attention up to this time. I can- not do better here than to quote the following judicious obser- vations from one of the Medical B( ard's circulars: “this view of the subject cannot fail to remind the .Medical servants of the Honorable Company, of the peculiar value and applica- bility of the preventive branch of their profession, hitherto al- most neglected in India, where, by discovering the sources and agents of insalubrity, and shewing how to remove them, it ap- pears possible to avert more human suffering than can be averted by the apeutical treatment, after accession of illness.” 1 shall endeavour, at the risk of some recapitidation of what I have written elsewhere, briefly to j)oint out the most common sources and agents of insalubrity, and then venture to suggest such means as may seem feasible for their removal.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2870874x_0075.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
