Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Our duty in relation to health / by William Rendle. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![pass lightly over us and die out, or happily leave our children health with i immunity for the future, which under favouring conditions they usually do, are rendered more dangerous and more infectious; aud new diseases pointing at like causes now and then spring up: in these places children are crammed away anywhere, the infant being not unffequently stifled in the night, from the close packing, the heavy sleep and the foul air. Now, say what we will, we are not a poor people; we are well able to pay tfor a great good; the Crimean records tell us that we can ^afford 100 millions \ when a principle is at stake, albeit, the working out that principle may involve tfche wholesale destruction of our fellows; and a more noble experiment tells us t:hat we can liberate slaves, not so closely related to us as the denizens of our ccourts and alleys, even at a vast expence. It is notorious that we are year by vfear becoming a richer and more prosperous nation; our influence widens, new i ands are discovered and opened for the increase of our trade and for the ern- ] floyment of the millions who else could find no existence upon so narrow a oasis as these islands furnish. Are there not social duties arising out of this ? dThe workers increase; are their homes to be fewer and less comfortable ? Are ihey to be huddled together in unhealthy, foul, close places, and to be so i ilaced that decency shall be impossible, and at the same time to pay for them a lafger interest, a higher rental than would suffice to procure healthy comfort- i ble habitations ? I claim to speak with the authority of long experience in these matters. As arish surgeon and Officer of Health, 1 have for twenty years been among these . eople: I have seen the scant supply parted for the stranger, sick and still i lore needy: I have seen the poor, tired and worn with the day’s work, > illingly watch through the night by the sick bed, whose occupant had no thcr claim upon them than the Christian claim that he “ was their neighbour;” have seen the scant clothing paAvned to raise money for the same purpose, nd still for the almost stranger: and I am unwilling to bclieA'e that this great Hass, containing as it does no small number of persons capable of such acts, is : ither unable or unworthy to be rescued from its present filthy, sickly and de- i loralizing surroundings. I look upon it that this duty which so many of our London Vestries seem so ly is not only an obligation but a privilege. The vestryman may by lAvfid authority an authority as benevolent and full of Christianity as it is awful help socially to improve almost every thing about him; and by abitually vieAving his surroundings with the object of improving them, he Iannot but Aviden the grasp of his oAvn mind, and improve and elevate himself very whit as much as he may benefit others. It is cpiite fair for him to dis-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22371138_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
