General report on the sanitary condition of the town of Kelso / drawn up at the request of the Board of Commissioners of Police, by Charles Wilson, M.D.

  • Wilson, Charles, 1804-1883
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General report on the sanitary condition of the town of Kelso / drawn up at the request of the Board of Commissioners of Police, by Charles Wilson, M.D. 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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    worse than impruacnt if it spared any effort to cherish and maintain them; especially where such efforts could be made in a humane and kindly spirit towards those cxteusive classes, the nature of whose protracted toils places them most in need of some pure and healthful relaxation. I have thus endeavoured to lay before you a connected view of the mam features in the general condition of the town, with refe- rence to all the more prominent points of a sanitary enquiry. I shall not apologize for the length of my observations, because'! am •conscious that those who take an instructed intei-est in the subject will discover more cause to blame me for my defects and mv omis- sions, than, for any extraneous matters which they may belic\-e me to have introduced. The details, throughout, have been attempted to be ari-anged with sufficient distinctness, to render it easy to sepa- rate that which is really essential and practical, from that which is merely accessary and explanatory ; and they are now left to those earnest and intelligent minds, who may be willing, here as elsewhere, to grapple Avith the weighty influences which they unquestionably involve. It would be vain, in such matters, to attempt to read God's will otherwise, than through the results of his natural laws : and if it has been proved, that, in the proportion that these laws are habitually slighted or obeyed, we have, as at least a probability, on the one hand misery and premature death, and on the other'a gentle and late decay, with that gradual loosening of all ties, and deadening of all senses, which seems designed as the fitting close of an existence to which we have ceased to be adapted, these are assuredly truths which it must be religion to promulgate, and upon which it cannot be possible to insist too strongly. Let me add, that in several of the towns of England, it has been rcruianent Sa- usual, of late, for the Corporation or Council to select a few of their itn^.*^'^' number, to serve as a permanent Sanitary Committee; a practice which is designed to be useful in preserving those improvements which a first effort may easily create, but wliich only a continued watchful superintendence can steadily maintain. Perhaps, this arrangement also you may consider it prudent to adopt. I have the honour to be. Gentlemen, Your most obedient Servant, CHARLES WILSON, M.D. Neworth, Kelso, 24th Dec, 1847.
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