The causes and prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R. E. Dudgeon with a few notes by M. Roth.

  • Fuchs, Ernst, 1851-1930.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causes and prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R. E. Dudgeon with a few notes by M. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    munities to act as they pleased in regard to it. Holland was the last to abandon this organization ; until about 20 years ago the care of the public health was exclusively in the hands of the communal authorities and the superior political authorities could not exercise the slightest influence or control. In Belgium this system still prevails ; the sanitation is superintended in every province independently by the commission mddicale of the province. A similar arrangement obtains in Norway. This system of decentralization has this disadvantage, that sanitation is left to the judgment and zeal of the local authorities. Whilst some towns or provinces enjoy very good public sani- tation, in others it is completely neglected. 2. In most States the superintendence of sanitary matters is entrusted to a minister who performs it through his underlings. As a rule with the minister is associated a chief sanitary council, which is, however, only a consultative authority (France, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Russia). The sanitary council is composed of medical experts, hygienists, engineers, &c, but the minister is not bound by their decision. The actual conduct of sanitary matters is left to the minister's underlings who often are quite ignorant of the subject. The men of science who*' constitute the sanitary council, at length tire of investigating questions brought before them and giving their opinion res- pecting them, when they see that the decisions they arrive at are often only destined to accumulate dust in the archives of the ministry. 3- The most rational organization of sanitary matters exists in England (and Sweden). In the English Local Government J5