Sanitary law : a digest of the sanitary acts of England and Scotland / by H. Aubrey Husband.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary law : a digest of the sanitary acts of England and Scotland / by H. Aubrey Husband. 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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    VIII. c. 5—foi’ the prevention of damage arising from Hoods, and for cleansing and purging trenches, sewers, and ditches, authorised the issue of Commissioners of Sewers, at the discretion of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasni’er, and Chief Justices. The Court Rolls of Stratford-upon-Avon record that in 1552 Shakespear’s father was fined for violating the laws of the manor by dejiositing filth in the public street, and a second time in 1558 for not keeping his gutter clean. To meet special exigencies, sanitary acts were jiassed in succeeding reigns till the year 1818, when the fii-st Public Health Act was passed, which created a new central authority called the “General Board of Health,” which consisted of a president and two other members, who had power to a])point insjiectors and a stall’ of officers. This Board, the existence of which was limiteil to five years, in 1854 was so re-constructed as to be composed of a paid President, the Secretaries of State, and the President and Vice-President of the Board of Trade. They were also emjiowered by an Act passed in 1855 to appoint a paid Medical Officer, who subse- quently, under the Privy Council, became the Health IMinister. In 1858 the General Board of Health expired quietly, and was succeeded by the Privy Council, to whom some of its functions were trans- ferred, especially those for making regulations for the jireventiou of epidemic and contagious diseases. From this date till 1871 a chaotic state of things exi-stunl, and the functions of the extinct Board were variously and inexplicably distributed between the Privy Council, I he branch of the Home Office known as the Local Government Acts Office, and the Poor Law Boanl.
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