General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the town of Kelso : drawn up at the request of the Board of Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson.

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 Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson. 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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    readied an aggregate of 4425 years; or exceeded the other by a difference so important ns 1025 years. Two essential elements of a statistical calculation, mass of numbers and extent of time, are here present in a sufficient degree to give tolerable stability to the facts elicited. Brief as the statements are, they could only be arrived at through the assiduous analysis of more than 16,000 distinct entries of cases of disease ; and it will be ob- served that spaces of ten years have been selected as fair periods to form the basis of comparison. Thus developed, it is interesting to note fact upon fact rising into a consistent series of proofs, each confirming its antecedent, and all tending uniformly to shew how ])ossible it is to diminish the sum of human suffering, and to extend the bounds of human existence, and pointing distinctly to the means by which such desirable aims may be accomplished. I have natu- rally preferred founding these proofs upon direct local experience, rather than upon that which might liave been derived from more distant quarters ; because conviction might have been eluded where the circumstances could have presented only a doubtful analogy, and because the interest thus awakened could only have been re- mote and qualified. It will be to mo a source of deep gratification, should you consider them as fitted to strengthen your position in any effort Avhieh you may feel called upon to make for the common welfare. The measures which it Avill now be prudent to advise must no- Propo-sed cessarily have suggested themselves to you during your consideration of the preceding observations. But I shall take leave to direct your attention more especially to certain parts of them, in a concise review of the principal methods which recommend themselves for your adop- tion. hlany of them must unquestionably be attended with consider- able expense ; but it is seldom that an important aim can be attained by a trifling effort. Whatever is withheld from the promotion of the public health is, in fact, a stint upon true economy ; for there can be no inmate more costly than the sickness which brings charges upon a household, where it has paralysed the hand of labour. In your selection of proceedings, I trust, that, however slowly and gradually certain portions of them may bo carried into completion, they will, at least, all of them be instituted at first on a broad and comprehensive plan :—such fis will admit of its parts being succes- sively perfected, without that doing and undoing, in a scries of make-shifts, which is ever the most expensive, as it is certainly the least efficient, of all methods of operation. Our streets, when considered as those of a small country town, arc at present distinguished, with the exceptions which I have noted, for a more than ordinary degree of propriety and neatness. It would doubtless, bo an important imi)rovemcnt, and one to which most of our streets are well adai>ted, if flagged foot|)atha were provided along the fronts of the houses ; of sufficient breadth, and elevated about
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