The death-rate in one apartment houses : an enquiry based on the census returns of 1901 / by A. K. Chalmers.
- Chalmers, Archibald Kerr.
- Date:
- 1903
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The death-rate in one apartment houses : an enquiry based on the census returns of 1901 / by A. K. Chalmers. 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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![[From the Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow.] rU/< . The Death-Rate in One Apartment Iloushy Ai} Enquiry based on the Census Returns of iqoi. By A. K.. Chalmers, M.D., D.P.H.(Camb.), Medical Officer of Health for the City of Glasgow.1 [Read before the Society, 22nd April, 1903-1 Mr President and Gentlemen,—It is fitting that I should devote the opening words of this paper to acknowledging the honour which the members of the Sanitary and Social Economy Section of your Society have conferred upon me in selecting me as their President. Nor can I refrain from expressing my appreciation of the constant devotion to the work of that section which is displayed by its Secretary, Mr Buchanan, and which renders the work ot the President almost a sinecure. But in approaching the work which it becomes the duty of the President to undertake, I am conscious of no inconsiderable hesitation—a hesitation which arises from the knowledge that with similar opportunities I shall fail to devote them to the same high excellence of purpose that my predecessors have done. But I take courage in the recollection that the problems with which Sanitary Science and Social Economy concern themselves, have many aspects and few limitations. Is it not the case that our material progress is creating for us new problems which it were at least unsafe to assume are to be solved without any revision of our methods. Yesterday it was the cry of the children swelling in its pathos above the din of a recently introduced factory system and the cruelties of child labour; to-day it is the demand of Empire that our manhood shall be of the best. We regard, it may be, with equanimity our rapidly declining birth rate because it still so much exceeds the rate of deaths, but are we gaining in quality what we are losing in quantity, or have we simply better learned the art of protecting our children from danger. Are they stronger, if fewer, or is it that we are silent](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22386117_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
