On sanitary legislation and administration in England : an address, portions of which were read before the Public-Health Department of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at its Inaugural Meeting, held at Birmingham, in October 1857 / by Henry Wyldbore Rumsey.

  • Rumsey, Henry Wyldbore, 1809-1876.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On sanitary legislation and administration in England : an address, portions of which were read before the Public-Health Department of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at its Inaugural Meeting, held at Birmingham, in October 1857 / by Henry Wyldbore Rumsey. 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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    that the power of testing every description of medical qualifi- cation is to he handed over to colleges of practising phy- sicians, surgeons, and apothecaries. No provision is made for a high degree or diploma corresponding to the peculiar functions required of a Health-Officer. The philosophical reformer shrinks from the prospect, and anxiously inquires whether there is any hope that the measure, which was previously recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons, and introduced by Lord Elcho, may receive a fairer consideration in the coming Session. Whatever may be the defects of the latter measure, it at least recognised the connexion between sani- tary and medical science by placing the Minister of Health at the head of the Medical Council. I touch on this matter in order to call attention to the very important mutual relations between these two depart- ments of State Medicine, and I venture to predict that no general measures of public hygiene will effect their desired object, unless accompanied by, and in some degree based upon, a sound measure of medical education and organization. Necessity of an independent position for the proper perform- ance of certain duties.—On the various duties and responsi- bilities of the Officer of Health, I need not now enlarge.T With regard to his functions of statistical inquiry, he ought certainly to he responsible to the state rather than to the locality. The noble President of this Section, while occupying a similar position last year at the British Association, clearly laid down the sound administrative principle, that the collec- tion of statistics in all departments is properly an affair of Government. And I am happy to observe that the applica- tion of this principle to a national system of meteorological observations, has been recently enforced by the learned President of that Association at Dublin.w T These matters are fully treated of in my “ Essays on State Medicine and many of them are shown to belong to posts of physical, rather than ot medical, science,—in a paper presented to the Council of the British Asso- ciation, the greater part of which is reprinted, as Appendix 13 to this Address. w “ Meteorological observations on land exist in great numbers. In Prussia, in Russia, in Austria, and in Belgium, such observations are organized under Government direction, or at least with Government sup- port. In other parts of Europe, as in Britain, the labour is left to indi- viduals or scientific societies. “ What is needed is to give unity to these isolated labours—to connect