[Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council.
- Isle of Wight (England). Rural District Council. n 83204987.
- Date:
- 1896
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: [Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
54/96 (page 54)
![Legal pro¬ ceedings. General Purposes Committee. will only take place in those cases where sufficient influence cannot be brought to bear. One of the chief reasons for concreting the site of a house is that ground air may not be driven into it when it rains. Who is to decide whether there is air in any particular ground ? I know no ground in the Isle of Wight which water and air do not permeate. You have decided to postpone the revision of the bye-laws until next year, when you will have had longer experience of them. May I be permitted in this connection to guard you against a word which in its use in the matter of the bye¬ laws seems to savour of the “clap trap” of the modern political arena. I refer to the word “theory.” What is in¬ tended is natural science, and natural science is founded upon the laws of nature, the laws under which we live and move and have our being. An art is science applied in practice. A mason who follows his art is a practical man, but it does not follow that he understands the laws of health. Of course if he be a member of a sanitary authority it is his business to study these laws so far as the information he has acquired enables him to do so. It is because the prac¬ tical man does not always understand nature’s laws that the bye-laws which enforce them are essential. You took legal proceedings in three cases during the year ; twice under the bye-laws against persons who commenced building before the plans of new houses were sanctioned, and once under sec. 97 P.H.A., 1875, in order to close a house unfit for human habitation. You changed the designation of the Committee hitherto known as the Works Committee to that of the General Purposes Committee, to which all members of the Counci] are now summoned. This Committee has been of the greatest assistance to you, and through you to the public health of your district, and it is of the first importance that its usefulness should not be in any way hindered. The](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29498442_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
