Public health : a popular introduction to sanitary sicence. : Being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century / By William A. Guy, M.B. Cantab., F.R.S. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

  • Guy, William A. (William Augustus), 1810-1885.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public health : a popular introduction to sanitary sicence. : Being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century / By William A. Guy, M.B. Cantab., F.R.S. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    of the sagacious and well-directed indtistry of Mr. Edwin Cliadwick) I contributed the results of a laborious inquiry into the health of letter-press printers, and of others fol- lowing in-door occupations. This inquiry taught me that a great saving of life might be confidently looked for in an unexpected quarter: that out of 36,000 deaths a year in England and Wales, which I attributed to true pulmonary consumption, 5000 might be saved by increased space and improved ventilation in shops, workshops, and fac- tories ; that among men doing the same work under the same roof, tlie liabihty to consumption was determined by the space J and that this might be narrowed to a point at which men would die as fast as by some contagious malady, so that here, as in Italy, consumption might seem to pass from one person to another. Such being the result of my first sanitary inquiry, it was but natural that, without disparaging the art of healing, I should come to think with Fodere, that it is in the power of governments to do more good to mankind than all the books on medicine put together, and be ready to co-operate j with those who felt that a Health of Towns' Associa- tion ought to spring out of the startling revelations of the Health of Towns' Commission. Accordingly, from 1845 t° ^^48 (when The Nuisances Removal and Dis- eases Prevention Act was passed), by lectures, by speeches, by printed appeals, and by all the legitimate machinery of a wholesome and successful agitation, I bore my part in that labour of love. With the first sanitarj^ Act to show as the fruit of its efforts, the Health of Towns' Association soon died a natural death 3 but the interest which it had excited and sustained did not die out. There were still whole bodies of men and women, such as the London bakers and the needlewomen, suffering grievous physical evils which no existing legislation could alleviate or remove; and our soldiers were victims of a sanitary B 2