Addresses and papers / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Fayrer, Joseph, Sir, 1824-1907
Date:
[1863-1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Addresses and papers / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    484/490 (page 46)
    4 6 be intensified by local causes, and give a lesson which, it is to be hoped, will not be disregarded. In the Times of Monday, February the 22nd, 1886, it was recorded that a memorial to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, concerning sanitation, was laid before the Govern¬ ment of Bengal. This memorial states that since 1881, cholera has swept away more than 20,000 people in Cal¬ cutta and its suburbs; that in some suburban wards the death-rate has stood at 70 in the 1,000; that during the decade of 1875 to 1884, out of a population of 257,000 in the suburbs, no fewer than half had perished. The laws of sanitary science are understood both here and in India, and the enactments of the Government would be effective if fully carried out, but no Government can force sanitation upon towns, villages, or houses, without the co-operation and support of the residents, and all measures will be found useless, unless backed by the personal efforts and exertions of individuals. Experience shows that in this country in the present day the best houses are often most defective, and that local causes of disease, which might be removed, abound, notwithstanding all that is done by the Government Local Board. In India, the reports of the Health Officer of Calcutta show that much is still wanted in that centre of cholera in the way of municipal aid, towards giving full effect to the sanitary measures necessary to control the disease. Let us hope that his advice will be attended to, for surely it would have the best results. The cholera, which has been in Europe for the last five years, has now apparently died out, or at all events is dormant; but it may appear again, and wherever it can find a fitting nidus, i.e.y the presence of bad local condi¬ tions, all the quarantine and inspection in the world will not keep it out; that such bad local conditions in towns, streets, and houses exist, is proved by the reports of the Sanitary Associations, and of sanitary engineers who deal with these matters in localities where government officials can exercise no interference. The measures for their re¬ moval are simple enough if only the public can be brought to believe in the unseen but removable dangers which exist within, around and beneath their houses. This is a great sanitary defect of the present day and cries loudly for reform; upon this it may depend whether pestilence shall find footing, or shall leave the locality un¬ scathed.