Report by the medical officer of health for the city of Glasgow to the board of police. October, 1863.

  • Gairdner, W. T. (William Tennant), Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by the medical officer of health for the city of Glasgow to the board of police. October, 1863. 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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    It should be tlie business of tlie Master of Works and the Medical Officer, in such circumstances, to report their proceedings in detail to the Sanitaiy Committee, to which also all difficulties, of a kind not requiring the decision of the Board itself, should be referred. There would thus be a permanent Commission of authoritative and impartial persons to watch over every detail of the application of these clauses, to guard against undue interference, and, in the event of legal proceedings being required, to instruct the Procura- tor-Fiscal and the Superintendent of Police, The gi*eat advantage, however, of this method of proceeding would be that it would give a fair opportunity alike to the proj^rietors and the tenants of over- crowded houses to become acquainted with the powers of the Act, and with the grounds on which the authorities proceed in calling those powers into oj)eration, I anticipate that in very many cases the expense and vexation of summary proceedings would be avoided, and the purposes of the law accomplished by a gradual penetration of its principles and its powers into the minds of the oAvners and occxipiers of overcrowded pi’operty. There Avould re- main cases either of immediate and pressing danger, or of obstinate resistance to the wishes of the axithorities; and in these the law would be carried out in the ordinaiy way, it being clearly under- stood that the power of immediate action is reseiwed in all cases. Should this scheme be in accordance Avith the vieAvs of the Board of Police, I am jirepared, Avithout delay, to initiate proceed- ings by a formal designation of the localities Avithin Avhich it is especially desii’able at present that the clauses 38o-388 of the Act should begin to take effect, upon the report of the Master of Works and of the Medical Officer jouitly to the Sanitaiy Committee. Soon after my appointment as iNIedical Officer of Health, I sub- mitted to the Sanitaiy Committee a INIemorandum in reference to the expediency of providing a means of temporary lodguig for the families of those Avho were seized Avith fever in excessively over- croAvded apartments, during the period that might be necessary to secure them against infection in cases Avhere it Avas found im- possible to do so by remoA-ing the sick, and purifying the infected house. The further prosecution of this subject Avas arrested by a doubt as to hoAv far this proceeding Avas competent, in ordinary circumstances, for the Board of Police, but I have never ceased to regard it as a question of great importance, and in vieAv of the further experience acquired as to facilities Avhicli Avould be given