The differences between the statutes bearing on public health for England and Ireland / by E.D. Mapother.

  • Mapother, E. D. (Edward Dillon), 1835-1908.
Date:
[1864]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The differences between the statutes bearing on public health for England and Ireland / by E.D. Mapother. 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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    0 to know tliat the gravcyarda in many provincial towns are in a most dangerous state. The Metropolis Local Management Amendment Act, 1862, enacts that cowhouses shall be licensed and inspected. The closeness and filth of many of those in Dublin are dangerous to the surrounding residents, hurtful to the animals, and very injurious to the quality of the milk. In Glasgow the cubic space for each inmate of tenements is defined, and power is granted for the establishment of houses where the families of persons struck down with fever may take refuge during their treatment, or the purification of their dwellings. The Liverjjool Sanitary Acts (1846 and 1864) provide for the inspection and improvement of tenemental dwellings; and as nearly all the cases of zymotic disease in our own city arise in sucli houses, of which there are about 9,000, and scarcely one in the registered common lodging houses, I rejoice we shall have similar powers when the bye-laws, framed for the purpose under the Dublin Improvement Acts Amendment Act, 1864, are approved of by the Government. They provide that every person in the beneficial receipt of rent of any house or part of a house, usually or occasionally let in separate tenements for human habitation for any shorter period than one month, at rents not exceeding tlmee shillings per week, shall, before such letting, cause the roof, walls, and chimneys to be put and kept during tenaircy in proper repair, impendous to wet and damp; and shall also cause each window to open from the top, and to be kept glazed and cleansed, and in projrer repair; and that every keeper of every such house shall cause a properly-constructed ashpit and privy or water-closet, and a properly-trapped house-drain to communicate with the main sewer (if any) within 100 feet from such house, and cause such ashpit, privy, or water-closet and house-drain to be occasionally cleansed and kept in proper repair. They also ordain penalties upon any oceupant or other person residing in any house who shall throw from any window of same to or upon any street, yard, lobby, passage, or place other than that provided for their proper deposit, any water, foul liquid, or other offensive matter or thing. In Liverpool the authorities are empowered to open all courts which at present are cul-de-^acs—a desideratunr most truly in this city, if our municipal funds would justify the expenditure. As an example of the benefits of consideriug and agitating such legal amendments as I propose in this Society, I may mention that it was mainly through the exertions of our members that the Bake- houses Regidation Act, 1863, became law. This act seems to require some slight alteration. Thus, entry is only granted during the hours of baking (nine p.m. to five a.m.)—a period so inconvenient that inspection will never be constant or effective. Lime-washing once in six months is too seldom, as the plentiful evolution of carbonic acid rapidly destroys its efficacy, and rooms above the bakehouse without abundant ventilation should not be used as