ΤΟ THE MUNICIPALITIES OF ENGLAND WHOSE MULTIFARIOUS POWERS UNDER THE VARIOUS LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENTS IN THAT BEHALF HAVE RENDERED THEM THE CHIEF CONSERVATORS OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH, THIS COMPILATION IS Dedicated. INTRODUCTION. THE Acts passed by the Legislature for the protection of the Public Health have now become so numerous as to render a compendious analysis of them an important desideratum. In the preface to a former work, “The Laws relating to Burials," the author has observed that "while consolidation of the existing law is talked of, Parliament is actively engaged in rendering more difficult the work of consolidation by the present system of amending statutes," so that each new subject speedily becomes a volume. In this work an attempt has been made so to digest and arrange the various sanitary medical and protective statutes under different heads, as to supply a key to every subject embraced within this wide field of beneficent legislation. Preventive medicine may be called a science of comparatively modern date. The cure of disease introduced by Hippocrates and Galen was long the sole aspiration of the divine art. If the ancients appreciated pure air and water, their prophylactic value was lost sight of amid the darkness of the middle ages, and during the Plague of London no one dreamt of any cause other than the poison of contagion. The beginning of the present century saw no great improvement, nor are the remnants of ignorance, in this respect, any more than the delusions concerning witchcraft, altogether absent even yet in the most enlightened country in Europe. The lengthened wars during the past century, carried on as they were often in warm and unhealthy climates, (e.g., the disastrous Walcheren expedition,) afforded many opportunities for observation, which were not lost. by the best educated men on the medical staff of the British army. Some of these, among whom Sir John Pringle and Lind are perhaps worthy the most distinguished place, published the results of their experience for the benefit of the world. They, however, failed to make any great impression on the public mind. Absurd and wicked Quarantine Laws (laws which, to the disgrace of our country, be it said, are still in existence) continued to be enforced with all the rigour of ignorance, superstition and their concomitant cruelty: and it was not until 1825 that the writings of Dr. Southwood Smith, ringing with vigorous logic and enlightened philanthropy, first began to awaken the national sense to the fact that filth and fever are intimate associates; that preventive medicine is of more importance than curative medicine; and that the bugbear of contagion, the great enemy which, by inducing isolation and the neglect of all prophylactic means, has heretofore slain its thousands from our fleets, our armies, and our civil population, should lie for ever buried by the side of witchcraft and her kindred superstitions. The Reports of the first General Board of Health on Quarantine, drawn up by him, will long be referred to as the standard works on that subject, particularly the second report (with appendices) on yellow fever and plague. Hence Southwood Smith has been fairly designated the Father of Sanitary Reform. His efforts were well seconded by his colleague, Edwin Chadwick. |