Use began to be made of the Act soon after its passing, but the operations under it can be more conveniently described in the following chapter.
The energy of Parliament had a most beneficial effect, and many of the Medical Officers of Health bore testimony to the encouraging sanitary progress which was being made.
Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote (1868):—
“Our district is gradually and most manifestly improving in all those great features of hygiene which are truly essential where such masses of people congregate together.”
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields, who wrote in 1864 that:—
“The spread of sanitary knowledge is slow”—
Wrote in 1868:—
“Upon the whole, I am of opinion that all classes, even the very poorest, are much more alive to their own interest in supporting measures for the maintenance of health.”
The Medical Officer of Health for St. Mary, Newington, wrote (1871):—
“The knowledge of a compulsory power, as well as the spread of sanitary knowledge, and a greater appreciation of it, has led to a vast amount of sanitary improvement.