The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel wrote:—
“I have in this report, as in duty bound, spoken plainly; if in the opinion of some members of the Board too plainly, my apology is—the deep sense I entertain of the importance of sanitary progress; for upon the success that shall attend the labours of those engaged in this most sacred cause depends the improvement of the social, moral, and intellectual condition of the people.”
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles’ made this pathetic appeal for action:—
“While you are listening to the remainder of this report, I trust you will hold in your mind how many lives are being sacrificed every month to deficiencies in sanitary arrangements.”
It is only here and there in the earlier reports of the Medical Officers of Health that specific mention is made of intemperance, but every reference to the subject showed how largely “drink” affected the sanitary condition of the people and intensified and complicated the evil conditions in which the people were placed, and rendered any amelioration, physical, moral, or religious, infinitely more difficult.
It was becoming more and more generally recognised that a very large proportion of the deaths and of disease were preventable.
“Any skilled eye glancing over the mortality tables will observe that a considerable number of deaths might have been prevented.”
“We are now to a great extent aware,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour’s (1856), “of the physical conditions on which the lives of individuals and communities depend.”
The Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote in 1857:—