The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-11-01 00:00:00

A GENT WANTED to push first-class Lub-
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Box 20t. P.,st Office, Liv

Ee
,3to.itticibge Obtnet,

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER let, 1879.

SANITARY REFORM.

Y late years Congresses have, •to use a
hackneyed expression, become the order of
the day. These assemblies, on all sorts of
conceivable questions, deliberate in the re-
cess, when Parliament is not sitting. and
when the newspapers, no longer crowded
with ioi reports of debates, have anaple
sple:-, to devote to the subjects dealt with
socia science, ecclesiastical matters, and
sanitary reform, are amongst the latest of
the topics dismissed at these autumnal
gatherings. Selecting now one town and
theii another for their meetings, there cal
be no that tLeso C:m.tresses, at; their
men3:R.-e none alniat to various puts•of the
kingdom, carry with them wherever they
(Nsasiderable amount of interest in the
whibh they take under their espeelal
cou:;ideration. The example first set by the
Beitish AG&ociat ion 'for the Advancement of
•Scienci3, in adoptinj the peripatetic system
.of aanual meetings, has thus been followed
by other bodies, and unquestionably with
mach success.

Amid all the criticism which has been
passi upon these Congresses, as being
showy and pretentious, and as aiming at an
impossible ideal, it certainly cannot be said
Via!: the scheme of the Sanitary Institute of
Great Britain is an ambitious one. The chief .
object of the Association is the advancement
of sanitary science, and the diffusion of
knowledge upon those questions which so
materially affect the health of the people. It
is farther ,luggested that local surveyors and
inspectors of nuisances should pass an exam-
ination, and certificates granted to thosewho
may prove to be competent for the work
which they undertake A suffgestion is made
by tile Institute that steps should he taken
for the ingistration of preventible dlf3LaSes
'tSlireli :r; int') their causes. It
is also meorour.orl.:.!t thlt claws should be
formed-for technical instruction in sanitary
science. No one could grad. . an appreei-
tive approval of an organization With such
objects as these. Them can be litt;c doubt
that a considerable proportion of the mot..
tality
tiirecdy lis linty
attri-
butable tither to
.ignoranee or careleisness
:le
wilt resp,xt to toe vital
sani-
tary economy. Nor is this coatid to the
dwelling i of the poor, or even of the middle
classes. 'Even in the mansions of the wealth r,
deniuvu and ventilation are oit,u
is a, truth, heni/wo; in -chi 4s4,l•tir.LA
thrtf• o•rnki air is unite as necessary
and that 1119 t
'action in sanitiry matters is as
requisite as education in tookary... The pro.
D •h reprd to tme exammation of
tat' important posts in eon.
ni tary
arrangem •7
entr of
•
'Lies -6504113 to be esr.le:atiy
ntioa wit the s
P rawfaviL" '
•••
f. 0 Z... Js
L./ io-.-e.;nt of the &tut prmciples of
15 Thlt it does
ZeeDi essential that those who occapy an of&
• 1-.ld pas4ess the ce:•3.arY
; or Er: ty. t 1 urn
t'itistolve upon them.
roposal r,• Saidtary Institute that

this should actually be so, is likely 0n0:1,7,h
to lic adopt-,cd. The public health shonld be
the main conideratien with public bodies-.
The diseases, which in bygone centur-
ies, swept over populated lands were attn.
,
bat t.t by the iguorant and the unthinking
to visitations scut by Providence as just
I punishments for national crimes. Time after
I time, even within our own remembrance,
the plague has desolated eastern countries,
and the depopulated districts have accepted
their doom with a calm complacency telling
!of the fatalistic teachings of the religion
! which they profess. It was the will of
Allah, and it must be done 'lnvariably
I when vast aggregations of pilgrims have
journeyed to Mecca or Medina, to pay their
sacred ributes to the memory of Mahomet,
! pestilence has followed in their train because
1 they have simply set at defiance all the
teachings of sanitary science, and every warn-
ing that should have been taught by previous
experience. The pilgrims of to-day are just
where the people of this country were 200
years ago. The Great Plague of London,
which areated such devastation in the metro-
polis in the earlier years of the reign of
Charles 11. was notoriously attributable to
overcrowding and to the attendant evils
which must inevitably be associated with a
violation of those rules prescribed to promote
the health of mankind. With the spread of
enlightenment on such subjects, desolations
by plague and pestilence have become fewer
and fewer. The last time that the cholera
'visited London in 1866, its ravages were
confined to the eastern districts, where the
sanitary reformer had not been eo busily at
work as in other parts of the wide-spreading
city. The SanitaTy Institute does good ser-
vice in bringing its specific subject before
the notice of the people; for the health is the
life—a truth quite as applicable to a ration
as to an individual.