Report by the Sanitary Committee of Commissioners of Police on the Public Health (Scotland) Bill.

Date:
[1849?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by the Sanitary Committee of Commissioners of Police on the Public Health (Scotland) Bill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    tinue such diseases, or otherwise injure the health of the in- habitants, and to point out the best means for checking or pre- venting the spread of such diseases within the burgh, and also the best means for the ventilation of Churches, Chapels, Schools, registered Lodging-houses, and other public buildings within the same, and from time to time, as required by the Commissioners, to report to them upon the matters aforesaid, and to perform any other duties of a like nature which may be required of him— and that, in addition, “ he should be required to observe and register the prevalence and degree of mortality of disease in each portion of the district, as compared with others, or with other places, and in each season, as compared with others, and endeavour to ascertain the cause of any local or temporary in- crease of mortality ; and also to suggest from time to time any such regulations as he may think fitted for improving the Sanitary condition of his district.” Your Committee are also of opinion, that he should be under the control of the Local not of the General Board, and that the directions of the latter should be communicated to him through the former.* III. Powers conferred by the Act.—With regard to the § 42-48 powers as to sewerage, your Committee are of opinion that the framers of the Bill have shewn their wisdom in laying down few specific directions, leaving it to the Local Boards to regu- late these according to the nature of the locality. One evil, however, of great magnitude ought, in their opi- nion, to be met by a distinct restrictive clause; they allude to the practice of surface-draining, or that by open gutters, so prevalent in courts, passages, and closes. The Local Boards should be compelled to establish sewTerage in all such places, and to abandon entirely the practice of surface draining. Your Committee are of opinion that all smaller attempts in the way of drainage, will prove of little consequence as far as the northern part of Edinburgh is concerned, until some means are taken for remedying the monster evil of the Water of Leith. This pestilential open drain runs parallel to several otherwise * See on this, and some other subjects referred to, a valuable “ Report by a Committee of the Royal College of Physicians, appointed to consider any bills that may be brought into Parliament for the Improvement of the Health of Towns approved of by the Royal College of Physicians in February 1848.