Annual address before the Medical Society of the County of Albany, November 8, 1859 / by Sylvester D. Willard.

  • Willard, Sylvester David, 1825-1865.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual address before the Medical Society of the County of Albany, November 8, 1859 / by Sylvester D. Willard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    influence of its energy. Their results affect, as we have shown, not only human life, but the prosperity of a commu- nity, and are an index to the efficiency and enterprise of its medical faculty. The position that Albany sustains as the Capital of the most important State in the Union — its being the seat of a University and a Medical School, and the center of one of the largest Medical Societies in the country, all conspire to require that its laws relating to hygiene and mortuary statistics should be so perfect that in their results they shall bear favorable comparison with those of any city on the continent. These results may be secured through the agency of the members of this Society, either in their indi- vidual or corporate capacity. It is not that we are lacking in enterprise to secure these objects, but that our attention has not hitherto been turned in this direction. Disease has lessened in some portions of the city at least one-third — I speak without figures — and there has been, I apprehend, a corresponding diminution in mortuary re- sults, effected by the introduction of a full supply of pure water; but in nothing are the interests of Albany more neglected than in its sanitary measures. It has no medical police. Its Board of Health has no vitality. The laws of health are grossly violated. Slaughter houses are allowed within the city limits, and every wind blows the foul odor of their unabated nuisances over our population. There is no sufficient regulation for the removal of garbage. Privy vaults are allowed to remain reeking with filth, and ex- haling sickening effluvia. Stagnant water evaporates in some of our streets. Ponds, in which are cast dead bodies of every description, from horses to still-born children, are left undrained; and not unfrequently the carcasses of dead animals putrify and rot in the streets unremoved. Our most public thoroughfares are made filthy by the daily droves of cattle and swine. Cellars, dark, damp and unventilated, are inhabited. Stables in the most disgusting condition are