A report on the hygienic condition of the mercantile marine in the Port of London / by Harry Leach.

  • Leach, Harry.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on the hygienic condition of the mercantile marine in the Port of London / by Harry Leach. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    fare of those seamen who sail in foreign-going1 ships They start off on their watery way, the hum of busi ness in the busy Port of London goes on, and the world on land forgets them. There ai*e many vessel; moored in the Thames, the sanitary welfare of whos<- inhabitants should as specially claim our care ant concern. The coasting vessels are always with us. They steam up and down, or dodge in and out of th< river week after week, but I dare to say that no appreciable fraction of London’s vast population know.1 anything whatever as to the manners and mode o life appertaining to those who live, move, and have their being in the coasting craft of Great Britain: We read of lee-shores, of dangers and discomforts caused by wind and rain, but . there are dangers anc discomforts that proceed from within as well as fron without, born of many insanitary conditions of ex:- istenee. I propose to show briefly what these: insanitary conditions are ; how necessary it is that the purlieus of water-ways, as well as highways, should be under skilled sanitary control; how dangerous the: absence of that control is to the citizens as well as tc) the seamen of London; how miserably inefficient is- the piecemeal system of legislation that at the presenl time obtains on the Thames; and hence (to use the concluding words of a report presented by Dr. Letheby to the Commissioners of Sewers) ‘it is expedient, as well as imperative and necessary, thal the several nuisance authorities on the two sides oi the Biver Thames should agree on some mode of co- operation whereby a proper inspection of all the shipping in the Port of London shall be regularly and systematically performed in accordance with the pro- visions of the Act of Parliament.’