Abstract
THE subjects dealt with by the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain at its annual meetings cover a wide field, and the Leicester gathering of this year, under the presidency of Prof. de Chaumont, F.R.S., forms no exception to the rule. The first aim of the Institute is, through its various agencies, to assist and indeed to lead in the improvement of public health, and the President did well to prove, by mortality statistics, how great a saving of life can be effected by the adoption of efficient sanitary measures, and how remunerative expenditure in this direction proves itself to be. The result of the sanitation carried out in the Army, and which is so much clue to the labours of the late Dr. Parkes and to those of his successor, Dr. de Chaumont, is that, comparing the results of thirty years ago with those which now obtain, there is a saving in the home Army of two battalions per annum. Some substantial progress is also being made in the same direction as regards the general public, and when it is more fully understood that preventible diseases as a rule destroy those members of the population who are most remunerative in so far as the State is concerned, and that, speaking generally, each such premature death means a loss of at least 100l., even parsimonious members of sanitary authorities will not mind expending a little more of the public money in so good a cause.
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The Annual Congress of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain . Nature 32, 523–524 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032523h0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032523h0