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Every addition to our store of knowledge in medical
topography and vital statistics is now received with
favour by the medical and scientific world,. and I
feel
certain that my humb le but painstaking effort to enlarge
1 its sphere regarding a colony in which I have been a
practitioner for twenty-three years will be duly
'
\ appreciated.
By Hall1s deliberate effort,
the questions of Sanitation and Pub lic
Health in Hobart Town became matters of world-wide scientific discussion,
investigation and coparison;
isolation and ignorance were no longer an
excuse for indifference, apathy and neglect on the part of its
inhabitants.
It was an immense step forward.
In detai l, Part One of the article which was pub lished hardly
before the echoes of the Convict Department dispute had died a\'iay , was
almost startling in its revelation of Hall's grm'iing concentration on and
devotion to Sanitation and Public Health, indicating quite definitely the
fearful shock he had received from his investigations into the mortality
rates of Hobart Town.
For one who had been in continuous residence in
Tasmania for twenty-thee years and had not once left its
shores , his
attitude was particularly objective and impartial, his opinions considered,
fearless and outspoken , the product of intense study and application.
Consequently, the Municipal authorities and the residents were left in no
doubt of the true state of their city:
the lack of ventilation in private
homes , churches , schools, public buildings such as the Court House and
the Legislative Assembly room;
uncontrolled building, and the overcrowding
of houses -
all were condemned.
In the progress we are making, we bid fair to rival some of
the great pest-spots of London, Liverpool , Glasgow , Dub l,in etc.
Continuing, e
described the open cess-pools and privies abounding
everywhere; the masses of filth only partially removed; the private
slaughter houses emitting their noisome stenches ;
the eight burial grounds
within the precincts of the city
silently but incessantly giving forth those gaseous products
of decomposition, which no coffers of wood, or even lead,
can contain;
the dense volumes of carbonaceous compounds belching forth from the
chimneys of breweries, and soap and candle factories
polluting the
atmosphere;
the need for public urinals in the principal streets for the
sake of health and decency ;
even the water supply which, though basically
pure, was neither sufficient nor well-managed.
Sarcastically, he