PDF (Whole thesis) - UTas ePrints - University of Tasmania

176
improvements would take place as the idea caught on. Indeed, the
introduction of gas lighting into Hobarton in March and Apri l, 1857,
provided Hall with an exce llent opportunity to
emphasize the need for
correct ventilation, especially as shops and similar buildings installed
l_ighti_ng without making adequate provision for the intake of fresh air.
Hal l's insistence on bri _
nging his statistical evidence before
the Pub lic was truly remarkab le at this time.
Perhaps some citizens of
Hobarton could have bee excused for callng him a compulsive scribb ler,
but the fact that Miller was prepared to publish all his letters, often
accompanied by a long extract from an English report, disproved this
epithet . Actually, Hal l was determined by sheer repetition , if nothing
else, to break through the barrier _ of apathy, ignorance and conservatism,
perhaps even religious snobbery;
but his patience was wearing very thin.
In a letter to the Daily News on Pub lic Health on April 20 he wrote
The indisputable mortality statistics for 1855 and 1856 ,
laid before the Legislative Council on the motion of the
honorab le Mr Kermode , wil l effectively suppress all
further attempts to impute exaggeration to any of the
statements I have made on thi·s important subject. Those
returns show that in 185 5, a total of 1593 deaths were
registered for the whole colony and that of this number
Hobarton and Launceston claimed the enormous proportion
of 1161. If, therefore, for the sake of comparison we were
to admit that lnlf the free population of that year were
residents in those two towns and their districts , the rate of
deaths in them would be more than 37 per thousand, whi le the
432 deaths for all the rest of the island would only be 14 per
thousand.
Once more, almost in desperation, he continued,
These returns are pregnant with instruction in every item,
and demand the careful examination of every humane man.
All crude and flippant guessing obj ections melt away
before the minute and comprehensive details they embody.
Had sanitary measures been as successfully applied here,
as they have been in Macclesfield (Eng land) and they could
be much more so - since the census o . f 185 1, at least one
thousand lives would have been saved in Hobarton alone.
A heavy responsibility rests upon all having the power to
effect such a saving of human life and neglecting to act
upon it. I have taken care that my conscience shall never
accuse me of slighting or retarding an improvement of such
vital importance.
The third, longest and most important section of Hal l's article
110n the Medical Topography and Vital Statistics of Hobarton, Tasmania in
185511 was pub lished in the Australian Medical Journal in Apri l, 18 57.
Written in October 1856 and devoted exclusively to
a detailed examination