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

206
no details of their reactions remain;
protests or suffered their punishment in silence.
either they ignored Hall's
In his "Review" Hall examined meticulous ly, paragraph by
paragraph, the sanitary aspects of the report, in which alone he was
interested, bestowing impartially both censure and praise as he
cons idered them due.
Firstly he criticized the Board itself, the
composition of which he compared to that of the yery successful Royal
Army Sanitary Commission in England :
whereas in the latter the
Commissioners were chosen for their enthus iasm and special knowledge of
sanitary science, five out of nine being members of the Medical
Profession, in Tasmania seven members were receiving imperial pay;
one of the nine members had ever pub licly shown any special knowledge
of vital statistics and sanitary science or any interest in sanitary
improvement.
Had there been but one individual on this Commi ssion
fami liar with vital statistics , and acquainted with the
principles and progress of sanitary reform up to the
present time, it could not have happened that the grievous
errors and pernicious recommendations , so patent on the
face of their "Report" , could have been promulgated. 6
Hall then criticized, at some length, the type of evidence used
to establish the salubrity of the Tasmanian climate.
not
Here in his own
favourite subject, he was in his element , accusing Bedford , who was the
author of the section on climate , of gross and ridiculous errors .
In a document so pretentious , and so deeply affecting the
climatic character of our favoured Isle the latest and best
evidence ought to have been embo died, and not merely partial
resu lts , arrived at ten years ago. 7
He maintained hat for some years pas t, as all careful observers knew,
the annual mean temperature and extremes , and diurnal ranges had great ly
increased, the mean of the last three years being nearly four degrees
higher than that of the eight the Commissioners had adopted.
suggested that if none of the members of the Board had the ski 11 or the
zeal enough to choose the correct meteorological Tables , they should
have approached Abbott as
he could and no doubt would, for the credit of Tasmania ,
have supp lied tables much more suitable for the purpose
required, brought down to the present period and
registered with more, and as good meteorological
instruments as were ever used at the Royal Observatory
at Rossbank, near Hobarton .... 8
He
6
7
8
A.M.J. , October 1858, p. 286 .
Ibid, p. 288.
Ibid, p. 290 .