HH62/2/WIGTOW/25

Transcription

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PART II.

ANNUAL DISTRICT REPORTS.

I. - LOWER DISTRICT.

According to the requirements of the Board of Supervision, I now
present my Annual Report with regard to the Lower District of the
County of Wigtown.

I. - GENERAL SANITARY STATE.

(a.) Distribution of Population. - This district includes the following
parishes:- Glasserton, Kirkcowan, Kirkinner, Mochrum, Penninghame,
Sorbie, Whithorn, and Wigtown. The total acreage is 158,800; the
total population at the census of 1891 was 15,489. This gives 0.097
persons to the acre, or, otherwise, about one person to every 11 acres.
The masses of the population, however, lie towards the south. Large
tracts of Penninghame and Kirkcowan are so thinly populated as to be
almost of no account for statistical purposes. Three important centres
are Newton-Stewart (Penninghame) with a population of 2332; Wigtown
(Wigtown) with a population of 1509; and Whithorn (Whithorn) with a
population of 1401. In these three burghs, in twelve villages, and in
the farms this population is housed. In a later part of this report I
shall use the three burghs of Newton-Stewart, Wigtown, and Whithorn
as an index of health for the northern, the midland, and the southern
parts of the district respectively. Since none of these three has
appointed me medical officer I do not consider it my duty to go into
much detail regarding them. I use them rather as an index in placing
the chief of unhealthy areas.

(b.) Occupation. - The district in its whole range is essentially
agricultural. The sanitary question, therefore, raises one main problem
- the housing of a community that depends directly or indirectly on

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agriculture. In one or two places this is complicated to a certain
extent by the fishing industry.

(c.) Housing. - In the general sketch of the Western District of
Kirkcudbright I have emphasized certain points in the housing of the
people. These points are equally prominent in this district. There
are the same defects of situation, the same difficulties of drainage, of
water supply, of ventilation. The bearing of climate on these conditions
and on health generally I leave to the county report. Quite recently
the Sanitary Inspector presented to the County Council a report that
bears out in detail the general remarks I have made. The figures of
the death table, too, confirm the general impression.

(d.) Recommendations. - No one proposal will remove or mitigate
the arrears of sanitation. Nothing will be effective except the systematic
examination of conditions in the detail. The habits of dishealth have
not been formed in a day, and it is not a day that will suffice to change
them. In a district such as this is the wisest policy in public health is -
first, the detailed mastery of facts in sanitary conditions and in health
histories; next, the systematic reversal of undesirable conditions not by
sweeping reforms, the wholesale creation of 'special districts,' or the
hard and fast application of clauses intended for the average, but by
little and little, by persistent instruction, by the use of every educational
means that will enlist the individual localities. The District Committee
can put many facilities in the way of the Public Health Office to make
it not only an administrative office pure and simple, but an educative
office. The first things to grapple with are the villages, which as yet
have nowhere any common or corporate life. The next will be the
further housing of the labouring classes, who suffer relatively more from
defective conditions. These two give material for a very extended
programme, which should be made out at the beginning of the adminis-
trative year. On the basis, then, I have to make certain specific
recommendations:-
First. That the District Committee appoint a small sub-committee
for public health purposes. The object of this committee should be to
keep constantly in touch with the Medical Officer and sanitary Inspector;
to consult with them regarding books, forms, and the mere machinery
of administration; to draw up with them a programme of work affecting
the whole district; to have this realised piece by piece as the casual
necessities of public health and sanitary offices permit. The Committee
should meet regularly once a month to consider progress, and oftener
if need be. Such a committee would advise as to special reports, as to
publishing of reports, as to circulating of special literature, as to the
most economical expenditure for specific objects, as to organising