TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. 303 



only fifteen years, roused the whole nation to ask, " Why ? " and 

 " Can nothing be done to remedy it ?" Chadwick was a barrister 

 of the Inner Temple when, in 1828, a trifling incident turned his 

 attention from the law to the subject of vital statistics, of which 

 few worthy of the name were in existence. An able article from 

 his pen, on What might be done to Improve the Taking of Vital 

 Statistics, at once drew the attention of the country to him, and 

 pointed him out as a man of unique sagacity in "extracting from 

 masses of details the master facts, and bringing these to bear for 

 the elucidation of a master thought." Parliament at once made 

 use of his remarkable abilities, and, beginning with finding out 

 the worst that could be known, inaugurated measures, largely 

 under his guidance, for the amelioration of evils, till to-day, they 

 and we, live in a different world. Most worthily was he knighted 

 by the Queen, and when he died was universally recognized as 

 the father of sanitation. One of his earliest measures was the 

 framing of an act to procure an accurate registration of births, 

 marriages, and deaths ; and Sir John Simon says : " Before that 

 time a perfect chaos respecting the population and mortality 

 reigned. Since that time a mass of statistics relative to life, 

 health, and disease has been accumulating which will exert, and 

 is exerting, an immensely beneficial influence upon the physical 

 and moral welfare of these realms (England and Wales), and in- 

 deed, ultimately, on every people on the face of the globe. The 

 discoveries in astronomy have not a more palpable application 

 to navigation and commerce, or the investigations of chemistry 

 to manufactures, than have the statistics of health and disease to 

 moral regeneration." But it was Chadwick's report of 1844 that 

 waked up a slumbering nation. Fifty years after, the death rate 

 in the whole country had been cut down from thirty-two to 

 eighteen in the thousand. The work going on there did not 

 escape the eyes of progressive men here. Another layman, 

 Lemuel Shattuck, of Boston, watched the matter in its every step 

 of development, and being touched with the same fine " enthu- 

 siasm for humanity " as Chadwick, by voice and pen strove to 

 kindle an answering flame at home. Largely through his influ- 

 ence, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed an act in 1849 by 

 which the Governor was to appoint three commissioners who 

 were to report and prepare a plan for a sanitary survey of the 

 State, etc. They were to be paid, for the time actually spent in 

 the discharge of their duty, the same compensation as members 

 of the General Court, and for travel, and could spend fifty dollars 

 for books, which were to belong to the State Library when they 

 were done with them, but on no account were the expenses of the 

 commission to exceed five hundred dollars ! 



The Governor appointed Lemuel Shattuck, N. P. Banks, and 



