Excerpt from The Sanitary Evolution of London The health of the people of a country stands foremost in the rank of national considerations. Upon their health depends their physical strength and energy, upon it their mental vigour, their individual happiness, and, in a great degree, their moral character. Upon it, moreover, depends the productivity of their labour, and the material prosperity and commercial success of their country. Ultimately, upon it depends the very existence of the nation and of the Empire. The United Kingdom can claim no exemption from this general principle; rather, indeed, is it one which, in the present period of our history, affects us more vitally than it has ever done before, and in a more crucial manner than it does many other nations. The more imperative is it, therefore, that every effort should be made to raise the health of our people to the highest attainable level, and to maintain it at the loftiest possible standard. The subject is so vast and complicated that it is impossible, within reasonable limits, to treat more than a portion of it at a time. London, the great metropolis, the capital of the Empire itself, constitutes, by the number of its inhabitants, so large a portion of the United Kingdom, that the health of its people is a very material factor in that of the kingdom.

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