ABSTRACT
The publication, during the 1840s, of detailed evidence describing the insanitary state of the growing urban centres must have encouraged large numbers of people to concur with one of the conclusions reached by the Royal Commission on the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts which stated:
the most important evils affecting the public health throughout England and Wales are characterized by little variety, and it is only in the degree of their intensity that the towns exhibit the worst examples of such ills. 1
