ABSTRACT
In 1848 the City of London was granted power, under the City Sewers Act, to appoint a medical officer of health, and selected Simon. The creation of the office fostered the growth of public health courses in medical schools, which in turn raised the officers' standards. The comprehensiveness of the examination for the diploma at Cambridge reveals the exacting and diversified duties of the medical officers. The Metropolitan Association of Medical Officers of Health petitioned Torrens to give officers security of tenure in his bill, arguing that the duties falling to them under it would bring them 'into antagonism with the house-owning members of the vestries'. From the annual reports which the medical officers were obliged to submit to their vestries there emerges a picture of enormous perseverance and a confidence in the powers of preventive medicine to improve the health of a nation.
