Merthyr Tydfil (Wales). Local Board — Medical Officer of Health report, 1870

The annual report of a Medical Officer of Health. From 1848 every British local authority was required to appoint one and to publish what he found, and the reports are the result: births and deaths parish by parish, outbreaks of diphtheria and typhoid traced to a particular well or dairy, the state of the housing, the drains, the slaughterhouses and the school children. They were written for councillors rather than for posterity, which is exactly why they are so useful now — they record what was actually happening in a place, year by year, in plain administrative prose. This is the report of Merthyr Tydfil (Wales). Local Board for 1870. Digitised by the Wellcome Library as part of the UK Medical Heritage Library. The scan has no title page, which is why the catalogue supplies the title in brackets.