Excesses and Abuses
Dr. Kelly writes: "Tea, flesh, meat, alcohol, patent medicines, and lack of open air exercise, are in my experience most potent factors in reducing the robustness and general tone of the system of the inhabitants of this district.  I have repeatedly seen deaths due directly and indirectly to all five.  Times out of number I have seen people quacking themselves with some patent cough medicine when all the time their lungs were burning away from low inflammation, and finally the doctor is called in to tell them the result of his examination, which is generally a sad one, and to sign the Death Certificate.  I am convinced legislation is absolutely necessary in this direction to shield people from their own folly and more especially poor bairns who cannot raise their voices in self-defence.  First they are griped with bad and improper food, then they are dosed with some patent medicine to make them sleep, aye, sometimes it is their last sleep.  No wonder our Infant Mortality is so high.  I see the St. Alban's Weekly Magazine is printing every week articles on the feeding and nursing of children.  This is a good way to reach the mothers and I hope all the parochial papers in every parish will follow suit and give a little of their space each week to the elucidation and explanation of this very important subject."
Injurious habits of the people
 In my previous reports I animadverted on the universal practice of drinking strong tea and tea brewed longer then five minutes.  I stated then what has become notorious since, viz. that the destructive tendency of strong or long brewed tea on the teeth and stomach was becoming painfully apparent to the casual observer (to medical men it has been long known).  The heart (through the nerves) and the brain especially suffer to a corresponding degree.  In short I believe the female side of an asylum has as many victims FROM OVER INDULGENCE IN THIS BEVERAGE AS THE MALE SIDE HAS FROM INDULGENCE IN ALCOHOL.  I have nothing to say against tea properly made and properly used, with sufficient milk added.  It is the abuse, not the time, I want to combat.  Close and long observation has unwillingly led me to this opinion, and people interested in the tea trade need not put me down as a faddist as I fear some of them have done.  At all events, a tea heart and a tobacco heart are now recognised complaints in the medical repertoire. In former reports I have advocated the great advantages of false teeth where the natural ones have decayed.  Those who have taken my advice have expressed to me the great comfort and advantage to their health arising therefrom.. I would express the opinion here (because I know) that dentists could with profit to themselves and the public reduce their charges for these necessary adjuncts both to health and appearance. (Dr. Kelly was obviously something of a social reformer - or was he influenced by some local climate of opinion favourable to improving the environment of the working classes?)Sanitary improvements
 The most important sanitary work during the year was the new sewer laid down at Wardley Colliery.  The inclination in this district is not so pronounced as in other parts of the parish, and previous to the new sewer being put down the contents of the drain remained more or less stagnant.  The sinks have also been properly trapped and there is an apparent improvement all round.  The old sewer at Heworth Village was taken up and relayed, this must add a further charm to the historic hamlet.  Entire new streets have been built in Felling, and all the houses are provided with the dry ash system.  The houses are chiefly built in flats but the upstairs tenants are provided with house sinks, and this will do away with the temptation to empty the slops into the midden from the stair head, as is customary where no house sink is provided.  I am glad to note that in different parts of the district the old privy midden is giving way to the dry ash close: when the latter are emptied at stated periods the improvement on the old midden is very obvious and salutory.
The housing of the poor
To this question I have given long and anxious thought and I may confess at once that the solution of the problem is beyond my ken .  To any person like myself who has to visit the very poor in their direst need, this must be an ever present subject for contemplation.  How are the poor to be properly housed?  The march of sanitary science will very soon drive them out of their squalid homes, where, from their insanitary surroundings, they are a menace to the population.  They have not the means to procure a decent house, and yet we are told on a high authority that the poor will be always with us...  Private enterprise will not undertake to build houses suitable for such tenants, and therefore, I think some public body, such as the County Council or District Council must step in and erect something in the nature of almshouses.  However, if it is hardly a parochial question then ultimately the legislature must take it up and solve it the best way they can - at present I see no alternative.  It is a vast undertaking and every town in the country is more or less concerned therein.

[Reproduced from the annual report by permission of the Medical Officer of Health, Felling U.D.C.]

Part of Dr. M. F. Kelly's first Annual Report to the new Felling Urban District Council, in 1894.

J. M. Hewitt