The sanitary measures ... had strictly and exclusively an official origin ... they arose as a consequence, though an indirect and perhaps an accidental one of measures directed by Government in 1832, viz. the Enquiry into the administration of the Poor Laws; in the course of some investigations with the view to discriminate the causes of pauperism, excessive sickness, and its preventive causes were suggested by circumstances which appeared in the course of that enquiry and are noticed as one of the topics of examination in my report, laid before Parliament with others ... afterwards, under the Administrative Commission, in 1838 when a heavy amount of claims appeared as a consequence of the prevalence of an epidemic, I felt it my duty to call the attention of the Commissioners to the preventible nature of the causes of a large proportion of these cases and recommended a special investigation of them ... In directing the enquiry, the Commissioners were influenced by the circumstances which appeared before them in the course of the business of the day by no representation od ... as I am aware of, any person whatsoever.