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Sanitary Authority, except where the report is likely to be printed by
order of the Authority. In such cases the Board need only be supplied
with a printed copy.
Article 18 (Section 15) of the Board's Order of the 8th December,
1891, specifies the information to be contained in the Annual Report, and
is printed below.
The report should be chiefly concerned with the conditions affecting
health in the district and with the means of improving these conditions.
It should consider these subjects with reference to the past and future, as
well as to the particular year ; and the account of the sanitary state of
his district generally should, while marking the point that has been
reached in the sanitary state and administration of the district, indicate
directions for further consideration and action. The sanitary history of
the year under review should include a record alike of the proceedings of
the Medical Officer himself and of the proceedings taken under his direction
or advice.
The Medical Officer of Health, in reporting his proceedings and
advice, may find it convenient to follow in the main the order in which
the subject matters of his duty appear in the several paragraphs of Article
18. Special care should be taken to report fully and explicitly in reporting
on the influences affecting or threatening to affect injuriously the
public health within the district; and the causes, origin, and distribution
of disease within the district may usefully be the subjects of annual record.
An account should also be given both of the actual circumstances of the
district up to the end of the past year and of any improvement or deterioration
that has occurred during the year in conditions conducive to health
or to disease. For example, a vigilant health officer has in his annual
report an opportunity of pointing out any facts as to water supplies, house
construction, conditions of storage and of removal of refuse customary in
the district, together with any facts as to the adequacy or inadequacy of
means of isolation and disinfection and the like; and such a health officer,
reporting on the diseases and their causes within the district, will generally
have some instructive details to give, either of conditions newly
productive of disease or of matters that have been remedied with advantage
to the public health.
In reporting upon Section 3, not only should the fact of having made
systematic inspections, but the outcome from those inspections should be
duly put on record. The report should contain a full account of