View report page

16
local infant welfare centre or to a hospital, and follows up the case to see that treatment is obtained.
In difficult cases it is the practice to call in the assistance of one of the women medical inspectors in this
department, and this practice has often proved to be most helpful; if the infant is attending school and
is suffering from such complaints as ringworm, verminous head, etc., with which the school medical
officer can deal, steps are taken to secure the necessary treatment. Arrangements have been made
for notifying the Care Committees when foster children reach the age of 7.
The number of notified houses on the register at the end of the year was 2,995 and the number
of notified infants 3,900. The number of infringements of the Act during the year was 474. Cautions
were sent in 434 of these cases and legal proceedings were taken and convictions obtained in 30 cases.
Work of the Chemical Branch.
The work conducted at the analytical laboratories at Savoy Hill includes the examination of
samples received under the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1906, the Petroleum Acts, London County
Council (General Powers) Act, and the London Building Acts. A large number of milk and other meals
supplied to necessitous children in Council schools have been systematically submitted for chemical
examination as to adulteration or adequacy. Many analyses have been made of materials used in
connection with works undertaken by or for the Council.
The chemical and ealorimetric examination of all coal delivered to Greenwich Generating
Station is, under the conditions of contract, the basis of price to be paid for such coal. In addition to
these analyses daily examinations of coal actually burnt under the boilers are made in the laboratory,
and chemical investigation of various problems concerning fuel economy is being undertaken in cooperation
with the electrical staff, with a view to assisting in the use to the best advantage of the
necessarily curtailed quantity of suitable fuel now available.
Systematic investigations as to the condition of the water of the River Thames have been
continued, as well as daily examinations of the sewage effluent and sludge. The analytical work in
connection with these and allied matters has been carried out in the laboratories at the Northern
and Southern Outfalls.
The special investigation of the river has continued for four years. In each of these years the
treatment of sewage has been modified during varying periods, partly for experimental reasons and
partly owing to war conditions. Considerable economy has incidentally been effected and so far no
inconvenience has been caused.
Since the sewage effluent enters the tidal portion of the Thames at points below that at which
the river leaves the county, it is clear that the general effect of the flow of the river is for the water
which has become mixed with effluent to pass seawards away from the county. The tides are, however,
sufficiently strong for a marked upward movement of water to occur every flood tide, that is, twice every
day. The effect of a movement towards the metropolis of a vast volume of water carrying with it the
liquid and finer solid portions of the sewage of a population of some millions should clearly be carefully
studied when the treatment of sewage is in any way altered.

The problem of dealing with sewage effluent therefore presents less difficulty during such years
than in dry periods.
In the summer of each of these years water which contained so much salt as definitely to point
to mixture with sea water was found in the course of the investigation at places well above Westminster.
In 1914 (September) such water reached Barnes, eleven miles above London Bridge, in 1915
(October) and 1916 (August) it was found at Putney, but in 1917 (June) only as high as Battersea ;
the heavy rains of July-August of the last year account for salt water not having reachcd beyond
this point. The fact of an excess of salt being found so high up the river in summers when the fresh
water flow was much above the average, raises the question as to occasional passage of polluting matter
from the outfalls through the county and as to the possibility of nuisance being caused. The fresh
water reaching the tideway from the upper river is by no means unpolluted. It has received the sewage,
more or less treated, of a population of from half to one million. Although inoffensive to the senses it
yields chemical evidence of pollution and is unfit for drinking. In the tideway itself it receives the
effluent from the sewage of several suburban districts in Middlesex and Surrey before it reaches the
county of London. A gradual deterioration is observed from Tcddington downwards. It has not
therefore been found possible to assign precise limits to the effects of the various sources of pollution,
although it is evident from the investigation that the region of maximum pollution oscillates, with the
tide, in the neighbourhood of the outfalls. The flow of the river having been high and the summers cold
in the years under consideration, it has not been found possible so far, during this investigation, to
ascertain the maximum effect on the upper part of the tideway of the upward passage of water from the