London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

Poplar 1893

[Report on the sanitary condition of the parishes of Poplar and Bromley within the Poplar District with vital statistics]

This page requires JavaScript

73
should retain the services of a Medical Practitioner for each district,
to attend the cases, prescribe and dispense medicines. I have
written to, and received replies from, Medical Practitioners in the
districts who would be willing, in the event of a visitation of Cholera,
to give their services at a weekly fee. I have also written to, and
received replies from chemists who would be willing to dispense
medicines, and on the recommendation of the appointed Medical
Officer serve out ice, brandy, port wine, beef tea, &c. The chemists
should deliver also on any medical order, disinfectants for swabbing
the floors, soaking soiled wearing apparel, &c., and disinfecting the
discharges before they are emptied into the sewer.
"The disinfectant I propose to use is the one recommended by
the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board: it is cheap and
effectual.
"In answer to my enquiries Mr. Lough, Clerk to the Poplar
Guardians, writes that the Guardians regret they are quite unable
to place a ward at the Board's disposal, and that the Dispensary is
not large enough for their own requirements, and therefore could not
be available as a central drug store. I trust, nevertheless, should
there be a cholera epidemic, that two more dispensaries would be
formed by giving assistance to the dispensers at the Poplar Union
and the Stepney Sick Asylum.
"Should there be the least sign of a visitation large bills should
be freely and conspicuously posted, informing the public of the
precautions necessary to be taken, and handbills should be delivered
at every house. Each district should be posted with bills informing
the inhabitants of the name and address of the medical practitioner
and chemist where attendance and medicine could be procured free
if any person had the least sign of diarrhoea.
"I feel confident that there would be neither lack of nurses nor
difficulty in obtaining them, for they would be only too eager to
undertake the nursing of cholera cases, and I would recommend,
G