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4
Medical Officer's Report.
"I may mention another alternative—namely, for the District to be
divided into three parts, Inspectors Bennett, Freeman, and the new one
having each a district, Inspector Billing having the duties as mentioned
above."
The Sanitary Committee preferred the latter alternative, and recommended
the division of the District as follows: —
Western Division.—West of the Gray's Inn Road and north of Holborn.
Central Division.—Between Gray's Inn Road and Leather Lane, and
Back Hill; also the part of the District south of Holborn.
Eastern Division.—The part east of Leather Lane and Back Hill.
Under "The Food and Drugs Act" each Inspector is to take the whole
District for a month alternately, and the Meat Inspector to continue his duties
as before.
Three-fourths of the population live in tenements; so that there are very
many houses in the District let in lodgings. I am glad to report that
25 additional houses have been registered and inspected monthly. The
Board adjourned the registration of the houses in the "Italian Colony" as
the owners had had the rooms measured and agreed to comply with our
regulations.
The improvement in the condition of the Meat Market continues, for the
amount of diseased meat "seized" was about one-half that of 1897, and less
than one-fourth that "seized" in the first quarter of 1896, just after the
appointment of the Meat Inspector.
The bacteriological examination of doubtful cases of diphtheria has been
continued by the Jenner (late British) Institute of Preventive Medicine, at
the expense of the Board. Of 104 such cases, the diphtheria bacillus was
isolated in 49 of them. The majority of the cases were patients at the
London Homoeopathic Hospital. This does not include the examination of
the doubtful cases that attend the Children's Hospital, which is carried out by
their own staff.
The Metropolitan Asylums Board was able to receive all the cases of
scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid that required to be removed to their
hospitals. Many of our cases of diphtheria were received at the Children's
and Homoeopathic Hospitals.
The treatment of diphtheria by antitoxic serum still continues to give
satisfactory results.
The various mortality rates continue to be higher than the corresponding
rates for London.