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provide work for at least one inspector in this district. It is full time that such
examinations are made, for in my experience, and in that of every Medical Officer of
Health, who has had charge of even a moderate-sized district, much disease has been
spread by persons carrying on their trade in the midst of infection. I have known
tailors, dressmakers, bookmakers, fancy wool workers, and others, working at home
when serious infectious disease was present in their families; and only a few
days since, as you are aware, I discovered the mother of a patient suffering from
smallpox, making quilted cloaks for infants, while sitting in the room with him.
Finally, the new By-laws—now under the consideration of the Local Government
Board—when sanctioned, will cause additional work to be cast on the InspectorsHence
it is apparent that the increase of staff advocated by me is none too great for
the largely-increased work that has devolved on an already admittedly deficient
staff, and it is, as a fact, only the same in proportion to the number of the houses
as the staff in the large towns, although the number of persons dwelling in vour
houses is considerably greater. If I had made an estimate based on the relative
populations of these great towns and Islington, the number of Inspectors required
would be 22. I may add that generally in making calculations as to staff, account is
taken of population, for the greater the number the greater the dirt created, and the
more numerous the nuisances. Yet I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that it is
easier to keep watch over 400 people living in 50 houses, provided they have ample
accomodation, than over the same number living in 100 houses; and therefore I have
departed from a usual mode of reckoning the numerical staff of a Sanitary Authority,
viz., of allowing one Inspector for every 10,000 of the population, in which case
Islington would have required 32 Inspectors.
INSPECTORS' UNIFORM.
Then there is the question of clothing.
From the return already placed in your hands you will perceive that all the provincial
towns, without exception, provide uniforms for their Inspectors, while in
London fourteen Sanitary Authorities act similarly.
My experience of uniform is that it carries with it a certain amount of weight,
influence and respect, which is entirely absent when the Inspector wears his own
clothing. A man in uniform, especially with the lower classes, among whom so much
work is done, can accomplish more, and get his orders more quickly attended to, than
a man in mufti.
Again, it is a protection for the public against the possibility of impostors entering
houses, and, under pretence of inspection, committing robbery.
But above everything it is a protection against the Inspector conveying infectious
disease to his home and to the public, because when he has been brought in contact
with it, he can at any time get his uniform disinfected, meanwhile wearing his own
clothing.