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

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St Olave 1893

Annual report on the sanitary condition of the District for the year 1893

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urged upon the Board the desirability of having their own
disinfecting apparatus. Many difficulties hindered the Board
from acting on my advice, and chiefly that of obtaining land
on which to erect the necessary machinery. This latter
difficulty has, however, been overcome, by making arrangements
with Guy's Hospital, mainly owing to the instrumentality
of Dr. Perry. Very shortly this District will have the
advantage of being able to disinfect all infected articles by
means of steam under high pressure, and this is undoubtedly
the only reliable method of disinfection. Of hardly secondary
importance to the disinfector is the Board's action whereby
they obtained a shelter in accordance with the provisions of
the Public Health (London) Act. Section 60, sub-sec. 4, of
this Act states that "the sanitary authority shall provide, free
of charge, temporary shelter or house accommodation, with
any necessary attendants, for the members of any family in
which any dangerous infectious disease has appeared, who
have been compelled to leave their dwellings, for the purpose
of enabling such dwellings to be disinfected by the sanitary
authority." When bringing: this section under the notice of
the Board, I pointed out the desirability of obtaining at the
same time house accommodation to which we could remove
the non-infected inmates from a house where cholera had
broken out. The Board, on this advice, have taken four
cottages on lease, and have completely furnished one as a
shelter, the others being ready in the event of cholera arising
in this District. We are consequently in a very much better
position to cope with any serious outbreak of infectious disease
than we have ever been before.