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203
[1903
DISTRICT INSPECTION.
For the purpose of the ordinary inspection of the borough, it is divided
into fourteen sanitary districts, to each of which an inspector is assigned. It
is his duty to inquire into all complaints relating to nuisances occurring in the
houses, other than those placed on the register of houses let in lodgings, to
detect smoke nuisances, to prevent nuisances through the accumulation of manure,
to superintend places where ice-creams are made, to visit dairies and milkshops,
to superintentend drainage work, the result of notices that have been served
(including the drainage work required by the workshop inspectors), to make
preliminary inquiries respecting houses for which application has been made
under the Customs and Inland Revenue Acts, to inspect new houses with
respect to their water supply, with a view to the grant of certificates by the
Council, and finally to make inquiries respecting infectious diseases, which not
only includes the diseases compulsorily notifiable under the Public Health
(London) Act, but also those diseases respecting which information is received
from the teachers of the public elementary schools. This last class of work is
at times exceedingly heavy, and must be attended to before everything else, as
it is incumbent on them to obtain information to satisfy the requirements of
sec.55 (4) of the Act last mentioned, which are as follows: " Where a Medical
Officer of Health receives a certificate under this section relating to a patient within
the Metropolitan Asylum District, he shall, within 12 hours after such receipt, send a
copy thereof to the Metropolitan Asylum Managers, and to the head teacher of the
school attended by the patient (if a child), or by any child who is an inmate of the
same house as the patient." Very few persons have a true idea of the amount of
work which this entails on the membersof the staff. In the first place the patient's
home is visited, and if it Be a tenement house the other homes in it are also
visited; and as it frequently happens that the parents are out and the rooms shut
up, it becomes necessary to revisit them, sometimes twice and thrice, to obtain the
required information. Then comes the arrangement for the removal of the patient
to hospital, for the disinfection of the premises, and the removal of clothing for
disinfection at the Council's Disinfection Station ; all of which must be done
at once, Consequently when disease is rife, the work of the district inspectors
is very heavy, especially as at such times sanitary work is much increased
owing to the thorough examination that is made of each premises in which the
outbreak has occurred.
Inspections and Visits.—In 1903, 5,156 houses were inspected as the
result of complaints or of infectious diseases having broken out in them, in
addition to which 1,999 houses were inspected in the course of a house-to-house
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