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London, in those instances where we cannot get the permission
of the owners to run special shafts up the walls of
their houses, and one which will minimize the nuisance so
frequently complained of from the sewer ventilators in the
roadway. The shafts are not usually ornamental to buildings,
although they have the advantage of being in active use during
storms, when need of the ventilation of the sewer is at its
height, and when the rainwater pipes are in full use.
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Gentlemen, —We have jointly considered the question as to the
disconnection of rain water pipes in the course of systematic inspections.
We think that where the top of these rain water pipes is situated at a safe
distance from all the neighbouring windows the disconnection should not
be carried out, but that they should remain to act as ventilating pipes.
Their existence in this connected condition must not be held to obviate
the necessity for providing other means of ventilating the sewer or
drains, our object being that they should supplement these and not do
away with them. A " safe distance " from windows we should consider to
be, that they should conform with the provisions relating to the position
of soil ventilating pipes laid down in the By-laws made by the London
County Council in 1893.
We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
FRANCIS STEVENS, Medical Officer of Health.
WILLIAM OXTOBY, Borough Engineer.
On one occasion during the year the question of
proceedings being taken under the Public Health Act, 1891,
against parents who had failed to give the names of
all the schools attended by the inmates of the house was
considered, but in the opinion of the Committee the evidence
was not sufficiently strong to justify any legal proceedings
being taken, and there does not appear to be any
penalty under the Act for failing to give such information or
for not giving it accurately.
On January 22nd I reported to the Council as follows :—
" A secondary case of smallpox occurred where a patient
had been taken away 14 days previously. It was that of a
woman who was the only one in the house not to follow my
advice as regards re-vaccination, her reason being the usual
one—she was not afraid of attack. The lack of fear, however,
does not appear to have an equal value to re-vaccination.
" The results have been in this Borough, as in all others,
so strongly in favour of vaccination as a protection against
infection by smallpox, that I think the Council is incurring a