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105
TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE, HACKNEY
BOROUGH COUNCIL.
Gentlemen,—
I have the honour to present to you my Annual Report for the year
ending 31st December, 1903.
Workshops.—During the year I paid 135 first visits to workshops
and 1,440 visits of re-inspection. Of these, 15 visits were prompted
by complaints to the Medical Officer of Health from H.M. Factory
Inspectors and other persons.
In accordance with Section 133 of the Factory and "Workshops
Act, 1901, 42 workshops were notified to H.M. Factory Inspectors
for the district, as well as seven Domestic Workshops.
I found nuisances existing on 312 premises; 240 of these nuisances
I dealt with myself, and can report the abatement of 178. The remaining
72 were handed over by the Medical Officer of Health to the
District Sanitary Inspectors to be dealt with by them. I have
served 160 Intimations of Nuisances, 24 Final Notices, 8 Statutory
Notices, and applied for 3 Summonses.
In the course of the abatement of the nuisances I dealt with, 128
workrooms were cleansed; ventilation was improved in 36 workrooms;
and overcrowding done away with in 17. While general
nuisances relating to defective conditions of w.c.'s, yards, guttering,
rainwater pipes, floors, roofs and dust bins were abated in 84 cases.
Ventilation I find a most difficult matter to cope with. The
benefits of fresh air are not understood, and therefore not valued by
the majority of the workers with whom I come in contact. A large
number of the workshop occupiers in this district are small
employers of labour who carry on their business in the rooms of an
ordinary dwelling house. As a rule the only means of ventilation
found—the chimney flue and the windows—are useless as ventilators