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135
impervious materials. During 1905 21 more streets, with a
total area of 33, 134 square yards, were dealt with in this
manner. On the completion of these streets, the Council
decided to suspend the use of impervious paving (tarred slag
macadam, which gives a smooth impervious surface, and has
the additional advantage of being cheaper than asphalt, being
the material used) for a period of twelve months, in order to
test its utility.
There is no doubt that the action of the Council has proved
of great service from the public health standpoint. In my
report for 1906, I drew attention to the fact that in North-West
Battersea—the part of the Borough in which most of this
paving material was employed—less fatal diarrhoea of infants
and a lower infantile mortality had occurred than had ever
previously been recorded in that district. This district of the
Borough had always enjoyed the unenviable notoriety of possessing
the highest infantile and general death-rates of the three
registration districts into which Battersea is divided. The fact
was the more significant, because the summer of 1906 was one
of the driest, hottest and most prolonged experienced in my
recollection, and it is well known that climatic conditions such
as these are highly favourable to a high incidence from summer
diarrhoea and to a high infant death-rate.
The climatic conditions prevailing during 1907, being the
very reverse of those in 1906, do not permit of the same
deductions being drawn as regards these conditions. I am still
convinced, however, that the paving of side streets in the more
crowded and insanitary districts of Battersea is a most salutary
measure, and one which I can confidently recommend to the
Council.