View report page

183
[1905
To the Chairman and Members of the Public Health Committee.
Gentlemen,
PROVISION OF ACCOMMODATION FOR DISINFECTING VERMINOUS PERSONS
AND CLOTHING,
and
PROVISION OF ACCOMMODATION FOR DISINFECTING NURSES AFTER
ATTENDANCE ON PUERPERAL FEVER CASES.
You will be aware that the Council possess a Disinfecting station and Shelter House,
which have an entrance from Seven Sisters Road and are situate immediately behind the
Hornsey Road Baths. These places were erected in order to meet the needs of the district
and to comply with the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891.
The Shelter House has been used on ordinary occasions only sparsely, but when an outbreak
of Small Pox arises, or when there is a large amount of Scarlet Fever, or of any
disease of such a serious nature that the walls of the premises require to be stripped, it is
used to its utmost capacity.
This was particularly so during the Small Pox outbreak, when the four suites of rooms
were hardly ever unoccupied.
You are aware that in 1897 the legislature passed the Cleansing of Persons Act, which
practically consists of one section and which provides that on and after the passing of the
Act the Local Authority shall have the power to permit any person who shall apply to them,
on the ground that he is infected with vermin, to have the use, free of charge, of the
apparatus which the Authority possess for cleansing his person and his clothing from vermin.
When this Act was passed, an arrangement was made to cleanse the person and clothing
of any person who applied at the Disinfecting Station and Shelter House.
The London County Council General Powers Act, 1904, has carried the law, so far as
it relates to London, with respect to vermin a stage farther, for under part 4, section 19, of
that Act, the Sanitary Authority are empowered to disinfect any articles in a house in their
district which are in a filthy, dangerous or unwholesome condition, by reason of which
health is affected or endangered, or where the cleansing or purifying or destroying of such
articles is requisite to prevent or to check infectious disease. In section 20 the Sanitary
Authority is required, where it is found that any house or part thereof is infested with
vermin, to give notice to the owner or occupier of such house, requiring him to remove the
wallpaper ana to take such steps for the purpose of destroying or removing vermin as the
case may require.
Now it seems to me, judging by my experience since the Act was passed, that there will
be in all probability a great deal of work to be done under this Act, and that the Council
will be called on to disinfect a large quantity of dangerous or unwholesome articles, such
as bedding, clothing, etc., and also to cause the cleansing and purification of a large number
of premises. It will be at once apparent that in order to carry out this work, provision
should be made for the accommodation of persons coming from verminous houses or who are
themselves verminous, while the cleansing of their houses is taking place or they themselves
are being cleansed.