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235
[1905
BUTCHERS' SHOPS AND SHOPS WHERE FOOD IS SOLD.
These include butchers' shops and fish shops, and other places where food
stuffs are sold or prepared for sale.
They were carefully inspected during the year, as may be seen from the
fact that 4,955 visits were made to them. As a result of these visits, 24 butchers
were found to be in possessson of food more or less unsound and were
therefore cautioned, but in only 1 instance was the meat affected with disease.
In this case, after the most careful inquiry it was proved that there was entire
absence of guilty knowledge on the part of the butcher, and therefore no
proceedings were instituted.
Workhouse.—It is satisfactory to find that on two occasions during the
year the Master of the Workhouse in Cornwallis Road, owing to the condition
of consignments of fish that had been delivered at that institution, availed
himself of Inspector Wilkinson's services to inspect them, with the result that
about J-cwt. was condemned as unfit for human food, and was destroyed.
Cowhouses.—At the end of the year there were only 9 cowhouses on the
register, which was a decrease of 1 on the return of the preceding year, and
these received 116 visits from the Inspector, who reports that they, as well as
the animals in them, have been found from time to time in a satisfactory
condition. They were also inspected by the Medical Officer of Health and by
the Chief Inspector.
At one time the Medical Officer of Health considered it a matter for very
great regret that cows should be kept in cowhouses in London, but since then
he has had very strong reason for changing his opinion, because of the state in
which large numbers of the cowsheds and cows are kept in throughout the
country.
In 1896 it became his duty to visit a number of farms in Derbyshire
and Staffordshire in order to trace the origin of an outbreak of scarlet fever
in Islington, when, as he reported at the time, he found that both the cowsheds
and cattle were in many places in a most filthy and, indeed, horrible condition.
Since then many other persons, particularly Professor Long, have given
detailed account of the dirty conditions amidst which a large proportion
of our milk supply is obtained.