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198
[1906
late Vestry and the present Council themselves at an average cost of about
£460 per annum, or £84 more than they paid to the Contractor, while at the
same time the work done has been at least tenfold more than formerly ; in
other words, if to-day the Council had to pay a contractor for the disinfection
of their bedding, clothing, etc., it would cost them nearly £4,000 per annum
instead of £462. This is an enormous saving, and fully establishes the utility
and desirability of a Sanitary Authority possessing their own disinfecting
apparatus.
At one time too, it was the custom of the Public Health Department to
distribute disinfectants to any person who applied for them at the Town Hall,
and at last the abuse became so great that it was decided on the advice of your
Medical Officer of Health not to give them away, with the result that whereas
formerly fully £1,300 per annum were spent in this way, the sum has now
fallen to between £50 and £60, and without detriment to the welfare of the
Borough. The fact is that disinfectants as used by the public never, or rarely
ever, accomplish any good, for generally speaking they are used unscientifically
and only as a means of cloaking one smell with another, and this accomplished,
they are satisfied, forgetting altogether that the only true remedy is to discover
the cause of the nuisances and to abate them by the application of the
necessary measures.
Disinfection of Rooms.—During 1906, 2,685 separate rooms were disinfected
after the occurrence of an infectious disease, as compared with 2,393
in 1905 and 2,195 in 1904. The disinfectant, as in the preceding two years,
employed for this purpose, was formaldehyde, which was used according to the
circumstances of the case either in the form of a spray or of a gas. It has
proved most useful, economical and reliable, and the results have consequently
been most satisfactory.
Cleansing and Stripping of Rooms —535 rooms were cleansed and
stripped after the occurrence of an infectious disease, as compared with 552 in
1905; and 392 in 1904. The practice has again been pursued to require the
stripping only in cases where the infected patient has been for a considerable
time in the room, or where the paper has been much broken and very dirty, or
when the walls were covered with several papers. In doing this, however,
great care has to be exhibited that no damage is done to the walls, the
plastering of which is often only held together by the papers that are superimposed.
Since the use in Islington of formaldehyde as a disinfectant, the stripping
of walls has not been so largely practised. Indeed in 1900, 1,233 rooms were
o