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138
The above details are in addition to the usual sanitary requirements
as, for example, the provision of sufficient water closet
accommodation, and of facilities for the disposal of household
refuse.
Certificates are not issued in respect of buildings containing
one-roomed tenements.
Verminous Houses.—When school children are found to be
verminous in school by the London County Council medical
officers in the course of their official inspections, the names and
addresses of such children are sent to the Public Health Department.
Their homes are then visited by the sanitary inspectors, and
notices for cleansing are served on the occupiers where the premises
are dirty or verminous. The parents are offered steam disinfection
for the verminous bedding and clothing, and sulphur fumigation
for the rooms.
The number of verminous children notified in 1911 was 536.
The number of homes found clean on the first visit was 304, or 56
per cent. This confirms the view tiiat, while the presence of head
lice or body lice discovered in school children may suggest the
presence of bugs in the home, the association is not a close one.
Of the rest, 183 tenements were dirty or verminous. Seventy of
the addresses were inaccurate and in 49 instances the correct
addresses could not be obtained. In 39 cases the tenements were
disinfected by the Borough Council.
Of the 183 dirty or verminous homes, the walls and bedding of
135 were verminous, and of 48 dirty but not verminous. In 60
instances the bugs had invaded the wall picture frames. The
number of registered houses affected was 64 as against 119
unregistered houses.
It is not unreasonable to infer that this smaller incidence on
registered houses is to be attributed to the regular annual cleansing
and closer supervision which obtains in them.
Underground Rooms.—In seventeen instances underground
rooms were found to be separately occupied in contravention of the
provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, Section 96.