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97
The presence of dirt or vermin may be taken to connote carelessness,
and carelessness in the family of a consumptive means
increased risk of exposure for the rest of the family.
The Houses.—Fifteen houses in which cases occurred were
being used for the purpose of sale or manufacture of food as
follows:—Restaurants, 2; food preparation, 4; milkshops, 4;
and 5 public houses.
Notifications of phthisis had been previously received from 152
houses, or from 35 per cent. of the whole number of houses
affected. From one such house 5 previous notifications had been
received; from each of 18 houses, 3 prior cases had already been
notified. Deaths from phthisis had occurred in 69 houses, or in
16 per cent of the houses concerned. It is possible that in both
these groups the subsequent cases may have been due to family
infection or to house infection. The demand for cheap tenement
accommodation is often so urgent in the Borough that very soon
after a tenement is empty, it is sought by a prospective tenant
and occupied before the rooms have been disinfected or scoured
out. Disinfection is offered in all cases, and a special soap provided
free of cost by the public health department. There is,
however, no power to enforce compulsory cleansing or disinfection.
Whenever a case is visited the whole house is made the subject
of a critical sanitary inspection. As a result in 1912, the following
defects were ascertained and notices were served for them:—
Dirty walls, ceilings, staircases and passages, 45; damp and
verminous rooms, 4; overcrowded rooms, 3; basement kitchens
illegally occupied, 2; dilapidated rooms, 4; dirty yards, washhouses
and areas, 28; dilapidated yards and wash-houses, 7;
leaking roofs, 10; unventilated basements, 1; dirty, leaking or
defective water closets, 39; dilapidated water closets, 3; insufficient
water closet accommodation, 2; improper and offensive
accumulations of refuse, 4; choked or untrapped sink wastes, 5;
fowls improperly kept, 1; dilapidated or insufficient dust-bins, 8;
foul or leaking water cisterns, 3; broken guttering, 3; no water
supply to the upper storeys in 6 houses.