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91
No amending Bill has been introduced, but some of the Conference resolutions formed the
subject of a report by the Public Health Committee of the County Council referred to in the
following section.
PHYSICAL DETERIORATION.
The London County Council referred to the Public Health Committee, for consideration,
certain recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, which
are set out in the report of the General Purposes Committee presented in December, 1904. The
Committee, having "given careful consideration to these recommendations in their relation to
public health," submitted observations thereon in a report, dated 17th May, 1906, which the County
Council received on 22nd May, and directed to be forwarded, for information, to the Metropolitan
City and Borough Councils. The Council referred the said report to the Public Health Committee,
at whose request I submitted a resume thereof, and observations with regard to the "recommendations"
of more immediate interest. In what follows the words "The Committee" connote the
"Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration."
Register of Sickness. Recommendation (2).—The Committee report that it was "in the
highest degree desirable that a register of sickness, not confined to infectious diseases,
should be established and maintained" —official returns of poor-law medical officers, and of
the records of sickness kept by hospitals and other charitable institutions, being utilised for
the purpose. Reference is made to the efforts of individuals, during the last sixty years, to
obtain collective information with respect to diseases in general, that is now supplied to
local authorities with regard to notifiable infectious diseases. In 1857 the Metropolitan
Association of Medical Officers of Health attempted to construct a scheme of the kind upon
a practical basis; the returns relating to both outdoor and indoor cases treated by the
poor-law medical officers. The circulation of the tables was undertaken by the Board of
Health, but the returns were not continued for much more than a year, the scheme falling
through owing to the withdrawal of the pecuniary support by the Government which made
the publication of the tables possible.
(3) Advisory Council.—The Committee recommend the creation of an Advisory Council,
which would be "of great assistance, especially to the Local Government Board, and would
supply the knowledge and stimulus which are necessary to give the public health side of the
Board's administration due prominence and to attract to its work that measure
of public interest and support" hitherto lacking. The Advisory Council would be formed
on the lines of the French Consultative Committee of Public Hygiene, which is said to be
in a large degree reminiscent of the General Board of Health constituted under the act of
1848, which proved a failure, ascribed, in the main, to want of direct touch with Parliament.
(3) & (4) Overcrowding.—The Committee believe "the time has come for dealing drastically
with this problem," by "experimental effort, by the local authority, in certain of the
worst districts, in the direction of fixing a standard, and notifying that, after a given date,
no crowding in excess of that standard would be permitted." In this connection the Public
Health Committee deal with the question of by-laws for houses let in lodgings, urging the
need of remodelling and enforcing by-laws, to which "the only real objectors are (said to
be) the owners of insanitary properties." Reference is made to difficulties, "notably as to
exemption clauses," and as to the definition of the word "landlord," and as to requiring
notice to be given to owners under particular circumstances, etc. The by-laws in certain
boroughs "are practicallv inoperative owing to laxity in compelling registration" of lodging
houses, and the Public Health Committee are "considering whether action cannot be taken
. . . . to secure the attainment of the objects for which the making of by-laws is imposed
on metropolitan borough councils."
(5) Labour Colonies and Public Nurseries.—The Committee recommend, as a last resource
for dealing with habitual vagrants, compulsory detention in labour colonies; the children
being lodged in public nurseries. With regard to these latter, the recommendation, the
Public Health Committee say, needs to be considered in connection with recommendation
(44) which is as follows:—
(44) Creches.— "Whenever it was thought desirable, owing to the employment of married
women in factories, or for other reasons, to establish municipal creches, girls over 14 might
be made to attend occasionally, and the teaching of infant management to such girls should
be eligible for aid from the grant for public education"; a view, which was commented on,
approvingly, in a report by the Public Control Committee of the County Council*.
Reference is made by the Public Health Committee to the resolution, which I had moved,
at the Conference of representative of sanitary authorities, held at the County Hall, on 18th July,
1904, requesting the County Council to insert in their General Powers Bill for the Session, 1905, of
a clause to empower metropolitan borough councils—
•See my Annual Report for 1905, page 63.