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There were considerable changes made in the Maternity and Child
Welfare work during the year. The Town Hall Centre was removed
to Grange Road, with great benefit to the mothers and the workers,
and the Committee decided to adopt a new scheme, which,
however, did not become effective until 1925. Particulars of
this will be found in Dr. Thynne's report on page 46.
When we entered on the year 1924, the taking of samples under
the Food and Drugs Acts was carried out by the eight District
Inspectors, but this was not found to be very satisfactory and the
Council decided to appoint one Inspector to do the work. The
results of the change were very satisfactory as the proper administration
of the Food and Drugs Acts requires special qualities that
every Inspector does not possess.
The following is a report which was submitted in May :—
" In the following table you will find information for the year
1923 concerning the work done by the eight District Sanitary
Inspectors under the new arrangements by which they were given
the administration of the Food and Drugs Acts and Section 47 of
the Public Health Act, 1891, in addition to their other duties. For the
sake of comparison I have put the figures for 1922 underneath, as
this is the last year in which the duties were done separately by the
District Sanitary Inspectors and the Food Inspectors, and it is
evident that on the whole there is a considerable reduction in the
figures for 1923, which is mainly due to the alteration of duties.
It is difficult to draw conclusions from this table as to whether
the Acts are at present more efficiently administered, as figures
without other knowledge are not altogether to be relied on.
“ Dealing first with the general inspections, the figures under
' house-to-house,' which to my mind are very important, have not
suffered, but in Columns 2 and 10 there is a very large decrease,
while in those dealing with food the decreases are considerable
and are probably due to the large amount of time spent in taking
samples. As far, therefore, as the figures help, one must conclude