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Bakehouses.—There are 96 bakehouses in the Borough, and of this number 75 are underground.
As the result of 607 inspections in the year 45 notices were served, the work required in
33 cases being the cleansing of walls and ceilings. In the month of May a request was received
from the occupier of an underground bakehouse for permission to open stall board windows, the
permanent closing of which had been included in the conditions under which the bakehouse had
been certified and permitted to continue. Some doubt having arisen as to whether there is any
legal obligation for the occupier of an underground bakehouse to continue to comply with the
conditions under which the Council's certificate had been granted, the Public Health Committee
defined their attitude in regard to stall board ventilation in the following resolution, which was
passed on July 11th, 1911:—That an underground bakehouse which is ventilated by openings
in the stall board at a height of less than 12 inches above the adjoining pavement or footway shall
for the purposes of s. 98 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, be deemed to be on sanitary
grounds unfit for use as a bakehouse;" and " b. That openings shall not be permitted in any part
of the stall board of an underground bakehouse unless the Medical Officer of Health is able to
certify that they are not so placed and constructed as to render the premises they ventilate unfit on
sanitary grounds for use as a bakehouse."
In the. case referred to the stall board windows were hinged at the top and opened inwards,
the lower border of the opening being less than 2 in. above the level of the footway. The bakehouse
is provided with ample ventilation from other sources, and the stall board window has now
been closed by the occupier under protest without it becoming necessary to institute legal
proceedings.
Slaughter Houses.—The ten slaughter houses in the Borough were again licensed in
October by the London County Council. They are kept in a cleanly state, and from a structural
point of view are not open to objection. Two houses are not used on more than two or three
occasions during the year. In the remaining eight houses sheep are killed from time to time, but
cattle are rarely slaughtered within the Borough. In the slaughter house in the Walmer Road,
according to the occupier, more than 400 pigs are killed during the year. The slaughter house
inspections for the year numbered 268.
Unsound Food.—The unsound food surrendered and destroyed during the year is shown in
the following list:—
March 6th.—1 cwt. dabs.
March 31st.—32 boxes of tomatoes.
April 23rd.—2 cwt. of herrings.
May 14th.—1 fore-quarter, head, pluck and kidneys of a sheep.
September 11th.—59 rabbits.
October 1st.—4 pigs' plucks affected with tuberculosis; 1 pig's pluck damaged by
blood aspiration.
October 8th.— 6 tomatoes.
October 17th.—1 cwt. of plaice.
The circumstances attending the surrender of the tuberculous pigs' plucks, which the inspector
found hanging up in a slaughter house, illustrate the difficulties which result from the failure of
local authorities to agree upon a common line of action in the condemnation of carcases affected
with tuberculosis. At the time of the inspector's visit there were 18 pigs carcases in the slaughter
house, and of this number four had been marked with an incision on the fore-leg to indicate to the
consignee in the market to which the pigs were to be sent that evidence of tuberculosis had been
found. The practice of the consignee is to submit all carcases marked in this way for inspection
by the market inspector. The statements of the slaughterer as to the existence of this practice
having been confirmed by the market authorities, he was permitted to send the four carcases, which
presented considerable tuberculous lesions in the submaxillary glands, to the market, where the
most careful examination failed to reveal signs of tuberculosis in any other part. The heads were
accordingly taken and the rest of the carcases permitted to be sold, although it was known that four
tuberculous mesenteries and plucks belonged to certain carcases among the 18 consigned which
may have been the same four that presented tuberculosis of the glands in the head. In these
circumstances a local slaughterer would rightly consider himself very hardly used if the adoption
of the recommendations of the Royal Commission in Kensington were to lead to the seizure of
pigs which he knows could be sold with the permission of another authority provided the heads
were surrendered.
In his Annual Report for 1911, the Medical Officer of Health for the City of London has
made the following statement in regard to this question:—
"At present each authority interprets the recommendations of the Royal Commission according
to its own ideas, the result being chaotic confusion. Science is never at a standstill, and the Royal
Commission's advice as to pigs is now 15 years old, and no longer in accordance with the views
held by the most advanced authorities in other countries.
"In no other country is the entire carcase of a pig destroyed on account of a speck of tubercle
in one particular gland. This, however, is the course recommended by the Commission. Certainly