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7
I should like to say a word about some of the work we are
doing in this area. First, to deal with the question of teaching. We
have been fortunate in forming an arrangement with London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, whereby a number of lectures on
Public health administration is given, and thereafter, students of the
School, who are medical men and women studying for the University
of London Post Graduate Diploma in Health, come to our Departments
to study methods of public health administration in this country. During
the Spring and Summer terms, for one session per week, we receive about
twelve students from the School. Dealing as we do with both the
environmental and personal health services, we are able to give to the
students what we hope is a wide, all-embracing and at the same time
well balanced exposition of public health work in this country. Over
the past three years, some seventy students from many parts of the
World and Commonwealth have passed through our Departments. We
hope they will carry back with them to the many countries whence they
came, useful ideas of what we have been able to show them.
Turning to the problem of research, there are many questions in
Public health and preventive medicine which need investigation. One
of them is to decide whether three injections of a combined diphtheria/
whooping cough preventative is as effective in the prevention of
diphtheria and whooping cough as injections against the two diseases
given separately. The advantages of the " combined " method is that
the child has to have only three injections instead of five. Research
of this kind is an expensive and prolonged procedure, and unless special
staff and facilities are available, it is rarely that a reliable answer can
be provided. We are fortunate in being able to participate, in an investigation
of this kind, in conjunction with the staff of the Medical Research
Council. A special team of nursing and clerical staff is available to us;
the giving of the injections being the responsibility of the personal
health services. The investigation is helped considerably by the participation
of the Borough Health Department, since we are able to
utilise such services as transport for taking specimens quickly to the
laboratory, and the ready access of certain records is also very useful,
My senior medical colleagues and I supervise the work of the team
in the field, while at the same time, we work in close conjunction with
the medical staff of the Medical Research Council and the local general
practitioners,and we hope that in the course of a year or two we can
give an answer to this very important question.
I would not wish to end this introduction to my Report for 1954
without saying something about Mr. F. H. Chuter, recently Chief
Sanitary Inspector for Battersea, who retired in November. Mr. Chuter,
whose father, incidentally, was Food Inspector in Battersea for many
years, Joined the Battersea Health Department in 1926 as a Sanitary
Inspector. In 1935 he became Senior Sanitary Inspector, and was
designated Chief Sanitary Inspector in 1946. In 1948 were added the
duties of Principal Administrative Assistant. He had many years
of service with the Council, during which time he gave loyal and most
efficient service to the Health Department. His resignation, on the
ground of ill-health, was regretted by everybody. My own personal
dept to Mr, Chuter is a considerable one, for when I took up my
appointment he placed his knowledge of public health work in general,
and his knowledge of Battersea, in particular, at my disposal, and I was