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of 15 deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis. This compares with 14
during the previous year.
I made some reference in my Report for last year to the problems
arising in the care of old people. These have continued, and a good
deal of attention has been paid to them. I am glad to say that it was
only necessary to seek compulsory powers for the removal of one old
Person to hospital.
Probably the most important legislation affecting our work to be
introduced in 1956 was the Food Hygiene Regulations, 1955. Part of
these Regulations came into effect in January, but the more important
ones did not take effect until July 1st. Some account of the Regulations
to given in the body of the Report. At the time of writing, I am glad
to be able to say that considerable progress has been made, and it is
most gratifying to be able to state that we have received considerable
co-operation from tradespeople in implementing the Regulations. It is
not to be expected that the effect of the Regulations will be to produce
a sudden and spectacular improvement in the short-term standards of
food hygiene, although I think it is right to say that this is already being
noticed. The main effect of the Regulations will undoubtedly be longterm,
and will be achieved as much by education and persuasion of
those traders whose standards are lower than desirable, as by legal action.
the should like at this stage to express my appreciation of the work which
the Public Health Inspectors have put in, in connection with these
Regulations, in producing the results which have already been achieved.
It is sometimes of interest and not without profit to stop a-while
and look back over the years that have gone by, and the fact that it is
just about a hundred years since Battersea first appointed a Medical
Officer of Health provides an appropriate opportunity of doing so.
It is interesting to look back therefore
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
to the first report submitted on the health of Battersea. It will be
remembered that the Metropolis Management Act of 1855 laid down
that every Vestry and District Board should appoint a Medical Officer
of Health and such number of persons to be Inspectors of Nuisances as
might be necessary. For the purposes of the Act, parishes were united
into Districts.
Dr. William Connor was responsible for Battersea's first Annual
Report in 1856 from which the following paragraphs are quoted:—
"The 320 deaths, from all causes, which have been registered in this
parish during the year may thus be enumerated—1 from small-pox,
7 from measles, 5 from scarlatina, 4 from whooping-cough, 13 from
diarrhoea and dysentery, 8 from fever, 6 from erysipelas, 41 from lung
diseases, excluding phthisis, 31 from phthisis, 56 from hydrocephalus,
atrophy scrofula and convulsions of children, 120 from all other diseases
not enumerated amongst the foregoing, and 24 from violence, privation
Premature birth."
"Of the total number of deaths amongst all classes (320) occurring
in this sub-district, 95 took place in the workhouse, where very many
of the Poor, either worn out by age or labouring under chronic diseases,
or those but seldom admitting of cure, are sent to die—the majority
coming from other sub-districts in the Union."