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108
SANITATION AND HOUSING.
During the past 25 or 30 years, the duties of the
Public Health Department have so increased by
newer branches such as Tuberculosis and Maternity
and Child Welfare that the original basis of the
service—house sanitation—is sometimes in danger of
being overlooked. No one can gainsay the necessity
and importance of the work that is now carried on
for the welfare of the young or of the complex
organisation we now possess for the control of Tuberculosis
and other dangerous diseases, but during all
this development, the sanitary supervision of the home,
school and workplace has still retained its vital place
in our defence against insanitary conditions and the
ill health that results therefrom. This branch of the
work is even more important than formerly in a
district like Bethnal Green, where the housing is so
ill planned, old and congested, and where poverty
always tends to overcrowding. Advice at the Welfare
Centre and the Tuberculosis Dispensary about the
advantages of fresh air, sunlight, cleanliness, the
hygienic storage of food and proper sleep is rendered
somewhat futile if these conditions are in fact unobtainable
owing to the housing in which families are
compelled to live in the Borough.
Strenuous efforts to secure a decent environment
have been made by the local authority and a
succession of devoted sanitary inspectors, and undoubtedly
great improvements have been effected.
To understand the true situation, however, one must
remember the character of the bulk of the houses with
which the sanitary inspectors have still to deal.
Town planning, which is now taken for granted as a
necessity when districts are being "developed" not
only did not exist while Bethnal Green was being
built over, but the most elementary principle of
spacing houses so as to allow free light and air was
completely ignored. Modern building byelaws and