London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Bethnal Green 1946
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green Borough]
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34
SANITARY CONDITIONS.
It might be said that the number of complaints
received is a reliable index to sanitary standards,
both as they exist in the minds of citizens and in
actual fact. On this assumption it is interesting to
mention that following a steady decline during the
war years, when more serious dangers occupied
attention, and reaching the lowest level in 1941,
complaints have since fluctuated until in 1945 they
reached pre-war level and in 1946 exceeded it. Taking
into account the extensive war damage, the
arrears and difficulties of ordinary maintenance for
seven years, and the age and sub-standard quality of
most of the pre-war housing in the borough, it is not
surprising that sanitary conditions to-day should be
extremely unsatisfactory and the task of the sanitary
inspecting staff particularly onerous.
The main items in the work of the sanitary inspectors, apart from food, which is separately reported, during the year were:
| Visits to houses arising from : Infectious disease | 711 |
| Complaints as to sanitary conditions | 5,146 |
| Inspections of: | |
| Factories | 1,310 |
| Outworkers' houses | 79 |
| Tenement houses | 52 |
| Drainage work | 5,708 |
| Enquiries with regard to Housing | 1,003 |
| Other inspections | 5,814 |
| Re-inspections | 15,486 |