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212
The Baths Section of the Town Clerk's Department and the
Building Maintenance Section of the Borough Engineer and Planning
Officer's Department readily responded to requests for
Services, mainly in connection with carpet drying.
Damage to foodstuffs was, fortunately, minimal and shopkeepers
and wholesalers were assisted as necessary. The riverside wharves
and sheds were unaffected and the Metropolitan Water Board's
supplies remained wholesome.
The following is a summary of the work carried out by the
department in connection with the flooding:—
Requests for assistance 326
Carpets collected, dried and returned 257
Dwellings pumped free of flood water 34
Structures dried out 104
ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION
At the risk of being repetitive I would repeat the comments
given last year if only for the fact that the current year has seen
an increase in the public's interest in all kinds of pollution.
It would seem that man has learned to add years but relatively
little quality to life and that pollution of all descriptions is a
concomitant of him and his advancement. As years add wisdom,
man at very great expense, seeks to redress the wrongs perpetrated
against nature by previous generations, of which air pollution is
a typical example.
Means are now being sought to reduce or eliminate the concentrations
of oxides of sulphur, nitrogen and carbon and to identify
and evaluate the photochemical reactions of partially burnt endproducts
from automobile exhausts. Greater publicity is being given
to the effects of such chemicals upon sensitive mucous membranes,
their likely effects upon water supplies and, indeed, upon all
environment generally.
Although epidemiological investigations in London have shown
a positive association between the state of health of chronic
bronchitics and the level of air pollution, especially in such occupations
as postman and bus driver, the delayed effects of this pollution
are difficult to evaluate. This is probably because cigarette smoking
has a predominant connection with lung cancer and chronic
bronchitis. Indeed, the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution
Research Unit has, so far, been unable to isolate the components
of polluted air which are responsible for the harmful effects on
man. In concentrations of 2 p.p.m. or less, sulphur dioxide would
appear to have no effects upon healthy adults and, similarly,