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77
" The days of your Adviser as Medical Officer of Health are numbered,
for the time must soon arrive when he must seriously think of handing over his
most anxious and responsible duties to a younger and more vigorous man, who,
when the day comes, will be able to start with a Borough well equipped to.
secure good results in fighting the battle of the infants and young children under
one.
Dr. Harris had indeed fought a stout fight in a good cause.
Dr. Harris was succeeded in 1921 by Dr. G. Clark Trotter, who fortunately,
is still living following his retirement in 1941.
In 1920, five additional Health Visitors were appointed, making seven in all,
and these were increased to eight in 1921. Mr. J. R. Leggatt, the Chief Sanitary
Inspector, died in this year, after 31 years' service with the Council and Vestry, and
was eventually succeeded by Mr. G. J. Bridel, who retired in 1941 and is happily
still alive.
As the Census of 1921 showed, the Borough was continuing to change in
character—it was become more and more a factory and workshop area, and small
workshops were being established in the mass of congested housing, so that complaints
became inevitable. The population was still over 330,000, giving an overall
density of over 107 persons per acre. Islington was now well and truly a Borough
with multiple occupation of the majority of its houses. Of the 36 thousand odd
structurally separate houses, 73 per cent were occupied by two or more familes, and
over 14,000 of the houses were occupied by three or more families.
By 1927 the Borough Council were contributing nearly £5,000 to the Voluntary
Welfare Centres and there were three Day Nurseries—the Lower Holloway, St.
Luke's and South Islington—which received a total grant of £220 from the Council.
The special problems of foster-children were also receiving attention, and one of
the Council's Health Visitors, Miss Gweneth Sarah Lewis, was given a special
responsibility as to infant protection visiting, to deal with mothers who were anxious
to obtain homes for their babies and with foster-mothers, and to superintend homes
where children were being fostered. She was thus the precursor of the Children's
Care Officer and Visitor.
Developments in the late 1930s proceeded more rapidly. The Overcrowding
Survey which had to be carried out in 1936 showed that out of a total of over
89,000 separately occupied dwellings, nearly 19,000 were overcrowded according to
the standard of the Housing Act, 1935.
The appointment of an Assistant Medical Officer (the present Medical Officer
of Health), enabled a beginning to be made with large-scale diphtheria immunisation;
diphtheria was still a dangerous disease with a considerable number of cases and
deaths every year. The response to the immunisation facilities offered by the Council
to the people of Islington was almost immediate and in 1937, the first full year, 300
children were immunised, and in 1938, over a thousand.
The Municipal " Home-help " scheme was also approved, the principal duties
being to do domestic work in the home about the time of a confinement. 1937 also
saw the completion and opening of the first Municipal Day Nursery built for the
purpose (the Voluntary Day Nurseries having been sited in adapted houses) ; and
the establishment of the most valuable service for many years—an " Obstetric Flying
Squad." This was an emergency maternity unit established in conjunction with
University College Hospital, which sent out a Specialist Obstetrician and nurses
equipped for dealing with obstetric emergencies in the home where it was not
possible or practicable for the mother to be taken immediately to hospital. The cost
of any calls made to the Unit by the doctor or midwife was borne by the Borough, and