London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Paddington 1945

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, Metropolitan Borough of]

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bakehouses .—At the end of the year there were 15 level and 25 basement bakehouses on the Register. Inspections
numbered 280.
shops acts.—Inspections totalled 661. All matters requiring attention were remedied without recourse to legal
proceedings.
pharmacy and poisons act, 1933.—There were 82 entries in the Register at the close of the year. Inspections
numbered 359, and no case was discovered where the provisions of the Act were not being observed.
work of the district inspectors. —At the beginning of the year five Inspectors were engaged on district work,
but this number was augmented midway through the year by the return of three Inspectors who had been seconded to
Civil Defence work.
The number of complaints dealt with numbered 2,964—an increase of 1,152 over the number for the previous
year. Inspections totalled 17,885 and in thirty-five instances legal proceedings were instituted for offences under the
Public Health (London) Act, 1936 or for contraventions of the Bye-laws.
In addition to their ordinary visits, the District Inspectors visit contacts of typhus or smallpox cases, and also
carry out duties under the Factories Act. Visits to contacts of these diseases numbered 169, and the figures for factory
visits are recorded elsewhere in this report.
During the year the District Inspectors made a survey of vacant properties in the Borough for re-housing purposes.

work of the women sanitary inspectors.—The two Women Sanitary Inspectors visit cases of infectious disease other than typhus, smallpox, puerperal fever and pyrexia, infective enteritis, summer diarrhoea and tuberculosis, and one of them also acts in a supervisory capacity at the medicinal baths. The following table gives an indication of the nature of their work.

Disease.No. of Visits.
Acute Rheumatism7
Cerebro Spinal Fever1
Chickenpox229
Diphtheria95
Dysentery67
Erysipilas22
Lice626
Measles563
Pneumonia66
Scabies1,702
Scarlet Fever191
Typhoid and Paratyphoid Fever8
Whooping Cough43
Visits to Schools97
Miscellaneous969

In addition 309 visits were paid to aged and infirm persons under Section 224 of the Public Health (London) Act.
common lodging houses.—There is now only one common lodging house in the Borough—Cecil House, 179,
Harrow Road, which is licenced to take a maximum number of sixty-nine women or children, and there are few
nights when the accommodation is not filled to capacity. Periodical inspections are made by one of the Women
Sanitary Inspectors, and these numbered 71 during 1945.
canal boats.—Mr. V. L. Ronchetti, the Canal Boats Inspector, was seconded to Shelter Supercision and other
Civil Defence duties until June, 1945 and was not, therefore, until then able to carry out routine inspections, but from
the visits that he was able to make, it was apparent that there was a decrease in the canal boat population, most of
the families having gone ashore.
During the year the Inspector paid 79 visits to the Paddington Basin, and made 24 inspections of Canal Boats.
A number of minor defects were found and were remedied without service of notices. On no occasion was admission
to a boat refused.
No deaths or cases of infectious disease were reported among the canal boat population, and only one child of
school age and two children under five were found living on the boats coming into the Basin.
Before the war the Basin was emptied and cleaned every year during the Easter Holiday period, but during the
war only dredging has been done.