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23
Annual Report Medical Officer of the of Health—1896.
Bakehouses under the New (1895) Act.
The general provisions of the Act enforces 400 cubic feet of air space for each
workman engaged in a retail bakehouse. They also appear to allow the Local
Authorities to proceed against the owner, as well as the occupier, for certain offences
committed in any such bakehouse.
The special requirements of the Act, as regards retail bakehouses, are as follows :—
"Sect. 27.—(1) Sections 34 and 35 of the principal Act shall apply to every
bakehouse, and so much of those Sections as limits the operation thereof to cities,
towns, and places, having a population of more than five thousand persons shall be
repealed."
(2) In Section 15 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1883, the words " which was
not so let or occupied before the first day of June, 1883," shall be repealed.
(3) "A place under ground shall not be used as a bakehouse, unless it is so used at
the commencement of this Act, and if any place is so used in contravention of this Act
it shall be deemed to be a workshop not kept in conformity with the principal Act."
The gist of Sections 34 and 35 of the 1878 Act, and Sections 15 and 16 of the
1883 Act, referred to in the above quotation, may be found under " Regulations for
Bakehouses " in the Appendix.
It will be seen, after 30 years of tentative legislation, Government has recognised
the fact that the underground bakehouses should cease to exist. The prohibition of
any underground work-place used afresh as a bakery after the 1st January, 1896, may
be reasonably regarded as a first step towards their entire removal.
The Notification of Infectious Diseases.
Certain infectious diseases have been made notifiable in London since the passing
of the Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act, 1889. They comprise:—small-pox,
cholera, diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, the disease known as scarlatina, or
scarlet fever, and the fevers known by any of the following names:— typhus, typhoid,
enteric, relapsing, continued or puerperal.
In 1896, the sum in fees paid to medical practitioners for notifying 683 infectious
cases in St. George's amounted to £73 16s. 6d.
This amount, paid in the first instance by your Vestry, is recouped by the
Asylums Board, and charged to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. 43 per cent,
of the total number of cases notified in the parish during 1896 were removed to the
Asylums Board and other hospitals. During 1892, 67 per cent., in 1893, 34 per cent.,
in 1894, 44 per cent., and in 1895. 46 per cent. of such cases were treated in these
institutions.
The decrease of admissions during 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1896, was due to the
overcrowded state of the hospitals. My experience of the past year shows that there
is urgent need for further hospital accommodation for infectious diseases.
It is important to bear in mind that prompt isolation alone can obviate the danger
resulting from the detention of infectious patients in so poor and densely packed a
district as St. George's.
Room Disinfection.
At the close of the year a good deal of attention was directed by your Vestry to
the subject of room disinfection. A sub-committee of the Health Committee was
appointed " to make a thorough investigation of the methods employed by the Sanitary