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52
Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark
In making systematic inspections, as in much of his other action, the Medical
Officer of Health will usually have required the assistance of the Inspector of Nuisances ;
and it will he for the Medical Officer to include in his report an account of the action
which, at his instance, the inspector may have taken for the removal of nuisances
injurious to health.
The tabular statements of sickness and mortality in the district during the year,
to be made on the forms supplied for the purpose, should be the subject of comment in
the text of the report, in so far as deductions from them may assist the Sanitary
Authority to an appreciation of the lines of action needful in the future.
As regards these statements of sickness and mortality only one other observation
appears to be needful—the district under the superintendence of a Medical Officer of
Health will often contain several parts evidently differing in their circumstances, or
having very different rates of mortality, either from all causes, or of mortality from
some particular disease or class of diseases. The observation of these differences can
scarcely fail to lead to valuable information, and it is in view of such differences that
the tabular statements are required in Section 15 to be classified according to localities,
and that provision for such classification is made in the forms supplied for returns of
deaths. In the absence of any ascertained differences of the above sort, it will still be
desirable to classify the deaths of the district according to the part of the district in
which they occur ; and for this purpose any areas of known population may be taken
as representing " localities " for purposes of the Order. Classification on this basis will
be likely to lead to the discovery of real differences when the returns for several years
can be compared together. The same considerations apply to the records of sickness
(Table B). These records should be tabulated for every sanitary district; and it will
he well, before proceeding to fill the columns and the blank spaces, to note carefully
the headings and the footnotes.
What has been said above with regard to the information which an annual report
should contain must be understood, not as suggesting that the report should be limited
to these subjects, or that more detailed or differently arranged tabular statements may
not be added, but as indicating the sort of information required by the Board's Order.
Many Medical Officers of Health will doubtless, with great advantage to the administration
of their districts, furnish much more detailed information respecting particular
questions to which they have been led, by the circumstances of the foregoing years, to
devote attention, or in the investigation of which they may have arrived at valuable
conclusions. Any information of this kind will be appreciated by the Local Government
Board.
(Signed) R. THORNE THORNE,
Local Government Office, Medical Officer.
December, 1896.