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VIII
In maternity and child welfare, maternal deaths number 5 as contrasted
with 10 last year, and the fact that increasing use is being made
of the Council's indoor and outdoor midwifery scheme give grounds for
gratification.
While owing to prevailing unemployment expenditure on milk grants
on medical grounds for mothers and infants has increased in 1932, there
is good reason to believe that unemployment in the City during the first
half of 1933 has fallen considerably. The issue of these grants is governed
by a scale of income. In spite of the hardships of many families the
general state of nutrition has been maintained and is reflected in the
lowered infant death rate, tuberculosis death rate and general death rate.
An increase in plans of drainage work, implying as it does more employment,
reflects a welcome tendency to a revival of business.
Proposed changes in the byelaws of the L.C.C. governing cleansing,
storage and removal of refuse receive comment; likewise the suggested
byelaw to permit a combined soil and waste pipe in house drainage.
New methods of the estimation of sulphur gas in the air were begun
last year and figures for a complete year are now submitted. Atmospheric
pollution is a matter of widespread importance, but few local
authorities take a really active interest in it. The City Council has for
some years pursued investigations with all the scientific methods available,
and now that the new Battersea Power Station has come into operation
certain of the objects of these investigations may be more clearly discernible.
The Mortuary at Horseferry Road required to be brought up to date.
A sub-cominittee to which the matter was referred has almost completed
successfully its entire re-organisation. With its new chapel, preservation
chambers and laboratories the mortuary premises are one of the most
modern and well equipped in the country.
The vacancy which occurred in 1931 by the retirement of Mr. Wheal,
Disinfecting Superintendent, was filled by promoting Mr. S. C. West to
the post of Disinfecting Foreman. In the latter's place Mr. N. Heathcote
was appointed. In addition to duties of disinfection he acts as rat officer
under the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, having been trained in methods
of rat disinfestation under the Port of London Sanitary Authority through
the kind offices of Dr. C. F. White, the port Medical Officer of Health.