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239 [1912
" and which can only be efficiently undertaken by highly trained women. The
" views of the Medical Officer of Health on these matters are so well known
" to the Public Health Committee, and, indeed, to the Council, that he will
" not reiterate them." They have not altered, but as years pass they become
stronger.
As many as 67,525 inspections and calls were made to the various premises
which are mentioned in Table CIX. and related to 5,834 separate houses, to
which the staff subsequently made 56,826 visits. Among the several calls
which they made were 98 to places where ice creams are manufactured, 1,593
to dairies and milkshops, 452 to stables, 1,332 to yards, 92 to manure pits, 227
to vacant land, passages and courts, 629 to urinals attached to public houses,
10 to premises, the owners of which required certificates under the Customs and
Inland Revenue Acts, 16 to premises for which water certificates had been
applied, 41 to obtain samples under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 158
with respect to smoke observations, and 217 rounds of inspection of the many
stalls and market places where food is sold on Saturday evenings, during
which an examination of the food sold at the many hundreds of these places
was made.
House to House Inspections.—With all the demandson the Inspectors
mentioned in the previous paragraph, it can be seen that there is very little
time for them to devote to the important work devolving on them under the
Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, under the provisions of which it is
the duty of the Council to cause a house to house inspection to be made of
their district. In the early part of the year the Medical Officer of Health
prepared a plan of the Borough which showed the areas which were most
crowded at the Census of 1901. Each area represented an enumeration
district, each containing about 12,000 persons. Each of these areas was
coloured according to the amount of crowding in it, and a plan of each
Inspector's district coloured in this manner was given to him with instructions
that he was to make a house to house inspection of the more
crowded parts of his district first, and, when this had been accomplished,
to proceed with the inspection of those houses next in order
of crowding. This plan has worked very well and has been of great assistance
to the Inspectors. During the year 910 houses were inspected, as contrasted
with 701 in the preceding year. These inspections have always formed a
regular part of the work of the Sanitary Inspectors, and in a statement which
the Medical Officer of Health published last year, and which he again presents,
it will be seen that from 1899 to 1911 a total of 15,939 house to house