View report page

47
performed during the year: 3,573 premises were inspected for
conditions injurious or dangerous to health, and insanitary conditions
varying in their nature from slight to very grave were discovered in a
large number of instances; 910 Intimation Notices, followed in 37
cases by Statutory Notices, were complied with. Of this number, only
189 inspections were made as the result of complaints by householders
and others, and this circumstance will serve to accentuate the
importance of prosecuting a fairly constant system of house-to-house
inspection in at least the poorer parts of the borough. It is difficult
to over-estimate the value such a measure has in preventing the origin
and spread of preventible sickness, for over 50 per cent. of such
inspections resulted in intimation notices. In the case of 31 of the
complaints received, no nuisance existed at the time of inspection.
It is found that in Stoke Newington, whenever an intimation is
served as the result of house-to-house inspection, the Inspector pays
on an average between four and five visits in order to see that the work
required is properly carried out.
The slaughter-houses, bake-houses, cowsheds and dairies, the common
lodging house and the registered houses let in lodgings, situated
in the borough were all duly inspected throughout the year.
FOOD INSPECTION.
The existing provisions for excluding diseased and unwholesome
meat from the market are recognised as inadequate in this
country, in the absence of a closer inspection at the time of slaughter
and a more general and uniform system of inspection of the meat
when exposed for sale; and in the case of imported meat, the
guarantees are not sufficient that the inspection abroad is efficient and
the standards adopted are invariably maintained.
But in England the meat offered for sale in the shops is not often
found to be of such a nature as to warrant condemnation by the
Sanitary Authorities; and the material which is canned in Great
Britain is seldom unwholesome.