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122
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
The percentage of tenements of one room to total tenements
of less than five rooms is very different in these two parishes,
being 14.03 in Clapham, and only 4.01 in Tooting.
GENERAL SANITARY WORK IN 1902.
No alteration has taken place during the year in the constitution
of the staff of the Department, with two exceptions, viz. —
the appointment of a lady Sanitary Inspector whose duties commenced
in June, 1902, and the appointment of a new Inspector
under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, owing to the resignation
of the previous Inspector.
During the first part of the year the energies of the whole
staff were severely taxed, owing to the outbreak of Small-pox,
and during the latter part of the year owing to the increase in
number of the cases of infectious disease.
All the work, however, was kept well up to date, with the
exception of some of the clerical work: this latter could hardly
be avoided owing to the large increase in the general correspondence,
and also to the fact that for nearly the whole year
Chicken-pox was notifiable.
During the first three months of the year, when the cases of
Small-pox were most numerous, a large amount of my own time
was taken up in visiting all the premises where cases of the
disease occurred, and also in visiting contacts in the Borough,
both with cases notified in the Borough and with cases occurring
outside the Borough. The London County Council, however, in
the end of February appointed two medical men in the Borough to
act as consultants in these cases, who were paid by that Council
and the majority of the cases in which another opinion was necessary
was seen by them, but the premises were always personally
visited either before or after the case had been removed.
Special inspection was again made this year of the houses in
Young's Rents, Rowland's Cottages, and Charlotte Place, Clapham,
with reference to the general sanitary condition, and inspection
of the Hyde Farm Estate was made on three separate
occasions owing to the prevalence of Diphtheria there.