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prevention of disease, and are coming to closer grips with infantile mortality
and tuberculosis. To deal with the prevention of the disease, the officer should
be fully acquainted with the prevention of insanitary environment and the
methods necessary to remedy insanitary conditions. As a Sanitary Inspector
fully acquainted with this, she is able to direct the attention of the District
Inspectors carrying out the necessary remedies. As a Sanitary Inspector, she
also has the power of entry, which as a Health Visitor she would not possess,
and thus, during vacation and in emergency, she can take over the duties of
her colleague, so that there is never any temporary neglect.
The duties of the Health Visitor are partly statutory and partly permissive,
and include those under the Notification of Births Act, the prevention of infantile
mortality, the notifications from schools of verminous children, and the cleansing
of the children, their bedfellows, clothing and bedding, and the notification from
schools of the non-certificable diseases, e.g., measles. It is not, therefore,
altogether easy to define where the statutory duties cease and the permissive
duties commence, but, roughly speaking, they each respectively embrace about
half the officer's time, so that her duties in the matter of time may be said to
be equally divided between those of a Sanitary Inspector and a Health Visitor.