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5
Infectious Diseases-
The table on page 19 sets out the diseases, infectious and contagious, that were notified
during the course of the year. The cases of dysentery were mostly of a mild nature. There
were 1,025 cases of measles, in most cases slight. Whooping cough was considerably less
than in 1944. There were 245 cases of scarlet fever. It was not possible to remove all cases
of scarlet fever to hospital. Scabies continued to demand continuous supervision and treatment,
and the clinic was busy throughout the year.
Housing.
The most serious menace to public health today is inadequate housing, which is marked
to a very serious degree in this borough. During the course of the year I have been asked to
investigate no less than 685 housing applications and to advise upon those (i) which needed
urgent priority, (ii) of slightly less priority, (iii) who needed rehousing on account of illness or
sickness and (iv) where no immediate action was required. This total of 685 represents only
a portion of those who applied for Accommodation. There were others concerning whom the
conditions were such that no report was required on health grounds, and at the time of writing
this report there are no less than 8,630 persons awaiting alternative accommodation in the
borough. Of the 685 applications mentioned I was constrained to advise urgent priority rehousing
in no less than 486 cases. In the majority of these there was serious overcrowding,
lack of separation of the sexes, and factors definitely inimical to health. In 70 cases a lesser
priority was granted, and in 127 alternative accommodation was required on account of illness.
This latter category is an important one, for it includes people living in upper floors, who are
crippled and cannot climb stairs. It includes persons with heart disease who should have
ground floor accommodation It includes women with babies, living in rooms on the top floor
of a house, who have to fetch all their water from downstairs and carry their children up and
down frequently during the day. The housing picture is not a very pleasant one to draw.
There is, however, another side to the question. Sites have been, or are being acquired,
modern flats planned, consents are being obtained, and in due course we should see good
housing arising on open bombed sites and in slum areas. In all big ventures there is little
to see, little to demonstrate, in the early stages, but when once housing commences it will gain
from its own momentum. Housing is of the utmost priority in all public health measures today,
and if it plays second to anything at all it can only be to the provision of sufficient and
adequate food.
In connection with the Council's housing schemes, I inspected and reported upon the
conditions in five areas. In one area I came to the conclusion that a large proportion thereof
could be dealt with as a clearance area and accordingly I represented it as such. On the
recommendation of the Ministry of Health, however, it was not considered advisable to deal
with this area under Part III of the Housing Act, 1936, and a proportion of it will be dealt
with under Part V in connection with a housing scheme which is now in progress. The four
other areas which I surveyed were not, in my opinion, such that they could be represented as
clearance areas. The houses in all these areas numbered 513, and the following table shows
their occupation: —

*Includes six houses used wholly for commercial purposes.
Of this number 230 rooms are unoccupied.