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DR. YOUNG'S REPORT.
General Summary as to the Sanitary Staff appointed by Sanitary Authorities in the
County of London.
Sanitary staff.
In connection with the work of sanitary administration in the County of London the local
authorities of the 43 sanitary districts into which the county is divided, including the City of London,
have appointed—
51 medical officers of health and 256 sanitary inspectors.
The above totals do not include the officers appointed by the districts mentioned in Schedule C
of the Metropolis Local Management Act—these will be referred to separately—but include four
temporary inspectors and one post of inspector vacant at the time of inquiry. Posts of inspector filled
by officers who also fill the post of surveyor are not included.
Medical officers of health.
The difference between the number of districts and the number of medical officers of health is
accounted for as follows—
One district, Wandsworth, has appointed five officers.
One district, Lee, has appointed three officers.
Two districts, Greenwich and Poplar, have each appointed two officers.
Sanitary inspectors.
The 256 sanitary inspectors include all the officers who have been appointed by the forty-three
sanitary districts as statutory officers, for carrying out the duties set out in the sanitary officers' order of
the Local Government Board. Inquiry as to the nature of the duties carried out by these officers—the
results of which are set out in detail, under each district in this report—shows they devote their time to
the duties which are laid down in this order, with the following exceptions—
St. Giles. -Two officers included in the list of statutory sanitary inspectors, while devoting a
portion of their time to work of the public health department, are chiefly occujiicd in the surveyor's
department.
Strand.—One officer is partly concerned, under the surveyor, with duties in connection with
overhead wires.
The division of duties arising under the acts relating to public health among sanitary inspectors
is by most sanitary authorities based on the plan of allotting to each inspector a portion of the district,
and in this he is concerned with all duties. While this is so for the most part, however, in several districts,
special duties are allotted to one or more of the inspectors. Thus in nine districts, one of the inspectors
is regarded as a senior or chief inspector, and this officer then exercises, to a greater or less extent, a
general supervision over the work of the others; he may also be concerned with inspection in regard to
special classes of premises, and he may have intimate relation with the clerical duties arising out of the
work of the department. In some districts an officer is specially concerned with duties in connection
with factories and workshops, with the administration of the Food and Drugs Act, with houses let in
lodgings, and house-to-house inspection, or with the occurrence of infectious disease in the district.
In two districts, inspectors have been appointed specially for the purpose of dealing with meat
exposed for sale, namely, in Holborn, one inspector, and in the City of London, six inspectors and one
temporary inspector. These officers are solely concerned with meat inspection. In other districts,
duties in relation to unsound food form part of the ordinary work of each sanitary inspector.
Included in this staff of sanitary officers are six female inspectors. The nature of their duties
and the districts which have appointed them are as follows—
Kensington.—To inspect places where females are employed at work.
St. Pancras.— „ „ „ „ „
Islington. ,, ,,
,, ,, ,, ,,
Hackney. „ ,, ,, ,,
St. George-tlie-Martyr.—To inspect houses registered under the by-laws as to houses let
in lodgings.
Battersea.—To inspect work-places where females are employed and schools.
"With a few exceptions sanitary inspectors are not concerned—as part of their duties—with the
scavenging of streets or the periodical cleansing of ash-bins, except in so far as in the routine discharge
of inspections they may find neglect in the removal of house refuse, in which case the fact would be
notified to the department of the surveyor of the local authority which has to do with the execution
of this work.
The exceptions to this are: Limeliouse and Plumstead, as regards which districts it is stated to
bo part of the duty of the sanitary inspectors to supervise the periodic removal of house refuse. In Bethnalgreen
and Hackney, the men engaged in collecting house refuse, in each case under the supervision of a
special inspector, form part of the Public Ilealth Department.