View report page

34
contribute £10,000 on the same conditions, with further safeguards as to the composition
of the board of management, and the right of residents at Becontree to
treatment at the new hosnital
Underground
rooms.
During the year under review the Council has had under consideration the
question of the use of underground rooms as dwellings. The provisions of the law
which relate to this subject are contained in section 96 of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, section 18 of the Housing Act, 1925, and section 122 of the London Building
Act, 1894. These provisions are mainly directed to securing satisfactory sanitary
conditions, including drainage, and stricter standards with the object of preventing
the use of such rooms for sleeping quarters can be adopted only as part of the general
housing programme of London.
Existing legislation for the control of underground rooms has been directed
almost exclusively to the regulation of underground rooms used as sleeping places,
but it is the use of basement dwellings as living rooms which is particularly injurious
to health. This latter use is the more objectionable because generally basement
rooms are entirely deprived of sunlight, and, although dark or artificially lighted,
are occupied throughout the day mainly by women and children. These rooms,
moreover, are not only dark, but damp and ill-ventilated, and no combination of
conditions so injurious to health is to be found in any other class of domestic dwellings.
In many of the low-lying areas it is extensively the case that such rooms
fail to comply with statutory requirements in such degree as to be unfit for human
habitation. They should be dealt with by closing order, but it appears, unfortunately,
that there is no statutory power to close only part of a house.
The desirability of promoting further legislation to deal with the whole problem
of the use of underground rooms is still under consideration by the Council.
Milk and Dairies (Consolidation) Act, 1915.
Milk.
Samples of the milk forwarded to London from places outside the county are
taken and examined under the provisions of the Milk and Dairies (Consolidation)
Act, 1915. The railway stations are visited in rotation and, generally speaking,
the number of samples taken from the milk sent by each consignor is regulated by
the size of the consignment. Endeavour is made to sample all milk entering the
county, and during the year, in pursuance of this policy, samples were also taken
from supplies of milk sent to London by road, in each case by co-operation with the
local sanitary authority. In this way, 19 samples were taken from churns. In
addition, 26 samples were taken from milk consigned in glass-lined tanks, 14 of these
came from two tanks that came by road, and 12 from two tanks that were borne
by rail. During 1928 there were 2,011 samples of milk, taken from consignments
sent to London from 40 counties, and submitted for bacteriological examination.
In the case of 1,605 samples, the biological examination was completed and of these
143 were found to be tubercle infected, or 8.9 per cent., as against 7.8 per cent. in
1927.
In accordance with the provisions of the Milk and Dairies (Consolidation) Act,
1915, information is sent, immediately upon discovery of tubercle infected samples
of milk, to the Medical Officer of Health of the county who is responsible for the
examination of the cows at the farm whence the sample emanated. From the
copies of reports forwarded by the County Medical Officers of Health, it would appear
that 66 cows had been found to be affected with tuberculosis and were slaughtered
under the Tuberculosis Order, 1925.
A large quantity of the milk sent to London is "bulked" at the country depot
prior to despatch. Difficulty has always been experienced in tracing to its source
any such milk found to be tubercle infected, and this has now been made the more
serious by the despatch of milk in glass-lined tanks. Although in many respects
hygienically superior to churns, the mixing of so large a volume of milk multiplies