View report page

189
about the long-term effect, make any assessment of the short-term effect somewhat
difficult. A preliminary analysis of these mixed data showed that because of the differing
methods, and the siting at different heights and for particular local purposes, it would
be totally unjustified to accept any of these instruments as representative of the area
and the averaging of the readings of several instruments to produce a representative
index of pollution for any one area is of dubious propriety. Daly (1954) refers to the
unsatisfactory nature of pollution records and used instead figures of the consumption
of domestic coal per acre.
At the appropriate time an automatic sampler was devised in the Scientific Adviser's
laboratory. The apparatus consists of a multiple circuit set of volumetric apparatus for
the dual measurement of smoke and sulphur dioxide with which up to six consecutive
samples can be taken before filters and solutions need to be examined and renewed,
thus facilitating the study of peak concentration of pollutants and enabling detailed
observations to be made without manual attention during night and week-end periods.
Seven of these instruments were installed at the end of 1954, one at each of the Council's
six general ambulance stations and one at County Hall.
As indicated earlier there are other pollutants such as oxides of nitrogen, sulphuric
acid and polycyclic hydrocarbons; these have been identified and must be presumed
to play an important role in the pollution complex but their measurement is too exacting
to be made outside the research laboratory.
As these seven sets of apparatus are under the direct control of the Council there is
instant access to the records for an on-the-spot assessment of the extent and duration
of a period of heavy pollution. Accordingly, it was decided to centre the investigation
on these seven recording stations and to relate the mortality data in the areas immediately
surrounding them to the figures of atmospheric pollution.
The recording stations and associated areas are shown on the map, Figure 1; starting
in the North-west corner and proceeding clockwise details arc as follows:—
Recording station Area(s)
North-western ambulance station, Borough of Hanipstead.
Lawn Road, Hampstead. Parliamentary constituency of St. Pancras
North.
Eastern ambulancc station, Brooksby's Borough of Hackney.
Walk, Hackney.
Brook ambulance station, Park Row, Borough of Greenwich and Parliamentary
Shooter's Hill Road, Greenwich. constituency of West Woolwich.
South-eastern ambulance station, New Borough of Bermondsey.
Cross Road, Deptford. Borough of Deptford and Parliamentary
stituency of the Peckham Division of Camberwell.
South-western ambulancc station, Parliamentary constituencies of the Brixton
Landor Road, Stockwell, Lambeth. Division of Lambeth and the Clapham
Division of Wandsworth.
County Hall, Westminster Bridge, City of Westminster.
Lambeth.
The average of the Parliamentary constituency of the Vauxhall
South-western Ambulance Division of Lambeth.
and County Hall stations.
Western ambulance station, 350 Kings Borough of Chelsea.
Road, Chelsea.
It is not for one moment suggested that these areas surrounding the recording
stations are ideal—the Hampstead station may not be truly representative of St. Pancras
North, the area of which extends beyond the high level contour of Hampstead and
Highgate down the hill to Chalk Farm and Kentish Town with their concentrations
of railway installations; the Deptford station may not be truly representative of the
borough of Bermondsey; the river separates the County Hall station from Westminster
and inclusion of the Knightsbridge area therein may not be justified, but the population
of the latter is only 11 per cent, of the whole and therefore its inclusion is unlikely to
have any significant effect on the mortality indices for the area.