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25
CONGRESSES.
The Corporation were represented at the following Congresses, which took place in 1928:
The World's Dairy Congress, London—26th June to 12th July.
The National Conference on Maternity and Infant Welfare, London—4th July to
6th July.
The Royal Sanitary Institute Congress, Plymouth—16th to 21st July.
The Royal Institute of Public Health Congress, Dublin—15th to 20th August.
The Sanitary Inspectors' Association Conference, Leicester—September.
The National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis Congress, London—
15th to 16th October.
The Public Health Congress and Exhibition, London—November 19th to 24th.
At each of these Congresses interesting papers were read, and the discussions which ensued
undoubtedly have contributed to Public Health knowledge. Your Medical Officer of Health
had the honour of reading a paper on "Food Protection" at the Public Health Congress
and Exhibition in London during November, and as this paper was printed and circulated
to the members of the Sanitary Committee, I am appending it to this report for the information
of the Members of the Court of Common Council. (Appendix E.)
The following two brief reports oh Congresses attended have also been presented to
the Sanitary Committee.
The Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health was held at Dublin in mid-August
week.
Delegates attending to represent the Corporation of the City of London were Mr. Cyril
Gamon, Colonel R. J. Blackham, and your Medical Officer of Health.
Despite the somewhat inconvenient date of this meeting, General Mulcahy's expectation,
as expressed in his presidential address, of a resultant momentum in Public Health improvement,
was quite justified.
The number of Medical Officers who have received their preliminary public health training
at the Royal Institute of Public Health, or have other connection therewith, always ensures
at these gatherings a critical and interested audience at the reading of the papers, as also
those exchanges of views, then and afterwards, which are a consolidation of public health
opinion and a diffusion of stimulating thought. These benefits to public health are achieved
without of necessity, any particular outstanding treatment of the subjects under discussion ;
they flow from viva voce and personal contact as refreshment of, and from, the cold written
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General Mulcahy showed in his review of progress in public health that, since the former
visit of the Institute in 1911, the death rate from tuberculosis had dropped 50 per cent.
Dr. Varrier-Jones, Medical Director at Papworth Village Settlement, frankly stated the
disappointing eventual results in Sanatorium and Dispensary treatment, urging the study
of a patient's environmental condition ; a clue to his authoritative paper lies in his definition
of a tuberculosis colony as a community of consumptives in which the hygienic and economical
factors have been readjusted to suit the abnormal physical and mental state of its members.
The aim of the Papworth Settlement was that the consumptive learns to live within the
limitations imposed on his life, and to enjoy that life.
Dr. Gerald Leighton, of the Scottish Board of Health, traced the history of the supervision
of food supplies through the rules of antiquity which were largely ethical, to the severally
practical methods of to-day, and amongst other points, focussed the view, universally
held in public health circles, that preservatives in food can only be allowed under the most
stringent regulations. Sufficient attention had not yet been paid to cold storage as the
correct line in preservation of fresh food.
These speakers are just cited in illustration, on the public health side, of the calibre
and type of papers put forward at a congress of which the solid worth and success were no
less illustrated in the visits to local industries and places of interest arranged, and in the
social functions organised in welcome.
SANITARY INSPECTORS' ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE- LEICESTER.
The Conference held by the Sanitary Inspectors' Association in Leicester, in September,
was attended by one of the Sanitary Inspectors attached to my staff, who reported that
the following papers were read and that the discussions which arose out of them were interesting
and instructive:—
(1) Food Inspection and the Sanitary Inspector.
(2) Milk Designations and Regulations.
(3) The Problem of the Slums.
(4) Factory and Workshop Inspection.
(5) Industrial Hygiene.
(6) Refuse disposal.
(7) Slaughter-houses—Public and Private.
A number of resolutions arising out of the discussions were passed, and will, doubtless,
receive due consideration at the hands of the appropriate authorities.