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26
CONGRESSES.
The Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute, at Southport, from 6th to 11th July;
the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health, at Edinburgh, from 26th to 30th May;
the Congress of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, in London,
from 16th to 18th July; the Congress of the National Veterinary Medical Association of
Great Britain and Ireland, at Scarborough, from 14th to 18th September; and the Congress
of the National Smoke Abatement Society, in London, from 14th to 17th October, were all
attended by representatives of the City Corporation, and again provided ample evidence
of the value of these assemblies.
SANITARY INSPECTORS' ASSOCIATION—CONFERENCE.
The Conference of the Sanitary Inspectors' Association was held at Harrogate, from
the 31st August to 5th September, and one of the Officers of my Department, Mr. W. R.
McGrath, was permitted by the Public Health Committee to attend. He reports a record
attendance of councillors and member delegates, and also the presence of representatives
of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Royal Sanitary
Institute and Sanitary Inspectors' Examination Joint Board, the Royal Sanitary Institute
and the Society of Medical Officers of Health, and other kindred organisations.
The discussions resulting from the papers delivered demonstrate that the interchange
of views of the members of local authorities and their officers serve a very useful purpose,
and the permission of the Public Health Committee to attend was very much appreciated.
CREMATION.
The following summary of cremations carried out at the end of 1936 at all the crematoria
in Great Britain since 1885, when the first crematorium was established at Woking, clearly
indicates a steady increase in cremation as a means of disposal of the dead. With only two
exceptions, each of the several crematoria in the country has shown a percentage increase
on the cremations which took place in 1935, in eight such increase being higher than 25 per
cent. The average increase is 17.42 per cent., as compared with 1935, the actual numbers
being 9,614 during 1935 and 11,289 during 1936.
Another significant factor is the establishment of three new crematoria during the year.
Cremations at the Corporation Crematorium, at Ilford, reached the record number
of 295.
The purview of the late Medical Officer of Health, Dr. W. M. Willoughby, of the disposal
of the dead was expressed at the Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute, which was held
at Southport, in the following terms:—
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD.
The neighbourhood of Normanton Gorse, in Wiltshire, repeatedly enchains my fancy and induces
a sense of veneration. And this not only through its Stonehenge, a recorder of the procession of the
equinoxes and thus of its own approximate date, but because of the clustering or scattered bowl disc
and bell barrows, with here and there a long barrow, confirming the date of the circle and demanding
speculation on one of the lovable occupations of mankind—the provision for disposal of his dead.
The breaking of neolithic and early bronze barrows seems curiously to raise no qualms, rather
speculation—a healthy speculation based on fact otherwise unattained. It is not the golden pin-work
on the haft of the bronze dagger or the hand-made, not turned, jar of badly-baked clay which here
takes our attention; but rather the fact that the behaviour of these neolithic and early bronze
ancients towards the remains of their honoured and loved are brought into comparison with our own
English ways. In this barrow is found a skeleton, once a body inhumed, in that a rude yet ornamented
jar contains ashes—burial and cremation side by side in place and time.
Ditsworthy Warren, near Plymhead, on Dartmoor, is similarly venerable but more speculative.
Rows of once upright stones lead from menhirs to cairns of granite blocks, the cairns rifled long since,
and in the neighbourhood of these a large circle of stones. Little is known of these relics. I mention
them because, in comparing the stone cairns with the barrows of Normanton, we come across the
limitations of their makers—for these, stone is available and compelling, for the mounds on chalk,
chalk rubble alone is at hand. Wonderful that these puny efforts still remain unlevelled thousands
of years after they were thrown up. But look at a field a few years after allotment holders have lost