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7
FOREWORD
ON HEALTH PROPAGANDA.
The practice introduced in the Annual Report for 1921 of opening with a
" foreword " having met with approval it is proposed to repeat the experiment.
Last year the object of the introductory remarks was to afford an opportunity of
showing the advances that had taken place during the last half century. This
year the foreword is written in order to give an opportunity of describing what is
done to bring home to the individual the fact that hygiene is not all communal,
but that each and everyone can do something for his own health and safety and
has responsibilities in that connection. To have this grasped, propaganda methods
of various kinds are resorted to by the Council through the Public Health Committee
and the Health Department.
Foremost amongst the schemes adopted may be noted the holding of "weeks"
of various sorts. These have been celebrated annually for several years past,
those in 1922 being: "Baby Week" (July I—7), "Health Week" (October
8—11), and "Rat Week" (November 6—11).
During "Baby Week," which was inaugurated by the National Baby Week
Council to arouse the public to a sense of the importance of safeguarding infant
life, and to promote right ideas and ideals regarding maternity and child welfare,
arrangements were made in conjunction with the St. Marylebone Health Society
for throwing open to the general public the various schools of mothercraft and day
nurseries. An "At Home" was held at one of the infant welfare centres,
the Annual Meeting of the Health Society also took place, and a number of addresses
were delivered-by members of the Public Health staff and others during the week.
Special posters setting forth the arrangements were displayed throughout the
Borough.
"Health Week," organized by a Special Committee of the Royal Sanitary
Institute, and having for its object the focussing of public attention for one week
in the year on matters of health, opened with special sermons at a number of places
of worship in the Borough. Throughout the week other meetings were held at
which the Medical Officer of Health or one of the Health Visitors spoke, and
leaflets and posters inviting the public to visit infant welfare centres, hospitals,
dispensaries, municipal depots, and other local institutions, were widely distributed.
During "Rat Week," held at the suggestion of the Ministry of Agriculture, the
inhabitants of the Borough were notified, by means of special posters and leaflets, of
the importance from the health point of view of rat and mouse destruction. Owners
and occupiers of premises liable to infestation with rats were reminded of their
responsibilitiy under the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919, supplied with the
latest bait recipes, and especially instructed as to methods to be adopted to rid their
property of the vermin. In addition, circulars were sent to the occupiers of food
premises (butchers, restaurants, grocers, dairies, provision dealers, fishmongers,
etc.), property agents, large business houses and institutions, drawing their attention
to, among other things, the menace to health which the presence of rats constitutes.
Local chemists and proprietors of domestic stores were invited to exhibit posters
and make a feature of rat poisons and traps respectively during the week. The
sewers, though regularly baited, received additional attention, and a greatly
increased number of barium carbonate baits were laid. Close co-operation with neighbouring
boroughs was also secured in this direction. All the railway companies (above
and below ground) having stations, yards, etc., in the Borough showed great
activity in connection with their embankments, sidings, and warehouses, and the
occupiers of the larger open areas (such as the Zoological Gardens and Lord's
Cricket Ground) and the electricity works, all took suitable rat destructive measures.