London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Barking 1924
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]
This page requires JavaScript
The following table gives particulars of smoke observations made during the year:-
| No. of Chimney9 watched | 12 |
| No of Observations made | 130 |
| No. of Chimneys from which black smoke issued in such quantity as to be a nuisance for a period of for over six minutes to the aggregate during the hour | 32 |
| No. of notices served for the abatement of smoke nuisance:— | |
| (a) Informal | 2 |
| (b) Statutory | — |
| No. of prosecutions | — |
The public health policy of the department towards recalcitrant
property owners was dwelt upon at some length in my
previous Report, and need not be referred to again this year.
To put matter upon a sound and satisfactory footing, may 1
reiterate for a change of present policy whereby the Chief Sanitary
Inspector be instructed that when the statutory time limit
has been passed in respect of compliance with nuisance abatement
demands, he should take out the necessary summons for
enforcement and for the recovery of penalties. As a practical
result, time at present spent over re-inspections might easily be
halved, and the energies of the inspectors more usefully directed
in other channels.
MEAT INSPECTION'.
During the year a quantity of offal and other foodstuffs to
the amount of 3 cwt. 27 lbs. was surrendered and destroyed.
the difficulties commented upon in my Report for 1923 incidental
to the satisfactory inspection of slaughtering in privately-owned
avattoirs continued during 1924, although the issue of draft
Public Health (Meat) Regulations during the year made for improvements
which might be regarded as a step at least towards
theoretical institution of public abattoirs. Provision has been
made in these Regulations—which would come into force on