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The picture is much brighter in regard to the older
epidemics. In 1946 eight cases of diphtheria were notified in
the Borough with one death (21 cases with one death in 1945,
67 cases with 3 deaths in 1930). There has not been a single
notified case of diphtheria in the Borough for the past 14
years. In the late summer of 1947, suddenly and Unaccoutably,
poliomyelitis struck the country after many years of
relative quiescence. Sixteen cases occurred in the Borough
with three deaths. Immunisation against this disease began
in 1956 and it is significant that, since that time, there has
been a remarkable decline in poliomyelitis. The number of
cases in Bexley in the five year period 1959 to 1963 was one
compared with 36 in the previous five years. Few would deny
that this decrease is closely related to the immunisation of
children and young adults in the Borough first by the Salk
vaccine and now by the oral vaccine which has almost
replaced the former.
Over the relatively short period under review there has
been a marked improvement in food hygiene in the Borough
as a re.sult of the implementation of the Food Hygiene
Regulations and of internal developments of the Catering
trades as a whole. Refrigeration of foodstuffs is, now, almost
universal and the wrapping of foodstuffs have gone to considerable
lengths. The opportunities for the occurrence of
food poisoning are certainly fewer nowadays (there were no
notified cases in 1963) but constant vigilance is still necessary
as human sources of error can still defeat the most elaborate
equipment. A further hazard arises from the growing tendency
for people to take their holidays abroad and the
importation of typhoid fever appears to be a growing risk.
In regard to housing the Council have pursued a steady
slum clearance programme both by clearance orders and by
the demolition of individual unfit houses. Their greatest
single achievement during this period has been the final
clearance of the Lodge Hill and East Wickham hutments
(erected in 1916 for the housing of munition workers
employed at the Royal Arsenal) and their replacement by
modern housing estates. The Borough now has no slums in
the accepted sense of the word but there are still quite a
number of individual houses which will need to be dealt with
in the next five years. The obsolescence factor is, indeed,
low and, with the increase in the number of owner-occupiers
and the provision of new houses by the Council and private
enterprise and the improvement of some of the older houses
by improvement grant procedure this favourable position
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