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storage tanks. Certain Council owned properties were supplied with main supplies
during the year at the request of the Committee, but unfortunately no legislation
exists to enable the Local Authority to require provision of a drinking water supply
direct from the main. The Committee therefore referred this problem to the Association
of Municipal Corporations for consideration.
FLUORIDATION OF WATER SUPPLIES
Early in 1963 the Middlesex County Council informed this Council that they had
submitted to the Minister of Housing & Local Government for his approval a proposal
to make arrangements with statutory water undertakers in Middlesex for fluoride
to be added to the public water supplies to the level appropriate for the prevention of
dental decay. The Ealing Borough Council decided to raise no objection to the County
Council's proposal.
The relationship between fluoridation and dental decay was discovered by chance
many years ago at Colorado Springs in the United States where it was noted that a
high fluorine level in the water produced mottling of the teeth. Despite this mottling
the incidence of dental decay was much reduced. The full significance of this observation
was not realised until 1946 when surveys showed that a fluorine content of one
part per million in the water supply reduced dental decay by 60 % without producing
mottling of the teeth.
The next step was to add fluoride to water which was naturally deficient in this
element. This began in various areas of the United States of America and ten years
later it was apparent that the rate of dental decay in these areas had been reduced to
that of areas where the natural fluorine content of the water was high. In this country
relatively few areas have water with a natural fluorine content as high as one part per
million. Results of dental surveys in these districts are comparable to those found
earlier in the United States.
As a result of this observation and the report of a mission who visited the United
States to study fluoridation schemes there, pilot schemes were started in Andover,
Anglesey, Kilmarnock and Watford. Before fluoridation started in these areas a
survey was made in various districts with widely differing fluorine content of their
water to decide the optimum level of fluorine for this Country. It was found that
Slough, where the water content is normally 0.9 part per million of fluorine, gave the
best results in regard to the incidence of dental decay and it was therefore decided to
adopt a figure of one part per million, as in America, for all schemes in this Country.
Opposition to the introduction of fluoride schemes has always been determined and
vocal. It may be sufficiently convincing to most people to state that the addition of
fluoride to the public water supply has the approval in this Country of both the British
Dental Association and the British Medical Association. This seal of approval has
only been given after the most careful consideration of the relevant facts in the belief
that there can be no ill effects produced but only benefit to the community by a major
reduction of the incidence of dental decay.
DRAINAGE AND SEWERAGE
The soil sewerage from the Borough is all eventually treated at the West Middlesex
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