View report page

PREFACE
Public Health Department
Town Hall,
Edmonton, N.9
His Worship the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Borough of Edmonton
Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
My Annual Report for 1949 is compiled in accordance with
Ministry of Health Circular 2/50.
It must be noted that this is the first complete year of separation
of the Health Services (in general) from the Environmental
Health Service of which latter is now the sole consideration of the
Borough Council.
The Annual Report in other years contained circumstances
and facts relating to all the health conditions in the Borough, this
year it is to be limited to those circumstances that come under the
direct control of the Council as the Sanitary Authority. The
Middlesex County Council under the National Health Service Act,
1946, is responsible for Maternal and Child Health and School
Health under the Education Act, 1944. It would be wrong to
think that the functions of the Borough Council have to a great
extent been minimised by this separation of services.
The Council will realise that in the person of their Medical
Officer of Health as Area Medical Officer there exists a link which
still binds all the Health Services together. There is also the
representation from the Borough Council on the Local Area Committee
which will help to unite the services also. It must, however,
be borne in mind that, while the greater part of the time of the
Medical Officer of Health is allocated to County Health Services,
his functions under Environmental Health are nothing less than
they were in the past. Instead of this being so the field of
Environmental Medicine embodies greater responsibility and
wider fields of investigation than ever.
Environmental Medicine because of its more scientific application
at the present day does not come into the limelight as much
4