London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Edmonton 1958
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Edmonton]
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The Council have an Assistant Rodent Officer, two Rodent Operators, the
part-time services of a Clerk and appointed the Public Health Inspectors as Rodent
Officers.
During the year the treatment of business premises by "Warfarin" was
continued and has proved very successful.
The Public Health Inspectors, in cases where there was a possibility of
the infestation being due to defective drainage, visited the premises and tested
the drainage and any defects discovered were dealt with through the usual channels.
In 80 per cent of the cases defects were discovered and as one can quite appreciate,
entailed quite a large amount of work. The following table gives details of the
work carried out during the year.
Prevalence of Rats and Mice:
| Type of Property | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local Authority | Dwelling Houses | All other including Business and Industrial | |||
| Properties inspected as a result of notification | 6 | 596 | 46 | 648 | |
| Other properties investigated Properties found to be infestec | 2 | 3,077 | 25 | 3,104 | |
| Rats | (a) Major infestations | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| (b) Minor infestations | 3 | 553 | 17 | 573 | |
| Mice | (a) Major infestations | - | - | - | - |
| (b) Minor infestations | - | 51 | 10 | 61 | |
| Number of properties treated by Rodent Operators | 3 | 604 | 28 | 635 | |
| Number of inspections | 129 | 6,719 | 209 | 7,057 | |
During the year, maintenance treatment of the sewers took place by the
Borough Engineer's Department, and I am indebted to the Borough Engineer for the
following report:-
RAT DESTRUCTION IN SEWERS
The twenty-seventh maintenance treatment was carried out by the '1080'
method of direct poisoning.
The '1080' treatments were carried out at three months intervals
throughout 1958 and a 'test-bait' check with unpoisoned bait was carried out in
March 1959.
From 1950 to 1957 using the zinc phosphide and arsenious oxide poisons
with two prebaitings the average number of 'takes' as compared with the number of
manholes baited was 60%.
In the 'test' in March 1959, this figure was reduced to 6%.
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