View report page

1
Public Offices,
Enfield.
4th May, 1939.
Annual Report of the Medical
Officer of Health, 1938.
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council of
Enfield.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to place before you my twelfth Annual Report on the
health of the district.
During the course of 1938 the work of the department continued
on normal and progressive lines.
The outstanding occurrence of the year was the Crisis of September.
Up to that time work on the preparation of an Air Raid
Precautions Scheme had progressed and taken its place as one of
the major tasks of the Health Department ; for the duration of
the Crisis it naturally occluded every other branch of work and
since then has been carried out at increasing speed.
For the first time I am devoting to it a separate section in my
Annual Report, indicating to some extent the work that has been
entailed.
In dealing with Air Raid Precautions, the department is faced
with the difficulty of preparing for an occurrence, the size, magnitude
and type of which it cannot estimate. Past experience of
air raids in this country, or for that matter in other countries,
seems to bear so little relation to what might happen if a European
War broke out, that guidance based on such experience varies as
the source from which it comes. As a result many Air Raid Precautions
Medical Schemes have been suggested, yet altered as new
ideas have been conceived. The Council will realise how difficult
it is to determine on a procedure for an eventuality, the results
cf which tax the gifts of imagination.
In helping to secure the training in First Aid and Anti-Gas
precautions of the personnel that are required, I have had the