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29
Notes upon Sanitary Work performed during the Year.
During the year 1895 485 premises were inspected for conditions
injurious or dangerous to health and insanitary conditions,
varying in their nature from comparatively trivial to very grave,
were discovered in 437 of these.
Of this number only 85 inspections were the result of personal
complaints; hence the necessity to institute a fairly constant
system of House to House Inspection. This has been a special
feature of the sanitary work for the year, and Mr Stockman has
had an opportunity to make an exceptionally large number of such
inspections. I am convinced that there is no more useful
work in which an inspector can be employed, within
the whole range of preventive measures against sickness,
than in this work of house to house inspection; in
most urban districts, and especially those in the environs of
our largest cities, such work grows yearly more necessary, by reason
of the fact that each year sees more houses, originally built for
one family, becoming "tenemented" and occupied by several, with
the result that the sanitary provisions are so overtaxed that they
do not remain both effective and cleanly for many months at a
time.
Sanitary Premises.—Sanitary science has at last reached a
stage at which it can say definitely how house drainage should be
provided so that it shall not form a source of disease. The
requirements of Sanitary Authorities are not complex (in a
sanitary sense), and there are few owners who do not well know
what these requirements are; and to neglect them is an offence
which comes very near to being a crime. Where the uncleanly
habits of the inmates are responsible for not keeping the
premises sweet and wholesome, and homes become death traps to
the young and susceptible members of the household, then, of
course, a similar reproach rests upon the heads of the parents.
During the year the London County Council have received a
report by Messrs. Parry and Laws upon an investigation into the
composition of the air of sewers. In this report further evidence
was given of the comparative freedom of germs from this air, and