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SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE AREA
Mr. H. C. Boswell, Chief Public Health Inspector, reports as
follows:—
THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
The duties of the Environmental Health Services are briefly
to promote the highest possible standards of environment in order
to ensure the promotion of good health.
Indeed a past-president of the Royal Society of Health,
emphasized the importance of the health services in the following
words when making his Presidential Address, when he said,
"However effective the treatment of disease, the major contribution
to the nations health will rest essentially, on preventative
medicine.”
In order to use “preventative medicine” and to secure the
best possible conditions for healthy living, many are the channels
that have to be investigated ; the conditions under which we live,
work or play, water supplies, the food we eat and the air we
breathe, the disposal of refuse etc., indeed the list is never ending.
All this implies that Environmental Sanitation is complex
and comprehensive and has a far reaching effect on the lives of
individuals, but alas it is seldom spectacular or blazened with
glory. As long as the work carries on smoothly, very little notice
is taken of the work of the health team who devote their labours
and centre their interest on the well being of their fellow creatures.
But what a difference when things go wrong, it has been
significant in the past that a small failure on the part of the
health team is more apparent and gets far more publicity than
success.
It is against this background that the health services must
work and in order to achieve success, the whole of the services,
both medical and non-medical must work as a team, as the work
of each is so closely related.
The Public Health Inspectorate are happy to serve as
members of this team and the following report is a review of the
work carried out in the past year. Some of the services mentioned
are not the direct responsibility of the Public Health Inspector,
but he must keep himself acquainted with all branches of
environmental sanitation.
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