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III. Special Reports issued during 1938.
Special reports were submitted to the Council during the year
on the following subjects:
(a) Food and Drugs Act, 1939.
(b) Proposed Day Nursery.
(c) Air Raid Precautions.
(d) Samples of water from Swimming Lake, Broomfield
Park.
IV. Air Raid Precautions.
It would be difficult in a report such as this to set out the vast
amount of work which was undertaken in the field of Air Raid
Precautions during 1938. Until the early autumn, matters were
comparatively quiet, as the part which the Medical Officer of Health
and his staff were to play in the scheme had not been properly
defined. In August, however, it was definitely stated that the
Medical Officer of Health would be held responsible for the organisation
of the First Aid Section, together with the training of all the
necessary personnel. This immediately presented the Public Health
Department with a series of intricate and delicate problems, not to
mention the addition of a vast load of responsibilities and labour.
The occurrence of the September crisis did little to ease the burden.
Unfortunately, matters are still in such a fluctuant condition that
the presentation of any final report is rendered impracticable.
We are still occupied in siting and adapting our fixed First Aid Posts;
training some twelve hundred volunteers in the various branches of
the First Aid Section; collecting and storing a miscellaneous array of
equipment; building up a transport and ambulance section composed
of properly equipped ambulances, adapted vehicles and private cars;
and co-operating with the County Council and with the other
interested Departments of our own Local Authority in the preparation
of a co-ordinated, homogeneous scheme. Much progress has undoubtedly
been made; very much more remains for the future.
At the moment it is difficult to see the wood from the trees, to
appreciate the order which must inevitably emerge from the existing
confusion. One fact, an extremely pleasant fact, stands forth from
the welter of inconsistencies, frustration and disappointments.
The St. John Ambulance Brigade, the British Red Cross Society
and the hundreds of keen volunteers who have offered their services
in the First Aid Section, represent a band of individuals who are
deserving of the very highest credit. Without their co-operation,
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