View report page

common sense, yet we know that conditions are still tolerated by
the general public which should never be allowed to exist and
which may never come to our notice.
Relations between the Public Health Department and the
burgesses of Southgate have always been good. Our aim is to try
and impress upon the public that we are here to help, but that we
need their help. The fact that conditions in Southgate are good,
should never be allowed to stand in the way of further progress.
We all know that Southgate is a place in which it is pleasant to
live; we would also like to think that Southgate is equally a place
in which food hygiene is beyond reproach. But, as I have already
said, until we can be assured of the fullest co-operation from every
burgess in the district, this happy state of affairs will still remain
beyond our reach.
My remarks this year on health education have been
incorporated in Appendix 1, at the end of this Report.
It has been very rightly said that a Medical Officer of Health
must concern himself with every known factor in his Area which
may affect the health of the community. For this reason, the Public
Health Department has been intimately connected with campaigns
to promote clean food, to control the spread of infectious diseases,
to remedy housing defects, indeed with all matters which come
within the purview of environmental hygiene. As will also be
known, we have associated ourselves with the prevention of accidents
in the home, a very urgent and increasing problem; with
health education, a function which we share with the Middlesex
County Council; and have also keenly watched the very rapid
progress made in the field of vaccination and immunisation. But
there is one other health hazard which has recently been given
considerable prominence and in which the Public Health Department
must of necessity be interested. I refer to radiation.
Radiation, in other words the hazards which can arise from the
use or disposal of radio-active substances, has presented a problem
not only in this country but throughout the civilised world. It has
been said that the hazards associated with radio-active substances
are not nearly so great as those associated either with accidents on
the road or accidents in the home. While this may well be true,
there is a vast difference between accidents which occur on the road
or in the home and accidents or even fatalities due to radiation. We
can all see the disastrous results of careless driving, burns, scalds or
falls in the home; but radiation still remains a vast, complicated and
terrifying subject which yet remains beyond the understanding of
many even highly intelligent people. When a child pulls a kettle
of water on himself and is scalded, we can see the unhappy result;
5