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10
Overcrowding, i.e., persons living more than two persons per
room, shows Bromley .93%, Chislehurst and Sidcup 1.65%, and
Orpington .86%. There are 3,472 Bromley households sharing
dwelling accommodation, which is twice that of Chislehurst and
Sidcup, and nearly 3½ times that of Orpington.
There are 3,560 households which have no fixed bath, while
2.466 households share a fixed bath with other households. These
figures must be taken with some reserve, as they are liable to
householders' misinterpretation in the completing of the Census
papers.
In my twenty-nine years service with you. there have been
some remarkable Public Health changes, perhaps the outstanding
one has been the reduction in the Maternal deaths and deaths of
Infants. I believe this reduction in the Infant Mortality rate has
been largely due to the teaching in the homes of the mothers, by
trained and experienced Health Visitors. A reduction from 60
deaths per 1.000 births, to under 20 per 1,000 births is a remarkable
achievement, but there is still a hard-core of neonatal infant deaths
and still births which show little or no evidence of decline. We
know that certain illnesses in the mother in the early stages of
pregnancy have serious affects upon the embryo, but there is much
that remains hidden. Here lies a source of work for those
Authorities who are now responsible for the services to the Mother
and Child. It cannot be too often repeated that we tend to work
too long on a pattern laid down so many years ago.
The second great change has been the development of a
public consciousness of the importance of health. No longer do
we tolerate dust producing dust carts, nor public notices "Do not
spit." We now see food handled and produced in a hygienic state
far advanced from the days when the milkman came round with
a dip-can and dressed in a butcher's apron.
The producers of food-stuffs provide for the public, factory
wrapped food whenever this is practicable. The Italian ice-cream
man and his monkey have gone from the streets. The producer
of food has found that it pays to produce clean food in order to
meet the public demand. For mere interest I am extracting a page
from my report for the year 1926, which I think is a fair comment
on the progress made in the past 28 years.
"Clean handling and protection of food from fly and dust
contamination should be the principle of all buying and selling.
The public are still prepared to accept unprotected meat, unwrapped
bread, unbottled milk and to buy dust and fly contaminated
sweets, fruit and vegetables. Food stalls, especially
fish, should be abolished from the open-air market."