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9
The general provision of health services in the area is
fully set out in Section III., where also is to be found an account
of the Council's propaganda work during the year.
During the year more houses were erected than during
any post-war year. The number was 1,083, and the vast
majority of these were erected on the Council's estate at
Eltham. This rapid increase has had some effect on overcrowding
in the Borough, but it has by no means provided
a solution of this problem. Even if it had there still remains
the problem of the huts at Eltham and Abbey Wood.
These hutments were built during the war years as a
temporary measure and, as the years go on, they require more
and more attention to keep them in a proper state of repair.
The housing figures for 1927, however, compare very
favourably indeed with those of 1926, when only 370 were
erected.
The work of the sanitary section of the department is
dealt with in Sections IV. and V., and partly in Section VI.
In the day's work of a sanitary inspector a great deal of change
has taken place in recent years, in that more and more time
is being devoted to the supervision of food supplies, not only
in their sale but in the conditions under which they are
prepared and stored pending sale. Under the Public Health
(Meat, etc.) Regulations, every carcase killed in the borough
has to be inspected. The immense increase in this side of
the work will be realised when it is pointed out that over
21,000 carcases were inspected last year mainly at the
slaughterhouse in Abbey Wood, whereas two years ago the
figure was 13,000.
The incidence of infectious disease was lower than in 1926,
mainly due to the absence of an epidemic of measles. Excluding
measles, the number of notifications was practically the
same as in 1926, but there was a definite fall in the incidence
of diphtheria and an increase in the case of scarlet fever. At
the end of the year there were 1,136 cases of pulmonary and