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accordance with those of the Society of Medical Officers of Health,
who, at a former time, had passed a resolution to the effect—
"That it is desirable, having regard to the more effectual prevention of the
spread of zymotic disease by the agency of milk, that the special
sanitary supervision and inspection of cowsheds, dairies, and milk
shops, should be entrusted to the Local (i.e., Sanitary) Authorities,
the Medical Officers of Health, and the Sanitary Inspectors of the
respective districts."
Communications were addressed to the Lord President of the
Council, to the President of the Local Government Board, and to
the Vestries and the District Boards, with the object of preventing
the perpetuation of the error involved in placing the supervision of
cowsheds and dairies under the Metropolitan Board. Whether
they would have been attended by the desired success it boots not
now to enquire, for, owing to pressure of business, the Bill was
dropped, and it has not been re-introduced, although the necessity
for legislation, upon the lines of the Bill, has been fully admitted
by the Vice President of the Council, and by the Local Government
Board.
BAKEHOUSES.
In some of my previous annual reports I had occasion to
deprecate the transfer of the duty of supervising bakehouses from
the Sanitary Authority to the Factory Inspector, under the provisions
of "The Factory and Workshop Act, 1878," by which
"The Bakehouses Begulation Act, 1863" was repealed. The
result of the transfer was to put an end to the systematic inspection
of bakehouses in the metropolis as a whole, for the Factory
Inspectors were too few in number to take up the duty, which the
Sanitary Authorities, as a rule, ceased to perform, the result being
that many of the bakehouses fell into a deplorable state of neglect,
as testified by the reports of the Factory Inspectors themselves.
Happily, the representations addressed to the Government by the
Society of Medical Officers of Health and others, to which I
referred in my report for 188'2, supported, as they were, by the
admissions and the recommendations of the Chief Factory Inspector