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6
early part of 1940, also failed to put in an appearance. This failure
has since proved to be mere postponement, but since the heavy
incidence occurred in the summer months rather than in the early
months of the year there have been far fewer respiratory complications,
and even though ultimately the outbreak proves to have
been of the same magnitude as the expected incidence again this
mere postponement will prove to have been of advantage. There
are those who see in these alterations in the outbreaks of infections
which have occurred since the commencement of hostilities an
association with action taken because of the war, namely, the effects
of evacuation and of school closure. While the fact that these
major departures from the expected should occur at the same time
as these vast alterations in the living of the susceptible members
of the community suggests that the matter is more than a mere
coincidence, before too much can be ascribed to these changes
following evacuation it should be appreciated that variations in
behaviour of epidemic diseases have occurred in other countries
not similarly the subject of evacuation; that the changes in behaviour
in the epidemic diseases were demonstrated in neutral
areas, that is, in districts in which there would have been no major
flow of population either in or out and no major departures in the
practice of opening schools; that the population that evacuated
was still only a portion of the population at risk (i.e. the risk of
infection) and not anything like the whole population ; that the
evacuation, even on this partial scale, was, to a very great extent,
only temporary, and the general effect not on a very much greater
scale than occurs ordinarily in the month of August.
The third interim report of the Local Government and Publi(
Health Consolidation Committee, set up with a view to recommending
consolidation in Local Government and Public Health
law, dealt with enactments relating to food. The Committee found
that one of the most difficult questions to be decided was which
local authority should enforce those provisions of the Bill which
reproduced the law administered by the food and drugs authorities.
This subject had been fully considered by the Royal Commission
on Local Government, which reported in 1929, and which recommended
that the administration of the Food and Drugs (Adulteration)
Act, 1928, and the appointment of public analysts should be
assigned to county councils and county borough councils ; that
councils of county districts should retain the right to procure
samples and take proceedings; and the county council should be
empowered if it thought fit to contribute towards the cost incurred
by the council of a county district. This recommendation was not
acceptable to those members of the Committee representing local
government associations. The Committee, however, was in entire
agreement that the population of an area in 1881 was out of date
as a criterion of fitness to administer these Acts, and that a
definition in terms of boroughs having police establishments and