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REPORT OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council
of Harrow.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report on the Health and Sanitary
Circumstances of the District for the year 1947.
Each year since the creation of the Harrow Urban District this report
has included a chapter on the maternity and child welfare services
presented to the Council first as a maternity and child welfare authority
and later as welfare authority. For the last two years a chapter dealing
with the local school health services has been included because of the
Council's responsibility under the scheme of Divisional Administration.
This report for 1947 will be the last for a full year presented to the Council
as a welfare authority, because of the changes brought about by the
National Health Service Act of 1946.
Of the eight pages of the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of
Health to the Harrow Urban Sanitary Authority for the year 1880, six
were taken up with the question of sewerage disposal plant. The Medical
Officer of Health was apparently referring to a recurring item, the serious
defects in the house drainage and in the public sewerage of the town,
and discussed at length the question of land treatment and of tank
treatment with chemical precipitation. The Board was reminded that
they had made no provision for the isolation of cases of small pox or
other infectious diseases, and reference was made to the many complaints
about the water supply. In 1887, the Medical Officer of Health drew
attention to the absence of water from a number of water closets. In
that year the Board acquired land on which to build an isolation hospital.
The sick were removed by a " fly," which was difficult to disinfect.
Attention was drawn to the advisability of having a dry impervious area
adjoining houses, as it was felt that the sodden state of the ground surface
near dwellings was responsible for much illness, especially illness affecting
the throat. For the same reason, it was recommended that ponds and
other accumulations of stagnant water should be filled in. In 1888 the
infant mortality rate was 96. Gratification was expressed at the low
death rate of 11.4. The Medical Officer of Health regretted the Board's
decision not to proceed with the erection of an isolation hospital, as he
felt the district was being deprived of a real defence against the introduction
and extension of infectious diseases. In that year a public
enquiry by the Local Government Board resulted in a decision that the
authority should provide a public mortuary. The conditions of private
roads called for adverse comment. The state of slaughter houses left
much to be desired and the Medical Officer of Health favoured the
provision of a public abattoir. At this time the town was in general well
supplied with water, but it was only partially sewered and what sewers
there were varied considerably in age and quality. In 1889, the district
with a population of 6,006, suffered from an epidemic of scarlet fever
with 63 cases. " The disease was, for the most part, of mild description,