View report page

9
standards of food hygiene. Adulteration of food today is no longer a
serious matter, what occurs being more likely adversely to affect the
pocket than the health of the consumers. Milk is now produced under
hygienic conditions and so much of it is being heat-treated and so
rendered free from pathogenic organisms that non-pulmonary tuberculosis
has virtually been eliminated and there is almost a complete absence of
milk-borne outbreaks. Housing, of course, remains a most important
matter. It is probable though that much of the work which is being done
today to see to the improvement of the structural condition of houses
would have been over-shadowed some years ago by the more urgent
attention called for to deal with houses of lower standards of fitness. In
the home the Inspector is concerned today with the many factors which
contribute one way or another to the very heavy toll of accidents in the
home. The very high standard of water supplied by the Water Company
is now being taken for granted. While there is the occasional complaint,
it is only of chalkiness or gassiness, very rarely of turbidity. There is
never any apprehension of water-borne disease and today thoughts
about water and water supplies are mostly about the question of adding
fluorine to it in small doses with a view to reducing dental caries in the
consumers. With the development of atomic power quite new problems
have to be faced and all in a health department have to know something
of the subject to appreciate the hazards of radiation. Instead of being
concerned for so much of his time with the infectious diseases which are at
least for the time being, of so much less importance, the epidemiologist
turns his enquiries to the growing incidence of cancer of the lung and the
increasing number of deaths, more especially among men, from coronary
thrombosis. In regard to this, not sufficient is known of its aetiology to
enable educative work to be carried out with a view to changing the
feeding or other habits of people in the hope of stamping out this rise.
From the first the supervision of factories was carried out by a Government
department. It has remained so with the result that as yet, there are
no signs of industrial medicine being linked-up with the work of local
authorities, health services and local sanitary authorities which have such
responsibilities in the environmental health of the people in the district,
including the conditions under which they live, have almost no responsibilities
in regard to the conditions of places in which they work beyond
their obligations to see that at certain premises there are sufficient
sanitary conveniences. This situation is shortly to be changed in regard to
the office worker who will then benefit by supervision, as does the shop
worker.
In the years before the war the Council was engaged in laying down
foundations and developing the various branches of the health services
tor which it was responsible. The war of course, held up further progress
and then came the changes brought about by the National Health Service
Act by which the personal services were transferred to the County Council
and the hospitals to the Minister, to be the responsibility of the Hospital
Management Committee on behalf of the Regional Hospital Board. The
Royal Commission on Local Government in the London Area reported in
1960. If their recommendations are given effect to, the Council will again