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25
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CHIEF SANITARY INSPECTOR.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors:
ladies and Gentlemen,
The following Report upon the work of your sanitary
Inspectors for the year 1946 is submitted for your consideration.
The Report refers to that part of public health
activities which is now generally known as environmental
hygiene. The main sections of the work are those most
conveniently included under the headings of general
Sanitary Circumstances (Section C), Housing (Section D),
and inspection and Supervision of rood (Section E). This
is the twenty-eighth such Report I have been permitted to
present to your corporation.
If it is accepted that the health of the people
depends primarily upon the conditions under which they live
and work, it is unnecessary to lay further stress upon the
importance of the work. Practically everything upon which
depends the comfort of the family and of the individual,
e.g., reasonable housing, pure and wholesome food supplies,
and clean air to breathe etc., are matters which receive
attention from the sanitary inspectors.
The very title of sanitary inspector', however, is
one which completely fails to indicate to the man in the
street' the full extent of the duties which the modern
counterpart of the old-time 'inspector of nuisances' is
now required to perform.
Hut I must refrain from pursuing this line of thought,
interesting though it may be, as the need for brevity is
as great now as during any of the war years, for this reason
also, the report is in the main a factual statement, with
little, or no, embellishments beyond those which are necessary
to make it readable.
Early in the year Mr.E. S.Herbert returned after six
years service in H.K. Forces. Mr. Herbert was a clerk and
qualified as a sanitary inspector in July 1939; he enlisted
at the outbreak of war. On his return he was appointed as
junior additional sanitary inspector, and almost immediately
he settled down to his new duties, and commenced to study
for the further qualification of inspector of meat and other
foods.
Lr.J.B.Facer was appointed additional sanitary
inspector in iay 1946 to fill the vacancy created by the
transfer of Mr.F.D.Harvey to clerical duties.
Mr. P.M .Dale, clerk, returned to the office at the end
of May, and took over the duties previously carried out by
Mr. Herbert. The establishment was not complete by the end
of the year.