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5
TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS
of the
Walthamstow Urban District Council.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to present to you my Annual Report for 1925.
This is the twenty-eighth which I have had the privilege of
presenting to your Authority.
Unlike the four previous ones this is a "Survey Report" and
contains information which no doubt is quite familiar to most of
you, but is given by request of the Ministry of Health. The Report
is compiled on the lines and under the headings as suggested in
Circular 648 issued by the Ministry of Health.
The first printed Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health
for the District was that for 1889 and consisted of six pages of
printed matter and five statistical tables.
Prior to my appointment in 1898 and on to 1906, the Medical
Officer of Health was a part time Officer whose work was mainly
consultative and mildly supervisory of that of the Inspector of
Nuisances and his Assistants who devoted their time and energies
to defective drains and similar nuisances.
The Notification of Infectious Diseases Act was passed in 1889, and
since that time the man in the street and those who govern him have
completely changed their outlook on Public Health matters and
have been gradually educated to realise that whilst the house and
its surroundings play no unimportant part in the well being of the
community, the citizen, individually and collectively, is the centre
round which all Public Health work now revolves.
In 1901, the Isolation Hospital, with accommodation for 42 beds
was opened, with the result that to-day we have fewer cases of
Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria with a population of 130,800 than we
had at that period when the population was 95,000.
In 1905, the first woman Health Visitor was appointed and in
1906 "an office" and a part time Clerk was provided for the Medical
Officer of Health and in 1909 the Medical Inspection of School
Children was undertaken.