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time was taken up with the visits, measurements, and reports necessary in connection with
this; the prospect that these houses will be registered compulsorily when the legal sanction
becomes operative is most welcome, so that early information on this type of use of a
premises can enable the staff to inform owners of the sanitary requirements of any dwelling
for a prescribed number of persons before occupation, instead of coming after occupation
to investigate whether any fault is being committed.
Patterns of disease change gradually over the years, and so the pattern of planning for
health varies also. While the reduction of poverty, the improvement of the physical health of
children, the eradication of some infectious diseases and the limitation of others, the improvement
of standards of housing, and the greater care taken in the handling of food, are
reducing the need for so great a concentration of work on control of infection, sanitary
defects in houses and the supervision of food premises, the problems of increasing pollution
of air, by smoke and sulphur, and by other industrial gases, the increasing pollution of
water from industrial and domestic sources, the increasing deterioration in mental stability
shown by the statistics of crime, the increase in drug taking, the longing for publicity, the
seeking of sensation, the increasing number of deaths from diseases associated with stress,
the increasing use of nuclear fission products, have altered the orientation of the work in the
Department. That the old problems remain, however, is evidenced by the reports, in the
following pages, on Smallpox, Dysentery, and Vermin Infestation, and no slackening of care
can be permitted.
Much trouble has been taken by everyone who has been asked to contribute information
for this report, and I am sincerely grateful for this, and also for the work of the Department
staff both in the preparation of this report and throughout the year.
I am, Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
luwgaul a. Glass
Medical Officer of Health.
Manor House, Southall.
Telephone Numbers:
SOU 3621-2.
SOU 5060.
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