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apparent symptoms until the disease has been incubated for a further day or so.
Therein lies the danger.
These contacts are all visited daily by my inspectors or myself, until the
risk of disease occurring has passed.
A little while ago an elderly man returned from abroad and stayed at an
hotel in the Borough; we were notified he had travelled on a steamship which
had carried a single case of typhoid. In such cases the contacts are visited by the
inspectors; this particular man was found to have a "cold" and had consulted
a practitioner. I was able to assist the practitioner by suggesting the
advisability of further investigation in hospital. It was subsequently confirmed
that the man actually was suffering from typhoid. In the meantime,
due precautions had been taken to deal with the room and articles at the hotel.
Further contacts were investigated and no other case developed.
Frequently all this preventive work has little to show for it, but a single
case, if missed, and later confirmed as positive could lead to an epidemic in
the Borough.
PEST DESTRUCTION
The service provided by the Health Department not only includes the
carrying out of rodent destruction, but nowadays has extended to a wider field.
Requests are frequently received from residents for advice on identification and
methods of eradication of household insect pests, the two most serious causes
for complaint during the past year being wasps and carpet beetles. There are
probably many householders in the Borough who are concerned to find carpets
damaged by moths. We have found that in some cases the damage has, in fact,
been caused by carpet beetles, which have given rise to an increasing number of
complaints in the Borough.
KEEPING THE BOROUGH CLEAN
I am obliged to Mr. A. S. Knolles, the Borough Surveyor, for the following
report about drainage, sewerage and public cleansing:—
Drainage and Sewerage.
The continued restriction of capital expenditure has again meant that no
works of major improvement have been possible in the Borough. No serious
flooding by storms of the surface water sewers has occurred. The new sewer
to Eel Pie Island is proving a success and there have been a number of applications
to connect W.C.s and drainage from premises to this sewer. The
investigation of the possibility of polluting matter entering the surface water
system has progressed, and in some instances trade waste has been found to be
wrongly connected to the sewer, and the drainage of factories is being reorganised
so as to separate the foul from the surface water drains and an
improvement is confidently anticipated.
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