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Of the six notifications of Poliomyelitis received, one
death occurred and two suffered some residual paralysis.
Inspection of Food Premises and Catering Establishments
continued throughout the year and was combined with personal
propaganda to the Managers and Employees engaged in the handling
of food, A particularly gratifying figure in connection
with the hygiene of food is that for the results of the
analyses of ice cream samples, of 90 samples taken at various
times from the different manufacturers, no less than 84 were
returned as GRADE I Ice Cream and no poor grade (GRADE IV)
samples were Obtained.
There was a significant increase in the number of visits
requiring to be paid by the Sanitary Inspectors throughout the
year and as a result of this work the number of housing defects
remedied rose from 989 in 1952 to 1,896 in 1953.
The year was a noteworthy one from the point of view of
Public Health in the Borough as a real start was made with the
resumption of the work of slum clearance, something which has
not been possible since 1939. An area of 4.98 acres was
scheduled for clearance and work begun in rebuilding on the site.
One of the most satisfactory events in the life of a Medical
Officer of Health is to be able to ask for the removal of families
from overcrowded and slum dwellings, to see them transferred to
decent homes and then to see the unhealthy insanitary heartbreaking
and morale breaking dwellings giving place to healthy airy and comfortable
homes, and this particular area of slum housing had been
giving concern in the Public Health Department for many years
before the War.
Following the great fog of December 1952 the amount of
pollution of the atmosphere and the effects of this pollution
were very much in the public mind during 1953 and complaints with
regard to specific instances of nuisance from smoke were somewhat
more numerous and necessitated an increased amount of time spent
on obsarvation of particular chimneys,, It is therefore pleasant
to record that further low record figures were obtained from the
testing apparatus during certain months of the year and also that
the figures for Brentford and Chiswick continued to compare very
favourably with those obtained in other parts of the Greater
London Area.
Work on the Welfare of Old People continued and a number of
cases were brought to the attention of the Public Health Department
for assistance. These cases very often required a considerable
amount of visiting and investigation as the nature of the
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