View report page

SECTION C. — SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
In any consideration of needs for improvement of the
sanitary circumstances of the area, using this term in its
wider significance and not merely confining it to drainage
and sewerage and thinking in terms of what has now come to be
called environmental health, the one urgent need that leaps to
the mind is houses. Houses for the immediate need of the
long waiting lists and, not until that has been achieved or
we have gone some way towards achieving it, will Medical
Officers of Health be able to resume their traditional and
statutory housing responsibilities.
Food and Drugs Act. Maintenance of supervision over food
has been extensively carried out, as reference to the detailed work
on pages 45-48 of this report will show. The increasing availability
of normal ingredients of ice-cream has added considerably
to this aspect of public health work and, when it is realised that
there are 60 ice-cream premises registered in the district, it will
be readily understood that discriminative sampling of their
products is the only practical method with the staff at our
disposal.
The extent and results of the sampling carried out during
the year will be found on page 48.
Water Supply. The district is supplied by the Metropolitan
Water Board and by the Sutton District Water Company.
Their respective distributive areas being approximately the parishes
of Merton and Morden.
The supply of the Metropolitan Water Board is only sampled
infrequently as a routine, otherwise samples are taken when
circumstances indicate the necessity for local investigation.
The Board supplies copies of their official minutes in which the
results of the examinations are recorded.
Routine examinations of the Sutton District Water Company's
supply are undertaken by the Authorities in the supply
area upon an agreed rota, which provides for bacteriological and
chemical samples each month. The Company, in addition to the
examinations undertaken by their own full-time Chemist, arrange
for Consulting Chemists to undertake monthly examinations.
Copies of the reports of these Consulting Chemists are received
by local Medical Officers of Health whilst the records of the
Company's own analyses are available for inspection by the
Medical Officers.
There are three deep wells in the district, the supplies from
which are used mainly for industrial purposes. They are drawn
from beneath the London clay. The boreholes vary between
400 ft. and 500 ft. in depth and their capacity between 3,300
galls. and 7,000 galls. per hour.
42