View report page

12
and other contagious diseases will occur, notwithstanding all the efforts
of the police in removing promptly from the house every person who is
reported to he suffering from a contagious disease, and causing the room from
which the sick person has been removed to he closed for a certain period, and
submitting both the bedding and room to thorough disinfection by means of
sulphurous acid vapour.
The Act for the well ordering of common lodging-houses, commonly
called the Common Lodging-Houses' Act, came into operation in the latter
end of the year 1851. This Act has, therefore, now been in force for nearly 20
years, and it has had a very beneficial influence upon the health of those people,
who, before the passing of this Act, used to crowd together, regardless of
decency and all sanitary laws, in the common lodging-houses in the Metropolis.
The provisions of this Act were further extended by the Common
Lodging-Houses' Act, 1853. But since that time various Sanitary Acts have
been passed, which have been put in operation by the several local Boards in
the Metropolis, whereby a great improvement in the public health has been
effected. The diffusion of information by the public press and the
sanitary reports of the Medical Officers, have so enlightened the public
mind, that the various sanitary improvements which were thought so highly
of some years ago, are now considered to be very far short of the requirements
of the present day. It is, therefore, necessary that the Common
Lodging-Houses' Act should be amended, so that the general sanitary condition
of these premises may be still further improved. As these Acts were in
operation before the passing of the Metropolis Local Management Act, which
provided that each District should have a Medical Officer of Health, it would
now be desirable so to amend the Common Lodging-Houses' Acts as to place
all matters relating to the sanitary condition of them under the charge of
the local Boards, so that the Sanitary Officers of the District might
assist the police in carrying out the sanitary requirements of these places.
I have been induced to draw the attention of the Board to the state of the
common lodging-houses in this District, in consequence of the Police Inspectors
having recently received instructions to make me acquainted with every
case of fever which had occurred in these houses, and to require of me a
certificate that every room in which a fever case occurred had been closed
for a certain period, and had been thoroughly disinfected.
In order to comply with this request, I thought it necessary to inspect
the room from which a fever patient had been removed, and to give directions
as to the mode in which such room should be disinfected. Upon my observe
ing the defective state of the sanitary condition of some of these houses, I
wrote to the Chief Commissioner of the Police upon the subject, and I have
reason to believe that some of my suggestions for improving the sanitary
arrangements of these places will receive clue attention and consideration. I
have not, until the recent prevalence of relapsing fever, inspected any of the
common lodging-houses in this District; but from a letter which I received