View report page

15
Sanitary Works Performed during the Quarter ending
30th December, 1876.
The following return shows the amount of work done by the Sanitary
Inspectors during the Quarter ending 30th December, 1876.
Number of inspections of houses as shown in the official returns 3067
Houses specially visited 210
Houses specially re-visited 645
Preliminary notices served, such notices embracing 400 premises 219
Compulsory orders issued, embracing 252 premises 71
Summonses heard at Police Courts, under Sanitary Act 1
,, ,, ,, Adulteration Act 3
Cellars used as dwellings discontinued for such use 2
Cases of overcrowding and indecent occupation abated 1
Houses in which rooms or passages have been whitewashed 176
Booms disinfected with sulphurous-acid gas, after the occurrence of
small-pox, fever, and scarlet-fever therein 32
Articles disinfected in rooms, consisting of beds, bedding, clothing, &c. 256
Yards of houses paved or the pavement repaired 76
Drains in houses improved 75
Dust-bins provided 26
Privies lime-washed, cleansed and repaired 140
Water supply provided or improved 11
Nuisances from dung and other offensive matter removed 14
Area gratings, cellar flaps, &c., repaired 7
Animals kept so as to be a nuisance removed 2
I have deemed it advisable for the guidance of your Board, to insert in
this Report, a few extracts from a paper issued by the Local Government
Board, entitled—
"Memorandum on Hospital Accommodation to be given by
Local Authorities.
"A LARGE part of the mortality of England is caused by diseases which spread
readily by infection from person to person; such as scarlatina, typhus and small-pox.
In order to prevent the extension of such diseases in neighbourhoods where they have
begun, it is of the utmost importance that, in addition to whatever other sanitary
measures may be requisite, every practicable endeavour should be made to separate
the sick from the healthy. Such separation is comparatively easy, if means to
attain it are taken early, while cases of the disease are very few: but any interval of
delay allows the cases of sickness to multiply, and perhaps at last to become so
numerous that endeavours to isolate them cannot succeed. These considerations are
especially important with regard to the poorer classes of the population, whose
usually crowded and ill-ventilated dwellings give extreme facilities for infection ; and
among these classes, the sick, generally speaking, cannot be separated from the
healthy, except in proportion as they can be removed from home into proper hospital
accommodation provided for their reception.
Under section 131 of the Public Health Act, 1875, every Sanitary Authority
(whether Urban or Rural) has power to provide 'for use of the inhabitants within
its district, hospitals or temporary places for the reception of the sick.' When this
provision has been made, any Justice may order the removal to such place of any
person suffering from any dangerous infectious disease, if he is without proper lodging
or accommodation, or lodged in a room occupied by more than one family, or is on
board any ship or vessel,