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Offices of the Board of Works for the Whitechapel District.
Public Health Department:
No. 15, Great Ale Street,
London, E.,
To the Board of Works, January 10th, 1899.
Gentlemen,
In arranging the various tables and statistics which I have included in
this Report, it has been my care with regard to them all, that they shall be
capable not only of explaining themselves, so far as the year under consideration
is concerned, but that they shall be available for comparison with any
and all of the previous fourteen years which have passed since I became
your Medical Officer of Health.
Before commencing my observations on the matters which have occupied
attention during the year 1898, it were well perhaps to notice what, according
to the Memorandum of the Local Government Board, a Medical Officer's
Report should contain. This may best be done by short extracts from the
Memorandum itself. "This report is to be for the year ending 31st
"December; the report is to be made to the Sanitary Authority as soon as
"practicable after the expiration of the year to which it relates, and should be
"in the hands both of the Sanitary Authority and of the Local Government
"Board, within, at most, five months from the end of the year."
"The report should be chiefly concerned with the conditions affecting
"health in the district, and with the means of improving these conditions.
"It should consider these subjects with reference to the past and future, as
"well as to the particular year; and the account of the sanitary state of the
"district generally should, while marking the point that has been reached in
"the sanitary state and administration of the district, indicate directions for
"further consideration and action."
"The sanitary history of the year under review, should include a record alike
"of the proceedings of the Medical Officer himself and of the proceedings taken
"under his direction or advice. The Medical Officer of Health, in reporting
"his proceedings and advice, should take special care to report fully and
"explicitly on the influences affecting or threatening to affect injuriously the
"public health within the district; and the causes, origin, and distribution of
"disease within the district may usefully be the subjects of annual record.
"An account should also be given, both of the actual circumstances of the
"district up to the end of the past year, and of any improvement or deteriora"tion
that has occurred during the year in conditions conducive to health or
"to disease. For example, a vigilant health officer has in his Annual Report
"an opportunity for pointing out any facts as to water supplies and house
"construction, conditions of storage, and of removal of refuse customary in the
"district; together with any facts as to the adequacy or inadequacy of means
"of isolation and of disinfection, and the like. And such a Health Officer,
"reporting on the diseases and their causes within the district, will generally
"have some instructive details to give, either of conditions newly productive
"of disease, or of matters that have been remedied with advantage to the
"public health."
"In making systematic inspections, as in much of his other action, the
"Medical Officer of Health will usually have required the assistance of the