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8
Metropolitan Borough of Backney
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1949
Public Health Department,
Town Hall, Hackney, E.8
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.
This Report on the health of the Borough in 1949 has again
been prepared in the form requested during the war and subsequent
years by the Ministry of Health.
In my Report for last year, I referred to the fact that the general
standard of food inspection and supervision of food premises and the
conditions under which food was sold could not receive the attention
which would have been considered essential prior to the war, and
stated that it had been necessary for some years to allocate only one
inspector for such duties as sampling and inspections following
applications for registration of food premises.
I also commented that in view of the insistence on clean food
from the point of view of prevention of poliomyelitis, the carelessness
shown in dealing with the sale of food, particularly ice-cream,
which has become, apparently, a necessary article of food to children
during the summer months when poliomyelitis is prevalent, such
advice as "For your child's own protection as well as for the protection
of others teach him also to wash his hands without fail after
using the W.C. and before sitting down to meals," which is contained
in the official pamphlet of the Central Council for Health
Education, is really ludicrous,