London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

St George (Southwark) 1898

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark]

This page requires JavaScript

22 Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
Summary.
Houses and tenements respecting which representations were made to the Vestry
that they were in a state so dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human
habitation.
Houses and Tenements 3
Inhabitants 17
From the year 1892 to 1898, applications have been made for Closing Orders in
the case of 322 houses and tenements unfit for human habitation.
These dwellings have sheltered upwards of 1,517 persons, and I think some steps
should be taken to re-house those whose occupations necessitate their living in or
near the district. To effect this object, the necessary powers are given the Local
Authority under Part III. of the Act.
As in previous years, I would again respectfully draw the attention of your
Sanitary Authority to this pressing problem.
I have also advised demolition of Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, Red Cow Alley, of 25.
Barron's Place, and of 6a & 9, Emmett's Cab Yard. In the case of the houses in Red
Cow Alley action has been taken by the Vestry.
Bakehouses under the New (1895) Act.
The general provisions of the Act enforces 400 cubic feet of air space for each
workman engaged in a retail bakehouse. They also appear to allow the Local
Authorities to proceed against the owner as well as the occupier, for certain offences
committed in any such bakehouses.
The special requirements of the Act as regards retail bakehouse are as follows:—
"Section 27.—(1) Sections 34 and 35 of the principal Act shall apply to every
bakehouse, and so much of those Sections as limits the operation
thereof to cities, towns, and places having a population of
more than five thousand persons, shall be repealed.
"(2) In Section 15 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1883, the words
"which was not so let or occupied before the first day of June,
1883,' shall be repealed.
"(3) A place underground shall not be used as a bakehouse, unless it is
so used at the commencement of this Act, and if any place is so
used in contravention of this Act it shall be deemed to be a
workshop not kept in conformity with the principal Act."
It will be seen, after thirty years of tentative legislation, Government has
recognised the fact that underground bakehouses should cease to exist. The prohibition
for any underground workplace used afresh as a bakery after the 1st January, 1896,
may bo reasonably regarded as a first step towards their entire removal.
The Notification of Infectious Diseases.
Certain maladies have been made notifiable in London since the passing of the
Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act, 1889. They comprise:—Small-pox, cholera,
diphtheria, membranous croup, erysipelas, the disease known as scarlatina, or scarlet
fever, and the fevers known by any of the following names: typhus, typhoid,
enteric, relapsing, continued or puerperal.
In 1898 the sum in fees paid to medical practitioners for notifying 681 infectious
cases in St. George's amounted to £70 6s. 6d.