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Diphtheria cases have also been very far above the average,
especially in June, July, August and September, and out of the
143, 19 have died in the district and 26 in the hospitals and
other institutions outside.
The highest number of Erysipelas cases was in July, when
there were 12, but all through the year it has been above the
average, and out of the 77 cases 3 have died in the parish and 4
in the outlying institutions.
Enteric Fever.—There were 24 cases, and out of these 2 deaths.
Although the Public Health (London) Act has been in
force during the last twelve months, many of its important
provisions have not yet been put in operation, owing to its Byelaws
not having as yet been sanctioned by the Local Government
Board, but I am glad to be able to give a good account of the
general working of the Act in these parishes.
The appointment of a third sanitary inspector and a clerk to
my department, with the fact that your surveyor has been able,
in consequence of the satisfactory arrangements by which the
removal of dust and the street cleansing is being carried out, to
arrange for the transference of Inspector Lightfoot to my department,
to fill the post rendered vacant by Inspector Ashdown,
I was thereby enabled to direct that a house to house inspection
be made, independent of the daily routine work of the department,
one effect of which inspection has resulted in no less than 324
houses being provided with entirely new drains in the parish of
St. John alone, and I would point out to you the extreme
importance of the necessity for the continuance of this work.
But the provisions of the new Public Health Act have thrown
many new duties into the work of the department. Among many
of the new responsibilities is the enforcement of the requirements
as to underground rooms being transferred by the Act from
district surveyors to officers of the sanitary authority. Early in
the year the Sanitary Committee engaged Mr. John Foster as a
temporary inspector for the measurement and registration of
underground rooms, and I am pleased to say that nearly everyone
in the parish of St. John has been examined and the measurements
thereof entered in a register, which can be referred to in
any case of a room found to be illegally occupied. 173 notices
were issued, informing the owners or occupiers of rooms being
so illegally occupied as sleeping rooms, and in nearly every
case the notices have been complied with.
The registration of underground rooms in the parish of St.
Margaret's has still to be accomplished.