[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council.

  • Staffordshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/136 (page 6)
    follows :—Two days in each week the inspector is engaged in obtaining samples for analysis from the various sewage works in the County and from streams at fixed points, notice being taken of the conditions at the works visited, and observations being made as to the depth and rapidity of flow of the water in the streams in question, in order to arrive at the rate of discharge, so as to allow, as far as possible, of one analytical result being compared with another under varying conditions of rain-fall, &c. Now and again, in consequence of some special report received with reference to river pollution, the routine work has to be interrupted, and I have made it a practice, under these circum¬ stances, so to direct the work of the Inspector that the time spent in such extraneous inspections shall be acquired at the expense of the rural inspections, rather than of the sample collecting, thereby insuring non-interference with the continuity and regularity of the visits to sewage works and the special points of observation on main streams; at the same time, although these inspections are made with regularity, the order observed in visiting sewage works is vai'ied from time to time, and the essence of the inquiry consists in the visits being of a surprise nature. As the inspection of each district is completed, the river inspector reports the details to me, and, having verified these by a personal inspection in company with him, I draw up a report, which is embodied in my usual monthly report to the Sanitary Committee, and, if approved of, it is forwarded to the authorities interested. Up to the present time, besides the complete information recorded as to the conditions of sewage disposal in urban districts, twelve of the 22 rural districts in the administrative county, with a joint population of 159,605, and covering an area of 702 square miles, have been inspected and reported upon. As regards the inspection of sewage works and streams, 294 observations and analyses have been recorded, representing an average of over seven for each works and point of observation on streams, there being 27 of the former and 13 of the latter. In view of the powers which have recently been conferred on County Councils under the Isolation Hospitals Act, 1893, for some time past I have been engaged in an inquiry into the existing provision for infectious cases in the administrative county, and I have prepared a report upon the subject for the information of a special Sub-Committee, which has been appointed to consider what steps the Council should be recommended to take in the exercise of their powers. As it is likely that the question will soon come prominently to the front, the Sanitary Committee have instructed me to embody my special report on the subject here, so that each member of the Council may have the opportunity of judging of the requirements of the County, as regards isolation accom¬ modation. Another important matter which, with the approval of the