[Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council.

  • Staffordshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Staffordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was merely a coincidence may be open to question, but it follows, I think, that, if nuisances did not prevail in and about the courts and dwellings, the flies would not be so likely to carry about the germs of disease and deposit them on food. Foul privy-middens, collections of dirt and manure (especially stable manure), and unpaved back yards are most important factors, all matters of detail, the abatement of which ought not to be a serious difficulty. My experience, however, is that these things are very much neglected, most of them are recurring nuisances, which should be subject to a limit of a very definite character. “ As regards death from diarrhoea amongst older children, in my October report I mentioned the possibility of the ice-cream vendor having assisted the outbreak. I had no proof, but it was something more than a suspicion. He was very busy during the hot days immediately preceding the outbreak. I would like to see this useless luxury abolished altogether. These men generally come from outside the district and one does not know what their circumstances or surroundings are like. They may be using polluted water, and they usually live in the poorer class of houses—the slums in fact, where there are any. “ Amongst the cheap luxuries which the working popula¬ tion allow their children to indulge in, I regard the ice-cream as one of the most dangerous. A bye-law should be passed making it an offence for these men to parade the streets with their barrows, and especially to prohibit their waiting outside the schools to tempt the children. It they are to sell this stuff at all, it should be in some fixed place, such as a shop, where samples can be taken and some supervision exercised.” The Medical Officer of Health of the Borough of Burslem, one of the “ black list ” districts, where the infant death- rate was 183, attributes the mortality largely to infantile diarrhoea. The Notification of Births Act has been adopted in this district and came into force in May, 1908. The Medical Officer of Health of Cannock Urban District writes:—“ With regard to the Notification of Births Act, which is adoptive, it is deferred for the present. But if the