AN INSTRUCTIVE REPORT

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1908, Page 3

AN INSTRUCTIVE REPORT

An impressive and inspiring ilusjra* tion of what -can bo done almost-mn-conseiously in a feiv years by cumfala* tivo effort directed towards the Tim* provement of city sanitation is disclffsed in tho annual, report of the health office* for 4he County of London '(writes 4 London correspondent)' ** Smce strengthening of the halth laws in^B9l' the death rate has been gradually brought down to 15 1 per thousaad— ' the lowest point ever reached in**tha metropolitan district—and, this avemgej which was maintained in ' 1905 1906, is equivalent to a gain *of 30\per cent, during the 'interval of' sixteen years. But the health officer puts.Ttha matter in a more striking way. , J ,H« shows by a comparison of death . rates between the two years 1905 and 1906, on the ono hand, and the decennium 1891-1900 on the other, that in the^w^ first-named years thero has been a diminution of mortality equivalent to a saving of 19,000 lives in each' of tlfem, or a gain'of something like three-qpar-ters of a million years of existence. 'And "tiiis amelioration has been achieved ia spitp of vast dimcul ties— poverty, "^dospread ignorance and indifference, ;• and the dense congestion bf -maiiy areas occupied by the poor. Dealing >-ith' medical inspections of school children, Iho health .officer says .they* must* in* variably lead, sooner or .later, to^tha establishment of school clinics for^tha treatment' of "at Teast'the commonest derangements, such as eye, ear Zand skin troubles. Everywhere, too', - th« ' milk supply must bo improved, as a means of reducing the mortality from consumption. Apparently the Goyera* ment' ,vill have to take this rofortn »n hand. The Birmingham health report shows that about 14 per cent, of ■ <th© milk -sent daily into that city for '-public use "contains the' Jiving infection of tuberculosis." . ——————— ■« J>