Sanitary inspector

“ The sanitary inspector general, the directors of sanitary offices, and the physicians of sanitary stations and quarantine camps must be selected from among physicians regularly diplomaed either by a European faculty of medicine or by the Government. ”

“ Then, the sanitary inspector must have more effective control over the nuisances he discovers, and the only way to give him that is to make his 'intimations' equivalent to a legal notice. These intimations are, I understand, now often treated as waste paper. There are agents and owners of property, of the baser sort, who delight in thwarting and putting obstacles in the way of sanitary inspectors, and to such gentlemen I should give short shrift, showing no particular indulgence to the slum-owner generally. ”

“ The city was divided into twenty-nine sanitary districts, and to each district was assigned a competent physician as sanitary inspector, to make a house-to-house visitation, and to report upon every possible source of preventable disease and every nuisance dangerous to life or detrimental to health. ”

“ Outside London no definite qualification is required by the Local Government Board, but it is usual in county and municipal boroughs for a sanitary certificate to be demanded from candidates for the position of Inspector of Nuisances (the term used outside London for Sanitary Officials) . Men and Women Sanitary Inspectors possess equal rights of entry to premises and equal statutory powers for enforcing compliance with the law.
The duties of Women Sanitary Inspectors have become very varied and numerous during the past ten years ”

“ Special inspectors undertake the inspection and licensing of places used in connection with the preparation, storage, or sale of food, the investigation of cases of infectious disease and the disinfection of premises, also the supervision of stores and depots where dangerous goods are kept. A woman sanitary inspector is employed visiting the homes of people requiring her advice and attention. ”

“ In actual practice, the title of Inspector has in no way proved an obstacle to successful health visiting, as may be demonstrated by an enquiry into the work now being carried on by Women Sanitary Inspectors in Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Bradford, London, and other places. On the contrary, it has enabled officials to obtain an entry into dirty and insanitary places and to expose cases of neglect, which might otherwise have remained undiscovered.
The Health Visitor is usually paid a lower salary than the Woman Sanitary Inspector ”

“ General powers are reserved to the secretary of state, where he is satisfied that the Factory Act or law relating to public health as regards workplaces has not been carried out by any district council, to authorize a factory inspector during a period named in his order to act instead of the district council. Other general sanitary provisions administered by the government inspectors are the requirement in factories and workshops of washing conveniences where poisonous substances are used ”

“ On account of the climate he declined an offer of the chief engineership of the new line and returned to England. In consequence of an article on sanitary reform which he contributed to the 'Westminster Review,' he was appointed a superintending inspector under the Public Health Act, 1848, and reported on the sanitary condition of a large number of towns and districts, in many of which local boards were formed through his instrumentality (see his numerous Reports to the board published in 1849-51) . ”

“ As the City Inspector with his health wardens always appeared at Albany when a health bill was before the Legislature, denying vociferously the alleged unsanitary condition of the city, Mr. Eaton advised that the Association make a careful inspection of the The Fight for
the Bill city with its own inspectors. This inspection was organized by the Council of Hygiene and prosecuted during the summer of 1864 by young physicians, and was the most exhaustive study of the sanitary condition ever made of a city, even by officials. ”

“ Should the case arise, that the dead sets in motion the alarum, or that the nurses perceive a slight colour in the cheek, or a slight breathing, or a movement in the eye-lid, the inspector must immediately arrange that the body be brought into the fresh air of the re-animating chamber, which is properly warmed, and he will there adopt all the other means, on which he has received instructions from the Sanitary Board. ”

“ Sanitation has improved vastly in the last dozen years, though there is still a great need for more qualified, authoritative women sanitary inspectors. But no inspection and no subsequent tinkering can make a fundamentally unhealthy house a proper home for young children. ”

“ We want independent Medical Officers of Health—appointed by the County Council, and removable only by them—men trained up for this as a profession; we want Sanitary Inspectors, with a proper qualification, appointed with the Medical Officer's approval; we want that each Medical Officer should be informed as to all approaches of dangerous disease, and bound in his turn to supply the information for other neighbouring districts ”

“ The amount of work done varied considerably. In a well-administered municipality the number of Sanitary Inspectors had been increased, the number of inspections was high, and the work continuous and heavy. In some, however, the work was less satisfactorily done, and the old Vestry antipathy to the expenditure of money upon Inspectors appeared to have been handed on. ”

“ We are aware that this is both a difficult and delicate matter for any Minister of State to deal with, and we are also well aware that the rights of a citizen are to be considered and respected, but at the same time we think, that where it can be proved that a number of people living in small rooms are engaged in this work, under conditions physically and morally of a deplorable nature, some steps should be taken by which either sanitary inspectors, or inspectors under the Factory and Workshop Act, should be able to inquire into and remedy this state of things. ”

“ In addition thereto, and now more than ever of primary importance, was the great duty of inspection—inspection of houses, and of rooms in houses, and of workshops, and often the consequent proceedings for the abatement of nuisances, or the punishment of offenders.
“House-to-house inspection,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Islington in 1893, “is the only efficient remedy for extensive sanitary evils. It is the life and soul of sanitary work.” ”

“ The board has jurisdiction over all matters of public health and is composed of the following sub-departments: contagious diseases; medical inspection of schools: sanitary inspection; food inspection; inspection of milk and dairy farms; statistics; municipal laboratories; the municipal medical service. The sanitary inspection department covers the general sanitation of the dwellings, outhouses, lanes, etc. ”

“ These are facts which have come under my own observation; and though we have informed the sanitary inspectors of the evil, with a view of its remedy, we have failed to obtain their interference. Therefore, our opinion is, that if an employer should please to give his workmen the work to take home, he should be bound to make provision by which that home should be registered; and we have simply to ask if you can see your way to introduce some clause in the bill you contemplate bringing forward by which it may be compulsory upon an employer to register any house or shop in which his work is done. ”

“ In England, the Public Health Acts and By-laws are carried out by the various borough or district authorities, who appoint inspectors especially to study the health of the public with regard to sanitary arrangements. The inspectors have special powers to deal with all improper or defective food, or with any defects in buildings that may affect its cleanly preparation. ”

“ The inspectors, on whom falls the burden of ensuring compliance with the Factory Laws and regulations made under them, are controlled by the department of the central government known as the Home Office; their work on the whole has been well done, and the conditions of factory and workshop life have greatly improved. Some portion of the sanitary supervision of these work-places falls on the local Sanitary Authority ”

“ Persons subject to these tiresome and inconvenient diseases would stand a very poor chance of regular and well-paid employment as teachers, sanitary inspectors, journalists and typists; so teachers, sanitary inspectors, journalists and typists have repressed the tendency to swoons and vapours. ”

“ The foregoing list is no exaggeration of the onerous duties of the town surveyor, and it seems to be a grievous mistake that this officer, whose importance in all practical sanitary [6] work cannot be over-stated (as without him no useful municipal work could go on) has been left unprotected by the Public Health Act of 1875. ”

“ There is in the city one principal sanitary officer, a duly qualified medical man elected by the Municipal Council, whose sole duty it is to watch over the sanitary welfare of the place. Under him, as sanitary officers, are all the medical men who form the poor law medical staff. ”

“ Private laundries that do not come under the inspection of the sanitary officer are absolutely forbidden. It is incumbent on all who send clothes to the public laundry from an infected house to state the fact. ”

“ By such inspection of workpeople in the places of work do you conceive it would be practicable to influence largely the sanitary condition of the labouring population without inspection of the private houses?—Yes ”

“ Without such protection, sanitary legislation cannot, in the words of the Royal Sanitary Commission, be ‘active and effective,’ because local officers are too dependent on their immediate employers to be thoroughly efficient. ”

“ In many cases the unprotected surveyor may be required to report to a protected medical officer the negligence of his own employers. No local surveyor or engineer can be expected to give cordial and active assistance in compulsory sanitary work when he is conscious that his action would be opposed to the views or the interests of his employers, the public upon whom he is dependent. The existence of such a distinction between the medical officer and surveyor under the same board will produce a want of harmony in interest, and must lead to a divergence of action between the two departments. ”

“ That for the prevention of the disease occasioned by defective ventilation, and other causes of impurity in places of work and other places where large numbers are assembled, and for the general promotion of the means necessary to prevent disease, that it would be good economy to appoint a district medical officer independent of private practice, and with the securities of special qualifications and responsibilities to initiate sanitary measures and reclaim the execution of the law. ”

“ One of the members of this board of health must usually be a physician. In large towns and cities a qualified health officer, who is always a physician, is employed on part time or full time. The local boards of health and the health officers have charge of quarantine and disinfection, the inspection of food and milk, and the enforcement of sanitary regulations. They also grant permits for the maintenance of slaughter-houses and other establishments which have a direct or indirect relation to the public health. ”

“ In many unions it would be desirable to appoint at once a medical inspecting officer for a short time, to examine and report upon sanitary deficiencies, and this more especially in towns where much sickness is produced by neglect of the most simple precautions. ”

“ One of the provisions of the Bill was, as I have before stated, that every district Poor Law medical officer should be the health officer of his district, and that his reports of insanitary conditions should be sent to the Board of Guardians, many members of which Board would be found to be the principal offenders against sanitary requirements. ”

“ The city system was bad throughout; but at the very center of evil stood what was dignified by the name of the ``Health Department.'' At the head of this was a certain Boole, who, having gained the title of ``city inspector,'' had the virtual appointment of a whole army of so-called ``health inspectors,'' ``health officers,'' and the like, charged with the duty of protecting the public from the inroads of disease ”

“ The conditions of the Public Health Acts, and of the Factory and Workshop Regulation Acts, are utterly disregarded, and existing systems of inspection are entirely inadequate to enforce their provisions even if no divided authority tended to weaken the hands of the Inspectors. ”

“ It seems not to be a movement of evasion by getting up a cry for more "government inspection," but a voluntary association of qualified men who are ready to meet the responsibilities of the task they undertake. Assuming that defective drainage is a "great enemy to public health," and that "there is a terrible absence of all supervision of sanitary arrangements," the Sanitary Assurance Association will make a careful investigation of the health-conditions of houses, and give certificates to those that are in perfect sanitary order. ”

“ Do you think that body would be available for the execution of sanitary measures?—Certainly not as compared with the Board of Guardians: the Commissioners of Sewers meet only monthly, and have no medical officers and no relieving officers. The Board of Guardians meets weekly, and their officers are constantly at work, night and morning. We have not even waited for the landlords, where prompt measures appeared to be necessary for the removal of any active cause of disease. ”