[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Salford County Borough.

  • Salford (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, Salford County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/192 (page 16)
    Control of Insect Pests—Municipal Disinfestation Service. The volume and scope of operations in this field and some indication of the economic aspect of the service are outlined in the following tables :— TABLE 1 Number of Insects attacked. operations. Bedbugs . . 541 Cockroaches (three species) . . 444 Two-winged flies (housefly and blow flies). . 59 Fleas . . 28 Lice (three species) . . 11 Crickets . . 2 Mosquitoes and midges .. . . 9 Food-beetles and mites . . 6 Silverfish . . 2 Wood-boring beetles. . 2 Moths . . 11 Earwigs and garden beetles . . 4 Wasps . . 3 Total . . 1,122 This total of 1,122 does not include routine operations at hospitals, canteens and dining centres under the control of the Director of Education, nor the large volume of disinfestation work carried out in connection with slum clearance, in all of which cases the treatment administered is for general insect control. It should also be noted that this is a total of primary operations and does not include retreatment after reinspection which is so frequently found to be necessary when dealing with the cockroach family of insects. The next table shows the wide variety of types of building requiring treatment for insect infestation. Only two cases warrant special mention : {a) a large warehouse in which thousands of beds and pillows were stored was discovered in the summer time to be heavily infested with clothes moths. The owners of the stock, faced with serious loss appealed for assistance and a few days work by the Department’s operators subsequently proved to have relieved the situation ; (b) a timber yard, buildings, and kilns, were discovered to be infested with a colony of the large Australian cockroach, an insect which up to the present time is confined to Dock warehouses. The firm concerned were importers of tropical timber. The treatment given by the Corporation’s service eradicated the pest.