Dr. R. Deane Sweeting's report to the Local Government Board upon the general sanitary circumstances and administration of the borough of Poole, with special reference to dealing with infectious diseases.

  • Sweeting, R. Deane.
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. R. Deane Sweeting's report to the Local Government Board upon the general sanitary circumstances and administration of the borough of Poole, with special reference to dealing with infectious diseases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    water-closets, usually oi modern short-hopper type, with two- gallon flushing cisterns, and (2) pails, usually of galvanised iron. These number in all some 500, of which about 200 are in Ham- worthy, and 200 in the outlying portions of Hranksonie. Their contents are removed with fair regularity by the town council, acting through the inspector of nuisances • and his men, who dispose of them to farmers. Refuse is collected, in covered carts chiefly, by employees of the borough surveyor’s department, daily in those parts of Poole town and not less frequently than one week throughout the borough. It is deposited at present at four ‘‘ tips,” viz., at Baiter; at the Ladies’ Walk, Seldown; at a gravel pit in Victoria Hoad, Upper Parkeston, and, quite recently, in a clay pit near the Bourne Valley potteries. The Baiter “ tip ” is open to much objection, quantities of refuse finding access from it to Poole Harbour, a fact to which objection has been strongly urged by the Poole Harbour Commissioners; that at the Ladies’ Walk has been similarly objected to by passers by on account of offensive odour, and the Victoria Hoad ‘‘tip” is in a bad position, closely ^ contiguous to inhabited houses. The “tip” near the potteries has only recently come into use. There are also several disused tips in the borough, as at Sand- banks and Canford Clifts. This problem of refuse disposal has given rise to much discussion in the town council from time to time. The medical officer of health has advocated the establishment of a refuse destructor, though he is silent on the point in his last annual report. This question will have to be faced before long, as the present modes of refusal give rise to much unfavourable comment. The fact that this matter will have to be settled one way or the other before long is an argument for leaving the carrying out of the refuse collection in the hands of the borough surveyor, by whose department it is on the whole efficiently carried out at present. There is, however, much improvised tipping, e.g., of vegetable refuse, on waste land contiguous to dwellings, which needs more effectual repression by combined action on the part of the sanitary and borough surveyors’ departments. Want of co-operation between committees of the borough was further brought to my notice by the fact that the report of Dr. Thresh of June, 1912, on the water has not been referred by the Water Committee to the Sanitary Committee, nor seen by them officially. Regulated trades.—There are 32 registered cowsheds and 62 register milkshops and dairies; 15 slaughter-houses; 43 bake- houses; and four common lodging-houses in tlie borough. I visited a large proportion of these. Many of the cowsheds exhibit deficient through ventilation, and some of them bad paving. The majority of the milkshops are unsatisfactory, milk being sold often in small shops, along with other food, such as meat, bacon, grocery, and vegetables. Dairies are, on the whole, satisfactory. Many of the slaughter-houses are badly paved, a few are very dirty, some have no blood-hole, and in one instance a dog was found in the slaugliter-house.