PRESIDENT S ADDRESS — SECTION I. 



185 



remains yet to be done what is practically the most important 

 function of the health authority — the seeing that sanitary duties 

 are properly performed by owners and occupiers of urban property 

 — the function of the inspector of nuisances. The way in which 

 this function is performed is another crucial test of sanitary adminis- 

 tration. The more continually and effectively the inspection is 

 done, the less necessity is there to enforce the law by legal pro- 

 ceedings. In Birmingham in 1890 in 21.342 cases nuisances were 

 abated on notice being given, while in only 57 cases was it 

 found needful to enforce the notice in the police court; and in 

 Liverpool last year in one class of nuisances over 93,000 were 

 abated on notice, and only 122 enforced by law. The principal 

 factor in the success of an inspector's work is the knowledge that 

 ^it is unremitting 



When a district requires a number of inspectors it is very 

 desirable that some of them should be women, either directly 

 engaged and employed by the health department, as at Glasgow, 

 or authorised by and acting under its control, though working in 

 connection with benevolent societies, as at Manchester. The 

 object of inspection is twofold -the finding oat of matters that 

 require attention, and the seeing that they are attended to by the 

 fulfilment of the preventive measures ordered. With regard to 

 the first-named object experience has shown that women are in 

 many cases more efficient than men, and naturally so. At the 

 time inspections are usually made in the houses of working people 

 the men are away, and the women at home are reticent — and not 

 improperly so — with men inspectors, and consequently the men 

 have to find out everything for themselves ; but if women inspec- 

 tors come, their inspection is greatly assisted by the freedom with 

 which information is given them. 



There are two circumstances connected with this subject that 

 are greatly to be regretted. They probably are mutually explana- 

 tory the one of the other. The one is that people in general take 

 so little pains to give the health authorities information of what it 

 is urgently important that they should have knowledge. As in 

 many other things, we are in this ruled by false sentiment. We 

 hold that it is an unneighborly act to tell the inspector that our 

 neighbor's children have diphtheria : but we do not hold that it is 

 unneighborly to let the children of fifty other neighbors take their 

 chance of catching the infection. The other circumstance is that 

 sanitary authorities, when necessary information is tendered either 

 by persons or societies, seem to regard the matter as an inter- 

 ference with or a reflection upon their performance of their duty. 

 The work of preserving the health of the people is so important 

 that everyone should work to secure it, and everyone's help should 

 be heartily accepted. 



With regard to the disposal of all the refuse of households and 

 of the trades and occupations of a city, including slaughter-house 



