Letter from Great Britain: The Sanitary Inspector in Great Britain

Letter from Great Britain: The Sanitary Inspector in Great BritainAuthor(s): FRASER BROCKINGTONSource: Canadian Journal of Public Health / Revue Canadienne de Sante'e Publique, Vol. 41, No.4 (APRIL, 1950), pp. 150-156Published by: Canadian Public Health AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41980015 .

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Letter from Great Britain

The Sanitary Inspector in Great Britain

FRASER BROCKINGTON M.R.C.S.(Eng.); L.R.C.P.(Lond.)l D.P.H.; B.Chir., M.D.(Camb.);

M.A.(Camb.); Barrister-at-Law County Medical Officer

Public Health Department , West Riding of Yorkshire Wakefieldy Yorkshire , England

COCIAL and preventive medicine in Great Britain has had no more effective agent than the sanitary inspector. Yet it is possible to search through all

the classical accounts of its history and development from Simoni 'Sanitary Institutions* to Newman's 'Rise of Preventive Medicine' without finding a single reference to his work. It is difficult not to conclude from this one more evidence of the failure of the medical profession to understand the importance of the application of medical teaching to the preventive field. The sanitary inspector began under the title of inspector of nuisances'. The Liverpool Sanitary Act of 1846 (which gave the Liverpool Town Council power to appoint a medical officer of health) gave a parallel power to appoint one or more persons to be called the Inspectors of Nuisances, who should 'superintend and enforce the due execution of all duties to be performed by the scavengers appointed under the Act and to report to the said council and health com- mittee all branches of the bye-laws, rules and regulations . . . and to point out the existence of any nuisances'.

So began one of the most valuable members of the health team whose range of work and importance were to grow and extend as public health statutes increased the measures to make environmental hygiene effective. It is not clear when or how the name became changed to sanitary inspector. It was used in the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1867. Lord Shaftesbury, speaking before a Royal Commission in 1884, used the term when he said "nor were the sanitary inspectors as efficient as they might have been, though there had been a great improvement in the class of man appointed"; but it was not officially recognised until 1891 for London (Public Health (London) Act) and not until 1921 for the rest of England and Wales (Public Health (Officers) Act).

The Public Health Act of 1848 required all Local Boards of Health created by it to appoint inspectors of nuisances, and this was made general for the whole country in 1872 coincidentally with the overall health cover then created by the appointment of medical officers of health to all the new local authorities. This new opportunity to recruit skilled technical advisers to the new health departments was not entered upon with any great enthusiasm.

150



April 1950 THE SANITARY INSPECTOR 151

In Bethnal Green in 1861, with a population of 105,000 persons and 14,731 houses, there was one inspector of nuisances; Shoreditch, St. Georges, Padding- ton, Bermondsey, and several other Vestries likewise had one inspector each; in the whole metropolis in 1885 there were 103 inspectors of nuisances - a rough average of one for each 40,000 of the population. 'Consistently,' one reads, 'and year after year, did the bulk of medical officers of health complain of the lack of sufficient sanitary inspectors, and point out the necessity for more; some begged for them - but to nearly all their appeals the Vestries turned a deaf ear'. No doubt what was true of the London Vestries (which preceded the boroughs as health authorities) was true of all Britain.

Neither the Act of 1848 nor any subsequent statute, order or regulation, before a date well into this century, required any formal qualification. The Act of 1848 referred only to 'fit and proper persons'. Regulations were issued from time to time defining the scope of work but nothing more. In 'The Sanitary Evolution of London' (Henry Jephson, L.C.C.) one reads that in 1869 'The Sanitary Inspector was an unskilled workman, holding that which might almost be regarded as a sinecure office; an official recruited into the services of the Vestry from the rank of ex-sailors, ex-policemen or army .pensioners. A knowledge upon sanitary matters acquired from a course of technical training was expected from him.' London was the first in 1891 to require a qualification for the sanitary inspector, using the training and certificate evolved towards the turn of the century by the Royal Sanitary Institute. (The first examination of inspectors of nuisances was held by the Institute on 29th October, 1877, following the first course of training of the previous year.) The certificate of this body (founded in 1876 and then, as now, concerned with the training of auxiliaries working in the health field) was recognised for general enforcement by the Sanitary Officers Order of 1922. It has been customary for a number of additional qualifications to be held, such as a certificate of meat inspection and other foods, a certificate in sanitary science as applied to buildings and other work, a certificate in builders quantities, a certificate in smoke inspection ; diplomas can also be obtained for the Institute of Sanitary Engineers, the Institute of Public Cleansing, and the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene.

All those engaged in work to improve environmental hygiene have been faced with the problem of vested interests. In 1884 the medical officer of health of Fulham wrote: 'So many are the vested interests that sanitary officers are obliged in the performance of their duties to interfere with that they must be prepared to meet with injustice and opposition in almost all directions. It is not surprising that the dwellings of the poor in London should be in such an insanitary condition seeing the great obstacles public sanitary officers have in the performance of their duties.' Percy Boulnois, speaking of 'Sanitary Progress during the fifty years 1876-1926' at the Jubilee and London Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute in 1926, described some of these conditions:

"It will be impossible to describe the defects of some of the sewers that then existed. Old brooks and ditches had been utilised, arched over, and occasionally inverted. They were winding and tortuous, full of fissures and holes and were little better than elongated



152 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH Vol. 41

cess-pools. In surveying and levelling them for future improvements, I frequently fell into holes over my long sewer boots, an unpleasant experience. There were but few means of access and little or no ventilation

"In many cities and towns there were but few sewers - cesspools, privies, and mid- dens abounded. In some towns, even to a much later period, what was called the 'inter- ception' or 'dry process' was much favoured, chiefly on account of the cost of constructing sewers. . . . The faecal matters and urine were stored in buckets, or pails, in the dwellings, and collected periodically by the Local Authorities in specially constructed covered wagons, conveyed to a depot where the contents were converted into fertilisers. A disgusting and insanitary process which lasted much longer than it should have done. The advocates of this process overlooked the fact that slop water is as offensive as domestic sewage. ...

"A large proportion of the house drains 50 years ago consisted of brick barrels, stone channels, or earthenware pipes, badly laid and jointed. Only a few years previously, some of the leading architects of those days had insisted that house drains should be constructed of sufficient size to enable a man to crawl through them to cleanse them. . . . They had no intercepting traps."

For the effective discharge of duties in such circumstances the need for protection was obvious and indeed strongly recommended in the findings of the Royal Commission of 1869. In due course this protection has been afforded and no senior sanitary inspector (as indeed no medical officer of health) with the exceptions of a few county boroughs can today be removed from office* without the consent of the Central Authority.

Sanitary inspectors have grown steadily in numbers and importance. In the West Riding of Yorkshire today, with 1^ million people, there are approximately 170 sanitary inspectors, and the number for England and Wales probably does not fall short of 5,000. Whereas all county boroughs and county districts must appoint sanitary inspectors, county councils are not so obliged but in general have done so. 'Sanitation is the practical application of the science of hygiene to the varied conditions of life,' as an Army Manual concisely states. The science of sanitation nevertheless cannot be exactly defined, for within its scope are chemistry and physics, engineering and architecture, bacteriology and pathology, epidemiology and sociology. The person with an overall interest in all these factors is, of course, the medical officer of health, but he has as his right-hand man in matters of sanitation the sanitary inspector who, by the Sanitary Officers (Outside London) Regu- lations, 1935, performs his statutory duties under his general direction.

Much of the sanitary inspector's work is statutory. He is, in fact, a creature of statute created to serve the Goddess Hygeia. The outlines of his businesslike frame with its purposeful gait and the clean-cut honest look on his countenance can be seen drawn in close detail in our sanitary code. In a great pròfusion of sections, articles and paragraphs his. presence is invoked or inferred, of which the following are but a small sample. Every local authority, says section 91 of the Public Health Act, 1936, must cause their district to be inspected from time to time for the detection of nuisances. Every local authority, says section 111, must ascertain from time to time the sufficiency and wholesomeness of the water supplies within their district and must see that so far as practicable every house has available within a reasonable distance a supply of wholesome water for domestic purposes. Every local authority,




says section 72, may, and if required by the Minister shall, undertake the removal of home refuse, and the cleansing of earth closets, privies, ashpits and cesspools. Where, in the opinion of an authorised officer of a local authority (and the sanitary inspector is invariably constituted as such) a smoke nuisance exists, he shall as soon as practicable notify the occupier of the premises and, if necessary, confirm the notification in writing within 24 hours. Before granting a licence for slaughter houses and knackers yards a local authority must have the premises inspected by one of their officers. No one may remove a carcass or the organs (other than the stomach, intestines and bladder) from a slaughter house till after inspection. The sanitary inspector as an authorised officer under the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, 'may at all reasonable times examine any food intended for human consumption and, if it appears to him to be unfit for human consumption, may seize it and remove it in order to have it dealt with by a Justice of the Peace'. An authorised officer, .commonly the sanitary inspector (known as a 'sampling officer') of a Food and Drugs authority, may procure samples of food and drugs for analysis or for bacteriological and other examination. 'It is the duty,' says the Housing Act, 1936, 'of every local authority to have their district inspected from time to time to ascertain whether any dwelling house is unfit for human habitation and this must be done by the medical officer of health or by an officer under his supervision.' The range of duties is very wide. Articles 27 and 28 of the Sanitary Officers (Outside London) Regulations, 1935, which define their duties are given for the sake of reference as an appendix, together with a statement of duties coming within his province under the Public Health Act, 1936.

There has been a tendency in recent years for sanitary inspectors to seek autonomy from the medical officer of health. The Sanitary Inspectors Association, his official organ, would prefer to see themselves set up as heads of separate departments. No doubt, if the medical officer of health exercises a meticulous and pin-pricking control of the work of the sanitary inspector, resentment and frustration will develop, but where the medical officer accepts 'his general direction' in the widest sense, leaving the routine duties to be carried out by the sanitary inspector in his own way, a happy co-operation results. After all, the medical officer of health must respect the particular training in sanitary science which the sanitary inspector receives to fit him for his duties and must expect to be advised by him as he is by other specialists. The relationship of the sanitary inspector to the health department is still of the greatest importance and dichotomy must not be permitted. The sanitary inspector's work is not sufficient to stand on its own as a separate department and if he were to break away from the medical officer of health he might find himself attached to that of the engineer or architect, thus losing his true function as a means of preventing ill-health and possibly passing out of existence altogether.

The changing face of preventive medicine has not been entirely favourable to the sanitary inspector. His job is composed of so many different elements that it is perhaps natural that he should have been deprived of some functions by the growth of specialism. An example of this can be seen in the field of milk hygiene. Since the first attempt to regulate dairies and cowsheds (in




1879) the sanitary inspector has become an expert in the hygiene of milk production and dairies, undertaking work which has steadily grown in importance as our legislation has become more detailed and particularly with the licensing of special grades of milk. The veterinary surgeon who has since developed has begun to look askance at another professional officer engaged in his field of work. The Food and Drugs (Milk and Dairies) Act, 1944, has now trans- ferred the farm side of milk production to the Ministry of Agriculture and removed from local authorities all hygiene work concerned with farms, leaving to them only the duties of supervising distribution of milk and the licensing of pasteurising plants. The same process is operating in the field of epidemiology. The sanitary inspector began in the days of the great pandemics when isolation and disinfection were necessary measures. Frazer, in his 4 Duncan of Liver- pool/ tells us how for the whole period of his 16 years' work in the city (after 1847) Dr. Duncan and his one inspector of nuisances strove alone against onslaughts of cholera, typhus and typhoid. 'Amidst appalling poverty, more appalling habits of living, and orgies òf the basest description, with three- quarters of a million persons living per square mile in the worst parts of the town, with 40,000 of the total quarter-million persons in stagnant cellars and 55,000 in airless courts, he watched typhus and typhoid carry off thousands to the overcrowded cemeteries where graves were emptied of their contents to make way for fresh arrivals.' From then till now it has always been his job to help the medical officer of health to trace infection and to undertake removals to hospital and disinfection of articles and houses. With the great changes in the incidence of infectious diseases much of this work is now coming to an end. Coincidentally under the National Health Service Act of 1946 the health visitor is made responsible 'for giving advice in the prevention of the spread of infection.' Some Food and Drugs authorities are appointing sampling officers who are not sanitary inspectors, so that the work can be done jointly with that of weights and measures. Advice on water supplies is becoming increasingly a task for specially qualified water engineers. Surveyors and architects are taking a greater interest in the housing legislation.

This trend of events has been thought by some to spell the end of the work of the sanitary inspector, yet environmental conditions are still at the bottom of much illness despite the operation of sanitary legislation for a hundred years. Bad housing, with inadequate ventilation, dampness, overcrowding and congested sleeping quarters, absence of proper water supplies and baths, diseased and infected foods, adulterated foods; insanitary work places and offices with harmful dusts and spreading infections; smoky atmos- pheres and lack of sunlight; overflowing dustbins and cesspools; insanitary earth closets ; polluted water and milk supplies - all these make the conditions in which disease flourishes, and against all these the sanitary inspector is needed to wage a continual warfare. The environmental conditions of Britain, although so greatly improved, still call insistently for the strict surveillance of health departments and they still need the work of that kindly, good-humoured, all-purpose hygiene officer, the sanitary inspector, who by his skill and integrity has contributed so much to the present high standards of health in Britain.




APPENDIX

Article 27, Sanitary Officers ( Outside London ) Regulations , 1935 - Duties of sanitary inspectors.

The sanitary inspector as regards the district for which he is appointed shall, except as provided by Article 28 of these Regulations - (1) perform under the general direction of the medical officer of health all the duties imposed

on a sanitary inspector by statute and by any orders, regulations or directions from time to time made or given by the Minister, and by any byelaws or instructions of the local authority applicable to his office;

(2) by inspection of his district, both systematically and at intervals as occasion requires, keep himself informed of the sanitary circumstances of the district and of the nuisances therein that require abatement;

(3) report to the local authority any noxious or offensive businesses, trades or manufactories established within his district, and the breach or non-observance of any byelaws or regulations madê in respect thereof ;

(4) report to the local authority any damage done to any works of water supply or other works belonging to them, and also any case of wilful or negligent waste of water supplied by them, or any fouling gas, filth, or otherwise of water used or intended to be used for domestic purposes ;

(5) from time to time and forthwith upon complaint, visit and inspect the shops and places kept or used for the preparation or sale of any article of food to which the provisions of the statutes and regulations in that behalf apply, and examine any article of food therein, and take such proceedings as may be necessary: Provided that in any case of doubt arising under this paragraph, he shall report the matter to the medical officer of health, with the view of obtaining his advice thereon;

(6) if so directed by the local authority, carry out the duties of a sampling officer under the Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act, 1928;

(7) if so directed by the local authority, inspect premises used as dairies for the purposes of the Milk and Dairies (Consolidation) Act, 1915, or the Milk and Dairies (Amendment) Act, 1922, or any Act amending those Acts, and any Orders or Regulations made thereunder;

(8) give immediate notice to the medical officer of health of the occurrence within his district of any infectious or epidemic disease or other serious outbreak of illness; and whenever it appears to him that the intervention of such officer is necessary in consequence of the existence of any nuisance injurious to health, or of any overcrowding in a house or of any other condition affecting the health of the district, forthwith inform the medical officer of health thereof;

(9) if so directed by the medical officer of health, remove, or superintend the removal of, patients suffering from infectious disease to an infectious diseases hospital, and perform or superintend the work of disinfection after the occurrence of cases of infectious disease;

(10) if so directed by the local authority, supervise the scavenging of his district or any part thereof ;

(11) if so directed by the local authority, act as officer of the local authority under the Canal Boats Acts, 1877 and 1884, and the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919, and under any order or regulations made thereunder;

(12) if so directed by the local authority, act as designated officer for the purposes of the Housing Consolidated Regulations, 1925 and 1932;

(13) if so directed by the local authority, perform duties of inspection under Part 1 of the Housing Act, 1935;

(14) if so directed by the local authority, superintend and see to the due execution of all works which may be undertaken by their direction for the suppression or removal of nuisances;

(15) carry out any duties imposed upon him by the local authority with reference to the provisions of the Shops Act, 1934, relating to ventilation, temperature and sanitary conditions;

(16) enter from day to day, in a book or on separate sheets or cards provided by the local




authority, particulars of his inspections and of the action taken by him in the execution of his duties;

(17) at all reasonable times, when applied to by the medical officer of health, produce to him his books, or any of them, and render to him such information as he may be able to furnish with respect to any matter to which the duties of sanitary inspector relate; and

(18) as soon as practicable after the 31st December in each year, furnish the medical officer of health with a tabular statement containing the following particulars - (a) the number and nature of inspections made by him during the year ; ( b ) the number of notices served during the year, distinguishing statutory from other

notices; ( c ) the result of the service of such notices.

Article 28 of the Regulations of 1935 enables a local authority to distribute among their sanitary inspectors the various duties prescribed in Article 27, supra.

Duties coming within the province of the Sanitary Inspector under the Public Health Act, 1936.

(38) Drainage of buildings in combination; (39) Provisions as to drainage, etc., of existing buildings; (40) Provisions as to soil pipes and ventilating shafts; (41) Notice to be given of repair, etc., to drains; (42) Alteration of drainage system; (43) Closet accommodation for new buildings; (44) Insufficient closet accommodation; (45) Defective closet accommodation; (46) Sanitary conveniences for factories, etc.; (47) Conversion of closet accommodation; (48) Examination and testing of drains; (49) Rooms over closets, etc., not to be used as living, sleeping or work rooms; (50) Overflowing or leaking cesspools; (51) Care of closets; (52) Care of sanitary conveniences used in common; (56) Yards and passages to be paved and drained; (72/82) Removal of refuse,. scavenging, keeping of animals, etc.; (83/85) Verminous premises, articles and persons; (88) Control over conveniences in, or accessible from, streets; (89) Power to require sanitary conveniences to be provided at inns, refreshment houses, etc.; (91/110) Nuisances and offensive trades; (137) New houses to be provided with supply of water; (138) Power of local authority to require any occupied house to be provided with sufficient water supply; (140) Power to close, or restrict use of water from, polluted source of supply; (141) Insanitary water cisterns; (154) Rag and bone dealers; (235/241) Common lodging houses; (249/255) Canal boats; (259/266) Watercourses and, streams; (267) Ships; (268/270) Tents, vans, sheds, fruitpickers* lodgings.



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Letter from Great Britain: The Sanitary Inspector in Great Britain