Dr. E.P. Manby's report to the Local Government Board upon the sanitary circumstances and administrtion of the Holywell Registration District.

  • Manby, E.P. (Edward Petronell)
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. E.P. Manby's report to the Local Government Board upon the sanitary circumstances and administrtion of the Holywell Registration District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    opens close to the door of a foul privy. In Griffith’s Square a large open ash-midden is just beneath the window and immediately adjoining the door of a bakehouse—and on the same premises an unventilated water-closet opens directly into the Hour store. I met with many instances of swine kept in proximity to dwellings. This should not be allowed in an urban area like Mold. The Council do not undertake public scavenging as usually understood. The property owners and householders have to remove house refuse and excretal filth from the receptacle to the public roadway, and then on request the Council provide hired horses, carts, and men to take the filth to the public tip. The Council should themselves undertake the entire work of scavenging, which should be systematically carried out at regular and frequent intervals. The Council has a small corrugated iron hospital of eight beds at Argoed Farm, near Mold. The hospital is used only for small pox. It is approached by an indifferent road. There is little conference between the medical officer of health and the inspector of nuisances of Mold, and the latter does not appear to accept readily suggestions made by the medical office]’. I have no doubt whatever that much of the insanitary condition of Mold might be remedied by sustained action on the part of a com- petent and energetic inspector of nuisances. The present holder of the office—combined with that of surveyor—is Mr. W. B. Rowdon, who was formerly a schoolmaster in Mold. Mr. Rowdon is an educated and agreeable man, but he has had no adequate training in the duties of his office, and he does not hold the certificate of the Royal Sanitary Institute or other body conducting examinations of competency in the duties of sanitary inspector. I found that when making sanitary inspection of houses, Mr. Rowdon did not usually go upstairs, that he did not always visit the dairy when inspecting cowsheds, that notes made by him during inspections were crude in the extreme, and that the entries made in his journal were wanting in detail. He says he has no time to devote to systematic inspections, but I would point out that such inspections are among the most important duties of an inspector of nuisances. I met with instances of infringement of the building byelaws in force in Mold, and I learnt that Mr. Rowdon does not report such infringements in writing to the Council. Mr. Rowdon prides himself upon the fact that he is on friendly terms with everyone in Mold, and that he has not served a statutory notice under the nuisance clause of the Public Health Act since 1905. Many premises are, however, in a condition requiring such notices to be served and enforced. In the scavenging branch of his duties Mr. Rowdon has done fairly well, but there is, as I have explained, scope for further improvement in the arrangements for the scavenging of Mold. As compared with systematic inspection of dwellings, bakehouses and the like, scavenging work does not bring Mr. Rowdon into much conflict with defaulting property-owners, hence firmness and determination are of less importance in the latter than they are in the former case.