[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Slough Borough.

  • Slough (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Slough Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 Officers of Slough Borough Counci] 40 36 29 46 34 Officers of Bucks County Council 67 89 60 81 91 For admission to Teachers’ Training Colleges and teaching for the first time 30 48 37 34 46 Servants entering Superannuation scheme 24 10 44 27 16 TOTALS 161 183 170 188 187 LABORATORY During the year, 1,218 examinations were carried out compared with 1,111 in 1958. Increases in examinations occurred in the clinical field and also in relation to the sampling of water and ice-cream. None of these increases was particularly significant epidemiologically but the additional number of blood counts is interesting as these relate chiefly to routine samples taken from persons whose work brings them into contact with X-rays or radio-isotopes. Samples of drinking water were taken more frequently than in past years and, although partly undertaken as a safeguard while engineering work was being performed at the pumping station, it was considered that continued further extensions of the water supply warranted additional routine precautions. The number of ice-cream samples was slightly greater in 1959 than in 1958. It is very satisfactory to report that all except one sample was in Grade I and that no sample could be considered unsatisfactory. This is the best annual record so far and it happily occurred during the finest and hottest summer for many years. I have no doubt that the practice of wrapping ice cream at the time of manufacture is largely responsible for this satisfactory report but it must be pointed out that those who now deal in tons rather than ounces have a great responsibility towards the public as contamination during the preparation of such large quantities of frozen milk products could cause poisoning or illness on such a much wider scale than could possibly have happened when only small quantities were made by each producer. Not quite so many milk samples were analysed bttt the reduction was only small and not significant.