HH62/1/FIFE/1

Transcription

FIFESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
AND
DISTRICT COMMITTEES.

MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN, - I have the honour to submit for
your consideration my first Annual Reports as Medical Officer of Health
to the County and to Districts into which it is divided. As my
appointment dates from May, it will be understood that the various
reports refer only to matters which I have had to consider since then.
In the compilation of these reports various difficulties have been
experienced, due in part to the short space of time I have been in
office, and to very many matters which had to be arranged at the
commencement of an entirely new department, and a new system of
sanitary administration.
The year with which this Report deals being the census year, it was
necessary to get the populations in the various parishes before the
Registrars' returns were sent in to the central office, and this caused a
considerable amount of correspondence. As there are so many burghs
in the County, there was considerable difficulty in getting the rural
separated from the urban populations.
The arrangement of this Report may not be followed in subsequent
reports, but a better did not suggest itself than to write the District
Reports, and then to write a County Report, which would be a com-
mentary on these, and also deal with certain matters which fall to be
reported to the Council rather than to the District Committees. This
arrangement is not strictly in accordance with the Board of Super-
vision's Regulations, which order that District Reports are to ready by
the 31st January, succeeding the year with which the reports deal, and
the County Report on or before 31st March. The advantages of having
all the district reports printed and bound together along with the
county report determined the present arrangement. I may point out
that too short time is allowed for the preparation of district reports, as
the statistical information which they should contain cannot be available
till the last day of the year to which it refers, and in fact is not sent in
for some days after, leaving little time for arrangement, tabulation, and
printing, before the end of the month.
The County Council and District Committees all agreed, I am
pleased to state, to have these annual reports printed, as otherwise they
might almost as well never have been written at all. It appears to me
that it is necessary in the highest degree, that every person in the County,
assessed for public health purposes, should know, as far as possible, the