Report by the Acting Medical Officer of Health.
Secretary,
C
18233
574
Rept
I beg to report for the information of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government respecting the General Cleansing of the City as follows:-
It having been decided by the Sanitary Board that it was advisable to start a General Cleansing of the City during the winter months, the matter was referred to a Sub-Committee to elaborate details.
The Committee concluded that the cleansing should be done by the people themselves and that it should simply be a cleansing and not pretend to be a disinfection, as it would be impracticable to disinfect the City on a large scale, and that the expense of attempting or pretending to do so would not be justified.
It was therefore decided that the active measures taken by the Board should be of such a nature as to help the people to more thoroughly cleanse their houses than they would be able to do without such help, while not robbing the people of the knowledge that they themselves were doing the work - a very important point in their sanitary education.
To this end, each plague district was supplied with a boiler for heating water and dissolving soft soap. This was distributed free to the people.
The work was carried out simultaneously in the districts under six Plague Inspectors, and as far as possible, houses were taken in blocks for this purpose. Notices requiring the cleansing to be done on the 3rd day after service of the notice were distributed, and the people were therein informed that if they failed to cleanse, the Board's Officers would