[Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.

  • Birmingham (England). Council.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/10 (page 1)
    LONDON SCHOOL OF FYGIEN AND TROPICAL MEL'lelNE. (DEFT OF roEDiCAL STATiSTi^S) CITY OF BIRMINGHAM. Report of the Medical Officer of Health FOR THE YEAR 1939 Introduction The Ministry of Health have directed that in view of the exceptional pressure of work in the public health departments throughout the country, as a result of the war, and the need also for strict economy in the use of paper, only brief reports are to be made for the year 1939, on such essential and urgent matters as have affected the public health during the year. Hence follows the unusual form and brevity of this report, relating to a year clouded during its first half by the threat of war and the dominating need to prepare for it while still maintaining normal health services, and crowded during the remainder of its course with the intense effort of development and consolidation of the casualty services for civil defence, activities which have intiniately concerned the public health departments. During the earlier half of 1939 the process of preparing, opening and staffing first aid posts, of organizing first aid parties and ambulance services, of establishing a machinery for the training of volunteers for the newly-formed Civil Nursing Reserve, of arranging the casualt}^ sections of the general hospitals and of adjusting their staffs to the new calls on them, and of supplying, storing and distributing equipment, in part from Government stocks and in part by local purchase, went on steadily and with growing concentration. The recruiting of fresh personnel for the various air raids precautions services, and the preliminary training in first aid and anti-gas measures, were carried out by the Air Raids Pre- cautions Officer and his staff, in close collaboration with the Public Health Department, while similarly the technical and disciplinary aspects of the first aid party and ambulance personnel and equipment were dealt with by the A.R.P. Department, their medical aspects by the Public Health Department.