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SLUM CLEARANCE
SLUM CLEARANCE
814
Association has investigated the causes of the difference of grades in flours milled from the same wheat ; contrary to the general impression the low grades do not owe their inferiority to the presence in greater amounts of oils and lipins, lipoids or phosphatoids (as they are variously called), since these and especially oils definitely improve bread. Flour oil, indeed, is one of the, best bread improvers. The common impression that the presence of germ is deleterious to baking quality is not well founded. The so-called solubility of cocoa, that is, the relative permanence of the emulsion formed when it is prepared as a beverage, has attracted the attention of the appropriated trade association ; clumping can apparently be avoided by mixing the powder first with a little water or milk and stirring thoroughly before adding the remainder of the liquid. The canning of kidneys and livers, for which supply and demand vary seasonally, has been studied to enable these products to be stored without deterioration until their season is at its height. SLUM CLEARANCE PROGRESS in slum clearance has been extremely unequal. In some areas great things have been done ; shored-up hovels and filthy tenements have been destroyed and blocks of modern dwellings have risen in their place. In other areas, however, almost no progress has been made and undoubtedly in some places an attempt to work out plans of the Ministry has had the unfortunate result of forcing people to leave insanitary dwellings which they occupied at a low rental and offering them in exchange only very superior dwellings at a rental so increased The as materially to affect the family budget. Minister has now issued a call for general speeding up all round and a complete solution of the slum problem within five years.1 The circular maintains that indirect influence cannot be relied on to solve the difficulty and that the problem for housing authorities is one which is strictly limited both as to cost and as to time. Sir Hilton Young calls now for programmes from every local authority, giving lists of the areas in which clearance or improvement is necessary with information as to the number of houses to be demolished or reconditioned and of the inhabitants concerned, together with a time-table for the negotiation, progress, and completion of the He hopes to receive these pronecessary action. the within next few months and in any grammes event not later than Sept. 30th, and points out that all the material should be readily available in the records now kept by local authorities for over twenty years under the Housing Consolidation Regulations. London, he admits, is a problem by itself, and more time will be required to deal with it, but he hopes that metropolitan borough councils will confer with the London County Council and transmit a general He points out programme for the whole county. that there is no time like the present for work of this nature. Building costs are low and money is cheap, and it should be well within the capacity of every local authority, with the aid of the subsidy available, to build suitable accommodation at rents which compare very favourably with the average rent paid by tenants of slum houses. The problem is not only one of cities ; as the circular points out, there can be few, if any, small towns or even villages in which there is not urgent need for some kind of action under the Act of 1930. All medical men will congratulate the Minister on his vigorous action and will hope that he may receive
the
’
1 Circular 1331.
Stationery Office.
Ministry of Health. April 6th, 1933. Pp. 4.
1d.
support he deserves from the local authorities. Many medical officers of health are tired of condemning houses only to find that they remain occupied The task of rebuilding the slums year after year. is by no means an easy one, since both owners and tenants have to be placated, but the experience of those who have tried and succeeded shows clearly that the work can be made an economic proposition and that the best method of overcoming objections the
of tenants to be removed is to clear the area and rebuild on the same site. This is usually essential in large cities, but in places where land is available there is a tendency to build the new accommodation at some distance from the old and, not unreasonably, have disliked being the unfortunate tenants Members their friends. of the from uprooted among local authority should visit the slums and see the conditions. There is little doubt that personal inspection of this kind would go a long way towards producing that eager enthusiasm which is an essential if the work is to be done quickly and to be done well. Those who have not seen can hardly believe, however eloquently it is told them, the conditions in which many of their fellow-creatures are living to-day. TESTS FOR THERAPEUTIC AGENTS IN PERNICIOUS ANÆMIA
A RELIABLE laboratory test for the potency of substances effective in pernicious anaemia is not at present available. The only sure proof of potency is that given by a reticulocyte response and clinical improvement in a patient. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find untreated cases of pernicious anaemia, which can be used for such clinical testing of material of unknown potency, and some method of laboratory assay would be of great value. Experimental results obtained by Vaughan, Muller, and Zetzel in 19301 suggested that the response of the reticulocytes in grain-fed pigeons might prove a satisfactory index of potency. They found a definite rise in the reticulocyte count after the administration of materials effective in pernicious anaemia. Inactive substances were without influence upon the blood picture. Other workers have hitherto failed to confirm their results. L. Wills2 found spontaneous fluctuations in the reticulocyte level too great to allow a definite interpretation of experimental results to be made. Edmunds, Brueckner, and Fritzellhave, however, recently published observations which confirm the main findings of Vaughan and her co-workers, though with certain qualifications. They found a reticulocyte count of 20 per cent. as an average in untreated birds. It might sometimes be as high as 40 per cent., but even in such birds known potent material caused an appreciable rise. The maximum response occurred after the eighth or tenth day. This is later than in Vaughan’s series, but is possibly due to the fact that she used relatively pure extracts administered intravenously. Occasional pigeons fail to react or give a delayed response for reasons which are not at present clear. Edmunds suggests that such a difficulty can be overcome by using a group of birds for a test.
Sir Thomas Lewis has been
appointed
a
member
of the Medical Research Council in succession to Prof. J. J. R. Macleod.
AT a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians of London last Monday, Lord Dawson was re-elected
president. 1 Brit. Jour. Exp. Path., 1930, xi., 456. 2
H.M. 3
Ibid., 1932, xiii., 172. Jour. Amer. Pharm. Assoc., 1933, xxii., 91
814
Association has investigated the causes of the difference of grades in flours milled from the same wheat ; contrary to the general impression the low grades do not owe their inferiority to the presence in greater amounts of oils and lipins, lipoids or phosphatoids (as they are variously called), since these and especially oils definitely improve bread. Flour oil, indeed, is one of the, best bread improvers. The common impression that the presence of germ is deleterious to baking quality is not well founded. The so-called solubility of cocoa, that is, the relative permanence of the emulsion formed when it is prepared as a beverage, has attracted the attention of the appropriated trade association ; clumping can apparently be avoided by mixing the powder first with a little water or milk and stirring thoroughly before adding the remainder of the liquid. The canning of kidneys and livers, for which supply and demand vary seasonally, has been studied to enable these products to be stored without deterioration until their season is at its height. SLUM CLEARANCE PROGRESS in slum clearance has been extremely unequal. In some areas great things have been done ; shored-up hovels and filthy tenements have been destroyed and blocks of modern dwellings have risen in their place. In other areas, however, almost no progress has been made and undoubtedly in some places an attempt to work out plans of the Ministry has had the unfortunate result of forcing people to leave insanitary dwellings which they occupied at a low rental and offering them in exchange only very superior dwellings at a rental so increased The as materially to affect the family budget. Minister has now issued a call for general speeding up all round and a complete solution of the slum problem within five years.1 The circular maintains that indirect influence cannot be relied on to solve the difficulty and that the problem for housing authorities is one which is strictly limited both as to cost and as to time. Sir Hilton Young calls now for programmes from every local authority, giving lists of the areas in which clearance or improvement is necessary with information as to the number of houses to be demolished or reconditioned and of the inhabitants concerned, together with a time-table for the negotiation, progress, and completion of the He hopes to receive these pronecessary action. the within next few months and in any grammes event not later than Sept. 30th, and points out that all the material should be readily available in the records now kept by local authorities for over twenty years under the Housing Consolidation Regulations. London, he admits, is a problem by itself, and more time will be required to deal with it, but he hopes that metropolitan borough councils will confer with the London County Council and transmit a general He points out programme for the whole county. that there is no time like the present for work of this nature. Building costs are low and money is cheap, and it should be well within the capacity of every local authority, with the aid of the subsidy available, to build suitable accommodation at rents which compare very favourably with the average rent paid by tenants of slum houses. The problem is not only one of cities ; as the circular points out, there can be few, if any, small towns or even villages in which there is not urgent need for some kind of action under the Act of 1930. All medical men will congratulate the Minister on his vigorous action and will hope that he may receive
the
’
1 Circular 1331.
Stationery Office.
Ministry of Health. April 6th, 1933. Pp. 4.
1d.
support he deserves from the local authorities. Many medical officers of health are tired of condemning houses only to find that they remain occupied The task of rebuilding the slums year after year. is by no means an easy one, since both owners and tenants have to be placated, but the experience of those who have tried and succeeded shows clearly that the work can be made an economic proposition and that the best method of overcoming objections the
of tenants to be removed is to clear the area and rebuild on the same site. This is usually essential in large cities, but in places where land is available there is a tendency to build the new accommodation at some distance from the old and, not unreasonably, have disliked being the unfortunate tenants Members their friends. of the from uprooted among local authority should visit the slums and see the conditions. There is little doubt that personal inspection of this kind would go a long way towards producing that eager enthusiasm which is an essential if the work is to be done quickly and to be done well. Those who have not seen can hardly believe, however eloquently it is told them, the conditions in which many of their fellow-creatures are living to-day. TESTS FOR THERAPEUTIC AGENTS IN PERNICIOUS ANÆMIA
A RELIABLE laboratory test for the potency of substances effective in pernicious anaemia is not at present available. The only sure proof of potency is that given by a reticulocyte response and clinical improvement in a patient. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find untreated cases of pernicious anaemia, which can be used for such clinical testing of material of unknown potency, and some method of laboratory assay would be of great value. Experimental results obtained by Vaughan, Muller, and Zetzel in 19301 suggested that the response of the reticulocytes in grain-fed pigeons might prove a satisfactory index of potency. They found a definite rise in the reticulocyte count after the administration of materials effective in pernicious anaemia. Inactive substances were without influence upon the blood picture. Other workers have hitherto failed to confirm their results. L. Wills2 found spontaneous fluctuations in the reticulocyte level too great to allow a definite interpretation of experimental results to be made. Edmunds, Brueckner, and Fritzellhave, however, recently published observations which confirm the main findings of Vaughan and her co-workers, though with certain qualifications. They found a reticulocyte count of 20 per cent. as an average in untreated birds. It might sometimes be as high as 40 per cent., but even in such birds known potent material caused an appreciable rise. The maximum response occurred after the eighth or tenth day. This is later than in Vaughan’s series, but is possibly due to the fact that she used relatively pure extracts administered intravenously. Occasional pigeons fail to react or give a delayed response for reasons which are not at present clear. Edmunds suggests that such a difficulty can be overcome by using a group of birds for a test.
Sir Thomas Lewis has been
appointed
a
member
of the Medical Research Council in succession to Prof. J. J. R. Macleod.
AT a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians of London last Monday, Lord Dawson was re-elected
president. 1 Brit. Jour. Exp. Path., 1930, xi., 456. 2
H.M. 3
Ibid., 1932, xiii., 172. Jour. Amer. Pharm. Assoc., 1933, xxii., 91