APPENDICES. IV. Summary of returns relating to all persons treated at venereal diseases treatment centres during the year ended May, 1927 ... Infectious Disease Notifications, &c. V. Table showing for the year ended 31st December, 1926, the number of cases of infectious disease notified in Scotland at VI. Table showing for the year 1926 the total number of cases notified in counties (land ward) and in burghs respectively, and the number and percentage treated in hospital VII. Abstract of cases of infectious disease reported in the sixteen principal towns of Scotland and the Counties of Lanark and Fife during the period 2nd January to 31st December, 1927 ... VIII. Summary for the year ended 30th September, 1927, of the number of formal and test samples analysed, and the number reported IX. Abstract of cash receipts and payments for the year ended 31st X. Summary of accumulated funds under the National Health Insurance Acts in Scotland showing the approximate position at the beginning and end of 1927, and including approximate receipts and payments in respect of all forms of benefits and XI. Statement showing for Scotland the number of persons entitled to benefits at 31st December, 1927 XII. Statement showing for Scotland for periods to 31st December, 1927 (1) the estimated number of persons entitled to benefit; (2) the receipts (inclusive of Exchequer Grants) and the pay- ments of benefits and expenses of administration; and (3) XV. Table showing for 1914 and each of the last ten years XVI. Destitute able-bodied unemployed :- (a) the rates per 10,000 population of destitute able-bodied (b) the average number of destitute able-bodied unemployed (c) the expenditure on poor relief to the destitute able- ... XVII. Statement of the average weekly cost of ordinary poor in poorhouses for the year ended 15th May, 1927 ... ... XVIII. Statement of average weekly cost of lunatic poor in poorhouses having licensed wards for lunatics and in Greenock Parochial Asylum for the year ended 15th May, 1927 XIX. Summary of returns under the Children Act, 1908 ... 383 384 386 390 ... ... 391 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JOHN GILMOUR, BART., D.S.O., M.P. SIR, EDINBURGH, April, 1928. We have the honour to submit our Report for the year 1927. It is probable that this is the last year in which the Annual Report on the central administration of the public health and allied subjects in Scotland will be submitted by a Board of Health, as there is a proposal before Parliament to establish in its place a Department of Health for Scotland. The functions of the Board will, however, be carried on by the new Department, and continuity will be fully maintained in the service of the State. This is not the place to trace the growth of the central body for the administration of statutes relating to health, from the Board of Supervision, which was instituted primarily to deal with questions of poor law, to the Local Government Board for Scotland, which received an extended jurisdiction over questions of public health, and later to the Board of Health, which was established in 1919 and which combined these functions with supervision of the great system of national health insurance. In our own period of office we have seen this last-named system extended to include contributory pensions for orphans, widows and aged persons, and the other duties entrusted to us have developed greatly, as the requirements of public health became more fully realised, particularly in the directions of housing, the control of disease, and the food supply. The nine years in which, as a Board, we have held office have been full of events and of labour. We bear witness to the fact that the interest of the individual in public health is increasing and that knowledge is rapidly extending. The value of the public health system is being more and more appreciated; the fight against infectious disease becomes keener, more organised, and more enlightened yearly, and while there is much to learn, the practical measures that are available cover nearly every approach which the terrible forces that cripple and destroy make upon mankind. The year 1927 will be memorable as being the year in which the buriding of houses by local authorities was brought to fuller fruition than in any previous year. Since 1890 local authorities have had power to provide houses for the working classes. This power, however, was little used, until in 1919 an obligation was put on them to see that the necessary houses for the inhabitants of their areas. were provided. Since then they have taken up the task that private enterprise, in the difficult post-war conditions, found itself unable to face, or in any case found unremunerative, and in 1927, for the first time, local authorities succeeded in erecting houses far beyond the estimated normal requirements of one year. During 1927 the total number of working-class houses erected was 21,660. As it is estimated that 10,000 are required annually to meet normal requirements, there is now a substantial number of houses to set against the great shortage, estimated by the Royal Commission in 1917 to amount to 121,430 houses, even on a low standard of accommodation. There is good reason for anticipating that the splendid results obtained in 1927 will be equalled in 1928. Another feature of the year was the launching of the great scheme of contributory old age pensions, which, together with contributory pensions for widows and orphans initiated in 1926, completed the system of contributory pensions. It is estimated that more than 150,000 persons are now in receipt of these pensions. In other words, three persons out of every hundred of the population participate. The human interest attached to the administration of the contributory pensions system is endless, and the brief instances given in Chapter XVII represent only a very small fraction of a multitude of instances in which those who administer the system are brought into close contact with the hopes and fears of the working population. Along with these examples of successful achievement there has to be recorded at least one item that is disquieting. Although the year 1926, the year of disturbance in the coal industry, saw a great increase in the amount of sickness and disablement benefit |