Medical Officers of Health
The Public Health (Scotland) Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict., c.101) permitted local authorities (burgh councils and parochial boards) to appoint medical officers (the term 'medical officers of health' came in to use later) and to raise money by local rates for public health purposes. Only a few local authorities appointed full-time medical officers, however. The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict., c.50) made it compulsory for county councils to appoint county medical officers of health in order to monitor and oversee the provision of certain measures to improve the health of the county. Shortly afterwards the same requirement was extended to burghs by the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict., c.55). The duties of medical officers were widened after the First World War and also by the 1929 Local Government (Scotland) Act (19 & 20 Geo. V, c.25), under which poor law institutions and district mental hospitals transferred to county councils and district councils.

The Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897 (60 & 61 Vict., c.38) gave the Local Government Board for Scotland supervisory powers over local authorities with regard to the regulation of medical officers and sanitary inspectors. Duties of medical officers included the isolation and treatment of people suffering from infectious diseases and the identification of the source of such outbreaks. After the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948 some of the duties of medical officers of health (with regard to infectious disease hospitals, poor law hospitals, local authority maternity hospitals and district mental hospitals) were removed from local government, but they continued to be responsible for the provision of community and public health services. The National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1972 (c.58) transferred these roles to the new Health Boards and the post of medical officer of health ceased to exist with effect from 1 April 1974. A number of miscellaneous environmental health services remained. In 1975 they became part of the functions of district or islands councils under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c.65).

Annual Reports
The annual reports of county and burgh Medical Officers of Health comprise one of the most frequently used sources of information relating to health, disease and social conditions in Scotland from the late 19th century until the early 1970s. The last reports by most authorities were for 1972 (the health service changes at 1 April 1974 meant that there was not enough time to produce reports for 1973, the last full year of the Medical Officers of Health). The annual reports contain information (especially statistical information) about births, deaths, infant mortality, prevention and notification of infectious diseases, the distribution of population, industries, offensive trades, working class housing, water supply, river pollution and the provision of some local hospitals and health services. All sorts of researchers use them, such as school pupils undertaking research on disease, public health and living conditions in their local area, local historians, academic social historians, and researchers into the history of medicine and health. The annual reports do not mention individual patients by name.

Location of Annual Reports
Annual reports were made to the Local Government Board for Scotland and to the local authorities in the county or burgh involved. These have ended up, respectively in the National Archives of Scotland, local authority archives, health service archives, reference and local studies libraries and university libraries. It is unusual to find a complete run of annual reports for a particular county or burgh in one archive or library. The National Archives of Scotland hold runs of annual reports from 1891 to 1972 for counties and burghs (in the Home & Health Department records, HH62, HH63 and HH72), but there are gaps for certain years for certain counties and burghs. In some cases this is because a particular county or burgh may not have produced a formal report for certain years.

Some Local and Other Variations
Aberdeen County made no formal report after 1958, but did make the necessary statistical returns to the Scottish Home and Health Department.

Bibliography
John Skelton, The Handbook of Public Health (London and Edinburgh), 1890); James Patten Macdougall and Abijah Murray (revisors), Skelton's Handbook of Public Health, The Handbook of Public Health, Part 1 - The Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897 with notes (Edinburgh and London, 1898); Walter Stephen, 'Public Health in the 1890s' in Using Archives in Environmental Studies 5-14 (Edinburgh City Archives); Gordon McLachlan (editor) Improving the Common Weal: aspects of Scottish health services 1900-1984 (Edinburgh, 1987).

Contributors
Fiona Watson (Northern Health Services Archive), Andrew Jackson, Jo Peattie, Robin Urquhart (all SCAN).