PERSONAL VIEW — TOM BARTROP
(This month we have chosen to ask Mr. T.H.C. Bartrop for
some of his views and personal reactions to the world of
Natural History. Members will remember Mr. Bartrop as a
very active former President of the Club, and a good all-
rounder. The following is an extract of a most entertaining
taped interview; the questions were put by the Editor).
Q. The first question I should like to put to you concerns
your work. I see that you are Chief Health Inspector for
Chelmsford R.D.C. This must bring you into contact with
quite a lot of Natural History in the course of your work.
A. Well, yes. Any worker in the field of environmental
health comes into contact with natural history in a number
of ways, The more obvious ones are, of course, the house-
hold pests, particularly those of medical or public health
significance; house-flies, blow-flies, blood-sucking flies,
mosquitos, parasitic insects, bugs, fleas, lice, ticks and
the mites. Also the large group of pests affecting foodtuffs;
cockroaches, ants, cricket-beetles, grain wevils, moths and
so on. Then there's the fungoid growths and insect pests
attacking building materials. There are contacts with
natural history through the biology of water supply,
sewerage purification and refuse disposal. With regards to
the latter, we, as conservationists, throw up our hands in
horror at proposals to use worked-out gravel pits as refuse
tips. On the other hand,, we probably raised our hands in
equal horror when the proposal came to make the gravel pit
in the first place. And in any case, a refuse tip, I've
always found, is a happy hunting ground for the ornithologist
and the botanist, particularly in connection with alien and
exotic plants, due to the kinds of wastes thrown out of our
houses with various seeds, and the underlying warmth of the
refuse -— up to 180. Then, for another thing, there is one
rather specialised field in which we come into contact with
natural history - meat inspection, with its tape-worms,
roundworms and flukes - all animal parasites and many
transmissible to man. Now, all these pests can be destroyed
but successful attack is made the easier by a knowledge of
their ecology and life history.
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