100 years ago

THE inestimable value of vaccinations against typhoid had been proved beyond doubt during the five months the war had lasted.

Most of the active Army had been vaccinated before the outbreak of hostilities, but the Reservists and Territorials, who had been drafted to the front had not, and towards the end of October a large number of cases of typhoid had been reported.

A party of Army doctors had gone to the front, taking quantities of vaccine, and treated whole army corps in the firing line with the exception of two regiments which could not be got at. By the end of December the disease had been practically stamped out, the only cases being among the two unvaccinated regiments.

Arrangements were now being made to vaccinate every soldier whether at the front or at the depots or in the interior of the country.

 

50 years ago

THE booming membership of the York Women’s Gas Federation was in line with what was happening in the gas industry, said Mr SG Deavin, deputy chairman of the North Eastern Gas Board, at the annual meeting of the York Federation.

The chairman, Mrs JM Carr, had announced that the York branch, which had started eight years before with five members, now had a membership of 177. Mr Deavin went on to quote the facts and figures which showed how the gas industry, once static, had been revitalised. Over the previous four years, he said, there had been a 22 per cent increase in total gas consumption.

Revolutionary changes in the industry had contributed to the boom, thought Mr Deavin. He mentioned the import of non-toxic gas from the Sahara – some had even reached York – and the design of radiant convector gas fires, as two reasons for the public’s renewed faith in gas.

 

25 years ago

DETECTED cases of overcharging at superstores could be only the tip of the iceberg, claimed North Yorkshire’s trading standards chiefs.

Although shops were regularly found giving a misleading indication of prices up and down the country, they were not always taken to court. Tesco had just been fined £1,200 for overcharging a York woman on three separate occasions at its Clifton Moor branch. The mistake had involved bottles of facewash that were marked with one price, while the shop’s check-out computer was programmed to read another price – 14p higher – from the barcode.

A lawyer acting for Tesco said all its stores would cease stocking pre-priced goods from April. “We now have almost 3000 stores with electronic price scanning equipment. Trading standards officers up and down the country regularly find cases of misleading pricing,” said a trading standards officer.