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repress contagious diseases, or even to "stamp out" altogether
epidemic disease,—an attainable object—many circumstances
baffle their most willing efforts; indeed, no hope of success can
be entertained until fresh attempts at Sanitary legislation
bring about a better Sanitary organization. One great obstacle
to contend with, is the want of a general registration of disease ;
Zymotic forms of disease ought at any rate to be made
compulsory. For, although contagious maladies comprise more
than one-fourth of all the deaths, it is a mere fraction of these
cases known to the Public and Sanitary Authorities of a District;
private medical practitioners do not report them, nor are parents
or guardians, school teachers, relieving officers under the poorlaw
compelled to give notice of cases that occur in schools or
private houses. Medical Officers of Health, it is true, get the
weekly returns from the Registrar General of Deaths. Even this,
I am told, is a complimentary rather than an official document,
and for every single death therein recorded there must be at least
eight or nine other (non-fatal) causes.
The returns of the Poor-Law Medical Officers are but a faint
indication of the seat and extent of epidemic maladies It has
been shown in a paper which I wrote on the subject, entitled
" How the Government may beneficially interfere to limit the
spread of infectious diseases''— Transactions of the Social
Science Association at Belfast 1869 — that until a registration
of Zymotic diseases is called for by the legislature, no practical
methods can be adopted for "stamping out" contagious disease,
or such as will be worthy of being ranked as an efficient system
of Sanitation. The Royal Sanitary Commission have just issued
a report, in which certain principles have been laid down as a
guide for future legislation, and to assist in a consolidation of the
laws relating to public health. The Chairman of our Sanitary
and Public Health Committee has been one of the most indefatigable
workers on this Commission.
Some persons, even in the present day, deny the possibilities
of "stamping out" Small Pox, Typhus, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever,
Cholera, &c. The idea is thought to be Utopian. It is just as
unreasonable to believe that we must be infested with vermin,
bugs, fleas, lice, and itch, which, like the spreading diseases, are
the invariable concomitants of neglected domestic sanitary regulations;
and their eradition is as perfectly within the sphere of
either public or private hygiene. The danger of harbouring a
contagious disease, it must also be remembered, is not confined
to the individual suffering; it is a matter that concerns the
community; so far therefore has the State a right of interference
with "the liberty of the subject," and especially ought this
power to be exercised over personal action where public health
and life are endangered by any neglected private duty.