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44
Your Committee do not think that its present title of Sanitary Committee,
which has become associated in the popular mind with the removal of
nuisances, is sufficiently wide to adequately convey the idea of the important
duties entrusted to them, and consider that it is an anomaly that they
should retain a name derived from Acts of Parliament which have been
repealed, and which is misleading, inasmuch as it does not properly describe
their duties.
They therefore recommend that the titles of Sanitary Committee and
Sanitary Department be changed respectively to Public Health Committee
and Public Health Department, as being more descriptive of the work of
your Committee in safeguarding the public health in your district.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
HENRY HULLAND, Chairman
INFECTIOUS FEVEES AND DRAIN EFFLUVIA.
The connection of infectious disease with defects in house drainage
is a subject upon which the popular mind has very pronounced
views. Such defects are competent, it is thought, to produce any
infectious disease; at one time enteric fever, at another measles,
scarlatina or diphtheria without rhyme or reason ; but to those engaged
in practical sanitation the connection of the two has not been
so obvious. The difficulties of arriving at any certain or probable
conclusion on the subject are many— the most serious being the want
of data upon which to found any conclusion.
In order to arrive at an accurate conclusion, it is necessary to
know, firstly, what proportion of house drains is defective to use as a
standard of comparison for houses where infectious disease exists,
and where the drains are defective. By this means we would learn
whether the incidence of infectious disease was greater upon houses
with defective drains than upon houses without defective drains.
This is to say, whether the infectious disease rose or fell pari passu,
with the number of defective drains. I mean by the term defective
drains such a condition of the drain as led to the escape of drain air
into the dwelling; but as I have not been able to obtain the above
information, I am thrown back upon the less satisfactory method
of comparing the houses where infectious cases have occurred with
one another, as in the table below.