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How Disease is Spread.—A fatal case of diphtheria may
be cited as illustrating a common cause of the spread of
disease, viz., the failure to recognise the gravity of ah apparently
simple illness. A doctor was called to see a woman dangerously
ill, and had but just time, ere she died, to see that she was
choking from an accumulation of diphtheritic membrane in her
throat. The woman had been ill for several days, but up and
going about, indoors and out-of-doors ; she was confined to bed for
less than 48 hours. Medical aid was not sought till shortly
before she died, and then too late to be of use. The illness was
supposed to be due to a cold on the chest, although the sufferer
seems to have been hoarse from the first. The jury—for, at my
instance, an inquest was held—came to the conclusion that the
failure to obtain medical assistance at the proper time was due
to ignorance and not to wilful neglect. But six days before the
woman died her child had been removed to hospital suffering
from diphtheria, and when the house was disinfected, next day,
the Sanitary Inspector, on the woman's complaint that she was
not feeling well, advised her to see a doctor at once. But she
did not follow his advice. The child, who with the parents had
recently come from the country, had for a short time lived in
one of the houses, in Warwick-road, which had been flooded
by the County Council Counter's Creek sewer. The family,
however, appear to have left the house before the illness
developed. When the child fell ill the mother took her to a
local hospital, where she waited in a crowded room for some
time. Tired of waiting, the mother then took the child to the
surgery of a practitioner, where two other patients were in
attendance. The doctor, recognising the disease as diphtheria,
sent the child home, and on the following day he got her
removed to hospital and notified the case.
Another case, which also, at my instance, became the
subject of an inquest, may be cited. It was that of a male
child, aged 19 months. There had been produced tome,atone
and the same time, by the father of the child, a medical certifi-