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Tubercle bacilli were clearly shown in specimens 7, 19
and 20, and there was some doubt about 4, 6 and 21, but they
were probably not acting as carriers of tubercular disease.
All the remainder were, so far as could be discovered,
free from tuberculosis.
In view of the very emphatic pronouncement contained
in the interim report of the Royal Commission, which, as the
Council will, no doubt, remember, fully bears out my constant
contention, I do not propose in any way to relax my present
oversight, and it will be for the Council to consider whether,
in the absence of other direct legislation, it be not its duty to
proceed against offenders in this respect under the Acts already
in force, under which the presence of a small amount of
arsenic, of which the seller was quite unaware, was held to be
an offence, and was duly punished.
Since a period of six years has now elapsed since the
Vestry of Camberwell, for the first time in the history of sanitation,
decided to attempt to grapple with the disease known
as diphtheria, which was then making such terrible havoc
among the younger members of the community, and as, further,
continuous and comparable statistics are available for an
exactly similar period preceding, the moment seems opportune
for the consideration of the results which have been obtained
by the combined efforts of the officials of the Public Health
Department. It is true that the year 1903 is in some respects
an unfair one to include for purposes of comparison, since the
extremely wet weather and the consequent constant purification
of the atmosphere had the effect of lowering not only the death
rate but also the frequency of all the more common epidemic
diseases, and notably those which for our present purpose are
the most readily available for comparison as well as the most
satisfactory, so that the statistics of all these three would, in
themselves, tend to show a much more favourable course of
affairs than in warmer and drier years. But whilst this might
affect, in the way described, the prevalence of these diseases,
it would be in any case without effect upon their severity.
The diseases which I have selected as illustrating most
clearly the points to which I desire to draw special attention
are three in number, viz.:— Measles, scarlatina and diphtheria.
These three are all prevalent epidemic diseases, and account,
between them, for the greater part of the zymotic death-rate.