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a. Isolation of the patient, and to some extent that of the
nurses.
b. Exclusion from school, and also of all other children
from the house, exclusion of men and women from the workshop,
the desk, and the counter.
c. Exposure in public places becomes penal.
d. Disinfection and cleansing at termination of case.
—others collateral.
If we bear in mind that an ordinary case of consumption lasts from
seven to ten years, it is easily seen how almost impossible it would be
to isolate during that period, entirely so, unless we have the necessary
institutions, then isolation and treatment might go together ; but here
we are met by a great unfairness to the patient. I mean the injury
done to him by being obliged to herd with similar sufferers—them
alone.
My opinion is that a hospital or any place where consumptives
congregate is inadmissable for a consumptive. We ought to find
virgin soil. I am informed that at the great home for consumptives,
Davos Platz, in Switzerland, where twenty years ago cases were never
met with among the natives they are now frequent enough, and therefore
Davos Platz cannot be so suitable now as it was when first
recommended. The same may be said of Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
Taking this view, it is apparent that for the patient segregation is the
better for his fellow citizens' aggregation.
I do not believe that Parliament would permit us to be clothed
with the same powers under the Act quoted, for the treatment of the
notifications as we at present possess for the treatment of the scheduled
diseases, but we might do something as follows:—Notify all forms of
Tubercle as Phthisis, consumption of the lungs; hydrocephalus,
membraneous; hydrocephalus (water on the brain) of the brain ;