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45
Puerperal Fever.—Six notifications were received, and three deaths
occurred. Disinfection was carried out after each case, including the
clothing, &c., of those in attendance.
All the patients were treated in hospital or infirmary. The illness
was due to want of proper attention at birth in one case; one to
abortion; two to pre-existing disease; no definite history was obtainable
in two cases.
The Asylums Board have decided to make arrangements for the
reception of certified cases of puerperal fever in their hospitals, having
been advised that such cases can be safely admitted to the same hospital
with other infectious diseases, and are in some hospitals treated in the
same wards as cases of enteric fever.
Cholera.—This disease continued prevalent in Russia during last
year. I received notification from the Port Sanitary Authorities of
121 persons coming to Westminster from affected districts, and these
were kept under observation.
Plague.—The recent occurrence of cases of this disease in Suffolk is
cause for some apprehension, but not necessarily for alarm. It is now
generally admitted that rats play an important part in the dissemination
of this disease, and infected rats have been found not only in Suffolk,
but also in Essex, while there is always the danger of infected rats
entering the docks from vessels coming from localities where the disease
is prevalent. The London Port Sanitary Authority takes active steps to
prevent this, and the Local Government Board have made regulations
whereby local authorities may deal with the destruction of rats in their
district, but the co-operation of the householder is also necessary. Steps
must be taken to keep rats from gaining access to dwellings and stores.
In London the usual route by which they do so is through defects in the
sewers and house drains; it is therefore incumbent upon owners of
property who are troubled with rats to take steps to have all drains
thoroughly examined with a view to their being made sound. If rats
are kept out of houses and stores, and exterminated in waste places, &c.
there need not be much fear that there will be any great outbreak such
as occurred 245 years ago. Once the disease attacks human beings there
is danger, especially in the pneumonic form, that infection may be given
off by the breath of the patient, but isolation and disinfection will
doubtless act as sufficient checks, if undertaken promptly. At present
it should be the aim to prevent infection spreading to human beings
from lower animals, especially rats.
Circulars prepared by the Board of Agriculture on the destruction
of rats have been circulated in the city.
D