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105
patient removed to hospital, or, if not removed, as
promptly as the condition of the patient or other circumstances
allowed. It was employed in 112 houses, and in
5 only, which were infected by Small-pox, was there
what is termed in the table a recurrence of the disease.
Such a designation of subsequent cases, however, is
scarcely correct, inasmuch as the interval between the
period of disinfection and the occurrence of another
attack in the same house, in every instance except one,
was less than 12 days—the period of incubation, or that
within which the patients could have been affected before
disinfection was first employed; and in the exceptel
case the interval was four months and a half—a length
of time which would make the probability of recurrence
extremely doubtful. Judged by the results recorded for
several years, disinfection, as carried out iu this subdistrict,
must be admitted to have been attended with
marked success.
Nevertheless, doubts have been expressed as to the
propriety of employing disinfection after Measles and
Whooping Cough, in consequence of the circumstance
that such procedure has not been generally adopted in
other Sanitary Districts. I would therefore bag to point
to the great infectiveness of these diseases, particularly
of Measles, and their great destructiveness of infant life,
as well as to the general principle involved in the duty
of preventing the spread of infective diseases of employing
all reasonable measures for the attainment of that
end, as a sufficient justification for my recommendation
of the adoption of disinfection after those diseases.
"The mortality of Measles," as stated in one of my
fortnightly reports, "is twice as great, and that of
"Whooping Cough three times as great, as that resulting
"from Small-pox." By a reference to the RegistrarGeneral's
"Annual Summary" for 1885, page 24, it will