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Edmonton Arban Sanitary District..
Extract from Annual Report of Medical Officer of Health, for 1893.
" Provision for the Isolation of infectious cases.
"The Board have at their disposal absolutely no accommodation
for the isolation of infectious cases, and the want of such
provision is much felt in the district.
"Both in the interest of the Public Health, and in that of
many of the patients themselves, it is eminently desirable that the
Board should have under their control, or at their disposal, some
suitable place where infectious cases can be efficiently treated and
effectively isolated. As a rule the Board's applications in cases of
special difficulty for assistance from other bodies have proved unsuccessful,
and however unsuitable the accommodation, the cases
have had to remain wherever they happened to arise. Several
instances have occurred where application was made to me for
removal of cases to hospital, and there were many others in which
the parents would have been ready to avail themselves of such
accommodation, and several in which the cases might fairly be
described as " infected persons without proper lodging," within the
meaning of the Public Health Act, one instance may be mentioned
in which a girl at 1(5 years, a boy at 19 years, and one younger child,
all suffering from Scarlet Fever, were confined in one small room.
"I have in previous reports pointed out that in a large
number, perhaps the majority of houses in this district, it is
impossible to isolate satisfactorily an infectious case, for the house
is fully occupied oy the family renting it, or when there is spare
accommodation it is let to lodgers, and that there are a considerable
number of houses let to two or more families, an arrangement which
unfortunately seems on the increase. Moreover, in a large proportion
of instances, the mistress of the house has to nurse the patient, and
perforin all other household duties.
"A well equipped and well managed Isolation Hospital
would do much to prevent the spread of infectious disease, particularly
Scarlet Fever, in the district it would diminish the number
of secondary cases, and the multiplicity of infected articles, which it
is not possible to adequately disinfect, and it must be remembered
that wnen several cases of Scarlet Fever are treated in one house,
for the most part in one room, the walls of which are in many
instances far from being non-absorbent, the apartment becomes
thoroughly imbued with the Scarlet Fever poison, and also that it is
very easy for articles of clothing, especially articles belonging to
those attending on the patients, to be exposed to the contagion and
to escape disinfection altogether. It is well known that the virus of
Scarlet Fever may lie dormant in infected articles, and after long
periods give rise to fresh cases of the disease. Some instances have
occurred in which Scarlet Fever has occurred in different families
occupying the same house in successive years, without other obvious
source of contagion.
"An Isolation Hospital would also provide the Board with
a means of promptly dealing with infected persons without proper
lodgings, a want that has on several occasions been much felt; and
would further tend considerably to diminish the number of infected
houses and consequent possible centres of infection.
"It cannot be expected however, that it would wholly
prevent the spread of Scarlet Fever, for it would have no influence
over one potent source of its extension, viz.: those cases in which the
disease is of a mild type and in which the parents do not consider
medical advice necessary and allow the child after one or two days to
mix freely with others, careless alike of the risks run by their own
children and of the danger to others.