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12
I would respectfully refer to the remarks I made in my last
Annual Report on this subject, and would call the attention of the
Council to the great importance of this disease: it is the chief cause of
the high infantile mortality of the district, and certainly merits serious
attention.
I do not think that anything of material benefit can be accomplished
when once the outbreak has started, and under any circumstances
I think the disease could only be successfully met by the supply
of suitable dietetic preparations, and the provision of an infant establishment
and of a nursing staff.
The principal cause of its prevalence is, I think, the defective
hygienic conditions under which infants are in many instances placed,
and to the want of care shewn in the selection and preparation of their
food. It is unfortunate that a considerable addition is made year by
year to the number of people in the district who are closely verging on
pauperism, but I think it is undoubtedly the case, as in many instances
I have known applications for parochial relief to come from houses in
new roads which had not been three months in occupation. It is
among those in such unfortunate circumstances that the defective
conditions of hygiene and general management of infants which pave
the way for outbreaks of this disease are prevalent, and the remedying
of which presents such great, if not insuperable, obstacles.
The great and increasing prevalence of the disease year by year is
certainly a matter for regret, and one which cannot be regarded with
equanimity by those to whom the sanitary administration of the
district is entrusted.
Hospital Accommodation for Infectious Diseases.
It is with great regret that I again have to report that nothing
has been accomplished during the year to meet the difficulties that
from time to time arise owing to the absence of any suitable provision
for the isolation and treatment of cases of infectious disease, a duty
that the legislature seems definitely to have assigned to the Local
Administrative Authorities, nor has any definite plan, so far as I am
aware, been agreed to by the Council for dealing with the matter,
although it is true that some correspondence has taken place on the
subject, and that your Engineer and myself attended at the Local
Government Board's office, and had the advantage of hearing the views
and advice of an eminent member of the Board's medical staff on
certain points connected with the matter.
The solution of the difficulty cannot, however, in the absence of a
definite plan for dealing with it, be said to have been materially
advanced, except in so far as it may have been brought nearer being
accomplished by the mere evolution of time.