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19
Infectious Diseases and the Measures taken to Prevent
their Spread.
It will be seen from Table B that 171 notification
certificates of infectious disease were received from medical
practitioners in the district.
These 171 cases represent infection in 131 different houses,
each of which was subsequently disinfected. In 96 cases the
Disinfection was performed by the Sanitary Department
and in 75 cases by householders to the satisfaction of
their medical attendants. A visit was paid to each house and I
find that of the 171 cases 24 of them occurred in houses in
which there were " grave'' sanitary defects, 32 in which the
sanitary defects were " slight," and 75 in which there were no
sanitary defects. It is important to know that in arriving at these
figures I have been influenced by the consideration as to
whether any particular sanifary defect found was of a nature
which is known to predispose to or induce the particular disease
in question. When this has been the case I have entered the
sanitary defects as " grave," and where there has been a sanitary
defect which, though it might have been grave in relation to some
other infectious illness, but not of a nature likely to give rise to
the particular disease associated with it, then such defects have
been entered as "slight."
Thus, apart from the immense value of the steps that have
been taken in respect of each notification to prevent the spread
of disease, the Infectious Disease Notification Act was the means,
during the year, of bringing about a sanitary inspection of 131
houses, in which 24 "grave" and 32 "slight" sanitary defects
were remedied. The value of the Act in this relation is apt to
be lost sight of; it is particularly great because it leads to the
discovery of sanitary defects at a time when people are always
most willing to recognise their importance and to further our
efforts to get them remedied. But for the fullest possible value
to be reaped from such notifications it is imperative that the
medical attendant sends in the certificate with the least possible
delay. I fully recognise how the matter may be temporarily
overlooked in the stress of a busy practice, but there can be no
excuse for the delay of several days which has, in one or two
isolated cases, been noted.