View report page

25
This shows how usual it is for the parents to treat this
disease without medical aid, and often, when medical aid is called
in, it is to treat the disease sometime after it has manifested
itself. In the meanwhile other children are contracting it. It
seems to me that unless the Sanitary Authorities can be strictly
informed of all cases, and especially at the commencement of an
outbreak, the good that the Act is intended to do is lost. In my
annual report for the year 1895,1 stated: "As to the advisability
"of including this in the list of notifiable diseases, it is doubtful
"that much good is gained by it. Of course as regards closing
"of schools it is a guide, but as this disease is most infectious
"during the early stage, the harm is generally done before
"attention is drawn to it and all hopes of so checking the disease
"is prevented."
2nd.—Isolation.
The question of isolation in Measles is one that is all very
well in theory but most difficult in practice. In by far the
majority of the houses affected it has been found impossible to
make the parents comprehend the importance of isolating the sick
from the unaffected ones, and in nearly every case it is impossible
to obtain isolation at all, there not being sufficient accommodation,
with the unhappy result, that the whole family gradually fall with
the complaint. The only remedy in order to make isolation
effectual is the erection of a hospital, but the expense would be
enormous, and I doubt whether it would decrease the number of
cases to any great extent, as this disease, being so infectious in
the very early stages, the whole family is extremely likely to
contract it before the case is taken away. One thing I have no
doubt hospital treatment would do, that is to lessen the mortality
from this disease, for amongst the poor Measles is a disease that
the parents think much too light of, with the result that the
children are not sufficiently cared for, and Bronchitis and
Pneumonia terminate many lives which, under proper treatment,
would be saved.