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26
3rd.—Disinfection.
It is extremely hard to disinfect thoroughly, even by the
ordinary methods, houses affected by Measles. It is found that
the parents will not properly isolate their children in one room
during the illness, but allow them to run all over the house, and,
in a large number of cases, send them out before the infectious
period is past, and in such cases the whole house has to be
disinfected. The parents very much resent their rooms being
disinfected for Measles; some stormy scenes have often occurred
on the visit of the Inspector to disinfect. The disinfection of the
clothes is an important feature, but I much regret that my
Council have not yet thought fit to incur the expense of a proper
disinfecting chamber, and so the clothes can only be very
imperfectly disinfected. The question of a disinfector is under
the consideration of the Council, so I trust this matter will soon
be satisfactorily settled.
4th.—Expense.
The question of expense is one which has constantly engaged
the attention of my Council, and the point is whether the
advantages reaped repays the very large expense necessarily
incurred. For besides the payment of medical fees (which is
very heavy) in times of epidemics it is absolutely essential to add
to the sanitary staff in order to cope with the increased work,
one inspector being incapable of making all the necessary enquiries,
disinfection revisits, etc., in a population of 17,000 inhabitants,
and mainly of the poorer class, for out of this number over 2,800
children are attending the free schools in the district; this does
not include any children under 4 or over 13 years.
As to the advisability of continuing or abandoning Measles
from the list of notifiable diseases, I am of opinion that the
following are the objections against notification:—
(1) A large number of cases are never reported by the
parents, and although printed handbills have been
issued as to compulsory notification, many did not
do so.