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61
REPORT BY THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
ON
CERTAIN ASPECTS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE CONTROL.
"A practice or tradition in regard to a particular disease all
too readily becomes established, fixed and static; yet scientific measures
of disease prevention continually call for critical re-examination as
to their truth and necessity, and for vigilant reconsideration from the
point of view of the legitimacy and expediency of the expenditure
incurred
Sir Geo. Newman,
Formerly Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Health.
During the lifetime of most of us the nature of the commoner
notifiable infectious diseases, and available knowledge
of their epidemiology, have undergone profound change; but
no corresponding change has taken place either in the attitude
of the general public towards infectious diseases or in the
measures applied by Local Authorities to control them. For
instance, the young fathers and mothers of to-day have had
the information handed down from their parents that scarlet
fever is a serious infection requiring six weeks detention in
hospital; that "the measles" is/are a trivial complaint "the
sooner over and done with the better"; that invisible germs
"hang on" not only to objects handled by the infectious
patient, but also to the very furniture and walls of the rooms
he occupied; that everything is all right after the house has
been "fumigated by the Council"; that children (generally
some other parent's children) must not go to school if a case
of fever is being nursed at home; that any person (other
than a doctor or nurse), who has been in contact with a case of
infectious disease, can "give it " to a third person; and so on.
Towards the end of last century, owing to the high
mortality and morbidity of scarlet fever and diphtheria, the
public spirit was roused to carry on a thorough campaign
with the avowed object of stamping out these and other forms
of communicable disease. To combat the spread of infection
fever hospitals were built for the segregation of the infectious
sick ; the wholesale removal to hospital of all such patients
was regarded as a necessary measure of control; and a most
elaborate process of routine terminal disinfection was carried
out on the assumption that the patient left behind him germs
capable of conveying infection to other people.
Leyton Temporary Isolation Hospital was built in 1896,
and continued to serve the needs of the area until the outbreak