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79
No provision exists for the treatment of these diseases
in hospital, although it is desirable that hospital treatment
for the worst cases should be provided, for the following
reasons:—
(1) During the year 7 deaths occurred from scarlet fever,
8 from diphtheria, and 4 from enteric fever, for which
diseases hospital accommodation is provided, while 69 deaths
occurred from measles and 23 from whooping cough.
(2) The death rate from scarlet fever, enteric fever, and
diphtheria has declined during the past twenty years, since
the provision of isolation hospitals, but in respect of measles
and whooping cough the death rate has not diminished
during the same period, and these diseases are still potent
factors in the causation of deaths.
(3) The after-complications of measles and whooping
cough are much more serious than those of the three
diseases mentioned above, for which hospital accommodation
is provided, ear, eye and chest complications being
especially much more common, frequently giving rise to
some form of permanent disability.
(4) When the conditions under which treatment in hospital
is carried out are compared with the surroundings, the
badly ventilated and over-heated atmosphere, and the lack
of nursing facilities prevailing in many of the smaller tenements,
little room is left for doubt that the provision of
hospital accommodation from measles and whooping cough
would be the means of saving the lives of many sufferers
from these diseases.