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83
PREVALENCE OF AND CONTROL OVER
INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES

CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
The benefits of the improvement in the hygienic conditions which
were brought about towards the end of the last century were reflected in
the reduced incidence of a number of infections which had up to that
wrought such havoc. When the infectious diseases hospitals were erected
from 1880 onwards, they were not so much hospitals at which the infectious
sick obtained treatment, as places to which infective persons were removed
to avoid their spreading infection to others. At the time and for many
years, the three diseases from which those removed to these hospitals
were suffering were scarlet fever, diphtheria and enteric fever. All three
diseases were very prevalent and most lethal. From the 1920's sufferers
from other infections have been admitted. This wider range of cases
necessitated changes in the lay-out of these hospitals with many of the
beds provided in single-bedded or four-bedded cubicles. Enteric fever
became less common, largely the result of a safer water supply. Scarlet
fever became mild in character even though so very prevalent at times;
2nd then from the beginning of the national campaign for immunisation
against diphtheria in the early days of the war, there has been a steady
reduction in the number of these cases. These then so very recently
dread diseases now provide very small numbers of admissions to the
isolation hospitals. In the meantime, measles has waned in severity, quite
apart from the efficacy of therapeutic agents for cutting short the damage
due to secondary infection when this occurs. Concurrently, and perhaps
largely due to the increasing amount of vaccinating of infants against
Whooping cough, there has been a fall in the severity of this infection, so
recently such a menace to the life and health of the infant. The importance