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48
Boards of this large City, the disease has continued in a greater
or less degree in every district. We can come to no other
conclusion than that the present means adopted are not sufficient
to stamp out this frightful plague. Anyone who is at all familiar
with the subject can have no difficulty in discovering the cause
We know what ought to be done, and what would effectually
stop the spread of this disease; but, owing to the defective
legislation on the subject, our hands are tied. Even when we
have used the greatest possible energy and determination, we
over and over again observe the disease making its victims.
It seems rather extraordinary that less power should be given
to us who have to protect the lives of men, than is allotted to
those who have to protect the lives of cattle; and yet no one
doubts that if the same prompt measures were adopted in
dealing with infectious disease in the human subject as are
carried out in the case of analogous diseases in the lower
animals, it would be as easy to stamp out the one as the other.
Of course I do not refer to the pole-axe, but I can see no reason
why the same system of immediate and compulsory isolation
should not be adopted in the case of man as in that of animals.
For instance, under the present stute of the law, if you have a
horse suffering from glanders, &c., you do not at once
report the case to the proper authorities, you will be visited with
a severe fine or imprisonment; but on the other hand, you mav
have a person in your charge suffering from small pox, and you
may, if you like, never report the case. You may afterwards
see coffin after coffin taken out of your own or your neighbour's
house, and through not properly isolating the patient, cause the
disease to spread to 100 persons; but there is no law to
punish you (provided you have not
posed the patient in a
public thoroughfare), or to warn others that this must not occur
again. Anyone, whose painful duty it has been to visit persons
suffering from this awful scourge, must have shuddered with
horror at the sights that have met his eyes. The public, who
do not see this disease, can have no idea of the magnitude
of the affliction it occasions to some of those affected. Let me
give one case out of many. I once went into a house in Dawes'
Lane, where I heard that some cases of small pox were tried to
be concealed. The parents were out; so I asked if anyone
was there, when two living masses of corruption raised themselves
from off a heap of rags on the floor. It was impossible
to discern that they were human beings: they appeared mere
masses of blood and corruption. This is a dark picture, but I