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7
number is equivalent to a death rate from such affections of 1.8 per
1,000 living, and of 1,000 deaths registered from all causes 73 were
due to diseases of this class.
Hospital Accommodation for non-destitute
infectious sick.
I suppose that in these days there will be found no one willing
to deny that the most efficient method of controlling the spread of
infectious disease is to isolate the infected. From the most ancient
times the system of isolation has been practised. It is enjoined in
the Mosaic law with a strictness that we should "consider at the
present day irksome if carried into execution. In those days the
leper must have had a hard time of it. He was practically dead;
he was cut off from all intercourse with his fellow beings, except
those in a condition similar to himself. I cannot help thinking that
in this matter of isolation of the infected we have retrograded rather
than progressed; the liberty of the subject has been considered
before the public good. It is true that certain enactments have
been made having for their object the isolation of persons suffering
from infectious disease, and I would mention especially certain
sections of the sanitary Act of 1866. By Section 37 of this Act the
Sanitary Authority of a District is empowered to provide Hospital
accommodation for persons in their District who are suffering from
infectious disease: they may do this either by building Hospitals of
their own, or by contracting with existing Hospitals for the required
accommodation, and two or more Sanitary Authorities may combine