View report page

41
100 cases annually. It will be seen that in the last
two years these diseases have been below the
average; also that the deaths of the last five years
are much less on an average than the preceding five
years, at the same time it is my opinion that many
of these diseases defy the utmost santitary activity
that can be brought to bear upon them. I do not
mean to say that their prevalence is not and may
not be much more controlled by sanitary means;
but it is the utter and entire carelessness of families
with regard to the propagation of these diseases,
that causes them to exist and spread. Thus, children
are constantly sent to school with whooping
cough. If they are not sent to school with measles
or scarlet fever, children are sent from families
where these diseases exist. Grown up persons
freely pass from diseased families to those who are
free from them and communicate the contagion.
Clothes are carried from the families of tailors,
milliners, dress makers, washerwomen, and others,
where infection exists, to families where previously
there was no disease. The mind of the whole
population needs to be impressed with the danger and
fatal results of these practices, before we can expect
to control and eradicate zymotic diseases.
There is one disease in this group over which we
possess entire control, and which only requires