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27
COMPARISON OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS.
BIRTHS. DEATHS.
Christchurch Males 243 244
„ Females 219 138
402 382 Excess of Births 80
St. Saviour Males 233 122
„ Females 231 129
464 251 Excess of Births 213
926 633 „ 293
I removed ten cases of Scarlet Fever and two of Enteric
Fever to the South Eastern Hospital during the year, and in
three instances, where the disease was too far advanced to
allow of the removal of the patient with safety, I isolated the
cases until their recovery.
Very great care has been taken to disinfect dwelling-rooms
and bed furniture after infectious diseases, and here a few
words about disinfection may not be inappropriate. Disinfection,
in the proper sense of the term, means any process
by which the contagion of a given disease may be destroyed or
rendered inert. Disinfectants, however, are used in practice
for several objects, and the term has been vaguely applied to
the use of chemical means for the destruction of noxious
agents whether products of specific diseases or not. In this
erroneous sense disinfectants have been confounded with
deodorants, which merely cover offensive odours without
affecting the contagia, and with antiseptics. The manner in
which they are supposed to act is very various. Some, such
as permanganate of potassium, set free from water by chlorine,
oxidise organic matter. Others, such as sulphurous acid,
withdraw oxygen, and have a reducing influence, or, like
chlorine, may combine with hydrogen, and remove it. Another
class of which, carbolic acid is the type, is supposed to arrest
molecular changes, whilst chloride of zinc and other metallic
salts possess the power of coagulating albumen, or combining
with it.
Of special disinfectants, Heat—dry or moist—is, perhaps,
the best disinfectant we possess. When contagion is shielded