View report page

23
2. Density of Population and Buildings.—Aggregation favours,
dispersion over a wide area disfavours, the disease.
3. Insanitary Conditions.—Darkness, dirt and defective
tion of a dwelling favours the disease. Accumulation of
domestic refuse in ash-pits, dust-bins, or on the street
may also exert a like injurious influence.
4. Food.—The storage of food,, particularly milk, in improper
places, exposed to emanations from filth acts prejudicially.
Disease-producing organisms are thereby greatly increased
in the milk which also undergoes organic changes, giving
to the milk poisonous and irritating properties.
5. Maternal Neglect, etc.—Infants brought up by hand or bottle
suffer most heavily from fatal diarrhcea.
There is a concensus of opinion that of all these conditions,
limate and food exert a very powerful effect on epidemic diarrhoea.
The vast majority of deaths from this cause occur in the third
quarter of the year. In this district 87 out of the 126 deaths occurred
n August and September. Now it happens that the salient features
pf the Meteorology of 1899 were two, namely, the excessively high
temperature in the five months from July to November inclusive,
and the deficient rainfall. These two conditions as we have seen
are those usually associated with a high diarrhoeal mortality. The
cfour-foot earth thermometer registered 56° F. in the middle of June,
rising to 65° F. in August and sinking to 56° F. again early in
October.
As regards food, it is observable that the disease affects children
at an age when milk is the principal food, and it is almost confined
to children fed by hand. Such milk must become polluted at the
farm, during transit, in the milk-shop, or in the house of the consumer.
There is a good deal of evidence to show that the last
place is the source of much pollution, both in the stored milk and
in unclean vessels and feeding-bottles.
One must not, however, lose sight of the sanitary improvements,
such as removal of refuse and street cleansing, which undoubtedly
assist in diminishing the disease.