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24
Dr. Newsholme of Brighton, has recently (Dec., 1899) published
an interesting paper on the causation of epidemic diarrhoea.
Some of his chief conclusions may be added:—
1. Epidemic Diarrhoea is chiefly a disease of urban life.
2. Epidemic Diarrhoea as a fatal disease, is a disease cf the
artisan and still more of the lower labouring classes to a
preponderant extent.
3. Towns having the water-carriage-system of sewage have as
a rule much less diarrhoea than those retaining other
methods of removal of excrement.
4. Towns with the most perfect scavenging arrangements have
the least epidemic diarrhoea.
5. The influence of the soil is a decided one. Where the
dwelling houses of a place have as their foundation solid
rock with little or no superincumbent loose material, the
diarrhoeal mortality is, notwithstanding many other unfavourable
conditions and surroundings, low. On the
other hand a loose soil is a soil in which diarrhoeal
mortality is apt to be high.
6. Given two towns equally placed, so far as social and
sanitary conditions are concerned, their relative diarrhoeal
mortality is proportional to the height of the temperature
and the deficiency of rainfall of each town, particularly
the temperature and rainfall of the third quarter of the
year.
Dr. Newsholme concludes that "the fundamental condition
favouring epidemic diarrhoea is an unclean soil, the particulate
poison from which infests the air and is swallowed, most commonly
with food, especially milk." In other words epidemic diarrhoea is
a so-called "filth-disease" preventable by improved sanitation in
the broadest meaning of the term.
Enteric Fever.—There were 92 cases of Typhoid or Enteric
Fever notified in the district out of which there were four deaths