View report page

1907
154
"It is his implied duty also to inform the parents of the children that
they are not to attend school until seven days have elapsed after the disinfection
of the premises, for the London County Council School Codes provide
that 'it will be necessary for a further period (that is, after disinfection) of
seven days to elapse before the return of such children to school.'
"Consequently, if the infected child were not removed to hospital, every
child in the house would be compelled to remain at home until the patient had
completely recovered, and until a week after the premises had been disinfected;
that is to say from a period varying from six weeks to three months—a state
of affairs that would be intolerable. Again, if the patients were not removed
to hospital, businesses where food and Hrink are sold would be ruined, apart
from which disadvantage great danger would accrue to the public. Once it
got noised abroad, and it would be difficult to keep it secret because oi the
visits of the Medical Officer of Health or the Sanitary Inspector, customers
would cease to buy, and would purchase their food or drink elsewhere, fearing
lest they should contract the infection. It is of course quite possible that
there may be very little risk to the public in those businesses in which the
females of the household are not employed, because they do not serve in the
shop or handle the goods; but there is a very real danger in those businesses
where the mother and the daughters, but particularly the former, take an
active part in selling the wares, because they are the persons who in nearly
every instance nurse the patients. And even when they do not, and when the
mothers profess that if their childien are not removed to hospital they will not
enter the rooms where the patients lie ill, can any thinking person believe for a
moment that any such contract will be kept ? Of course not, because it is
entirely contrary to the natural ties that bind humanity. No mother, unless a
most unnatural one, could resist the maternal call if her sick child desired her
presence, with the result that she would be at one moment in the sick room
and at the next in the shop, duty alternating with business, which in these
cases is not permissible. It must be either all duty or all business, which is a
hopeless proposition under these circumstances.
"It is a serious matter for a case of Scarlet Fever to occur on premises
where clothing is made, for the Factory and Workshop Act in its 109th section
prohibits the making, cleaning, or repairing of wearing apparel in any dwelling
house whilst an inmate is suffering from Scarlet Fever.
"In consequence of this enactment, one of two things must be done when
a case of this disease occurs, either the patient must be removed or the business
must be stopped. To stop the business would mean utter ruin to many
persons, especially to those poor women, so many of whom are widows, who
are home workers endeavouring to earn the merest pittance for the support of
their family by making blouses, shirts, ties, and the thousand and one small
articles that are worn by ladies.
"The question is not has the presence of Scarlet Fever been lessened by
hospital isolation, but rather what would have happened in these modern days
days under the circumstances that have been detailed if there had been no
isolation ? The disease will more than probably never be stamped out, but
it can be, and is, kept within due limits by isolation in hospital. But why this
recent endeavour to belittle hospital isolation of this disease ? It is because a
certain number of what are known as 'return cases' of Scarlet Fever has
arisen among brothers and sisters soon after the patients' return to their homes.
In Islington, as elsewhere, such cases have occurred, but they are more or less
unavoidable. Only recently, for instance, a child who had been in hospital for