On artificial disinfection as a means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases / by J.H. Timins.

Timins, J. H.

Date:: 1878

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On artificial disinfection as a means of preventing the spread of infectious diseases / by J.H. Timins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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of limiting infectious diseases, but also of relieving the sick and their attendants from much of the cruelty to which they are subjected in the present day. The Public Health Acts have many advan¬ tages ; but one evil which has undoubtedly resulted from them has been to diminish public compassion for persons suffering from infectious diseases. The instinct of self-preservation has been quickened by legislative enactments, which, being designed for the protection of the healthy, ignore the pains of the sick; and the grand desideratum with the majority of the public now is to find means of getting rid of infected people as fast as possible from their own vicinity, with very little consideration for the un¬ happy objects of their apprehension ; and the result of this is often to increase the danger which it is sought to obviate, by leading to the concealment of infectious diseases. Threaten wives and mothers with the removal of their husbands or children to a work- house infirmary, and their first and natural desire will be to hide the fact of the infectious disease from the sanitary officers, who are already regarded with distrust and apprehension by the poorer classes. The want of certainty as to effectual means of dis¬ infection also operates to the disadvantage of those who minister to the sick in their own homes, who are, in many places, avoided as if they were mad dogs. Ho one will go near them to help them, or even to take them food. Fathers are deprived of their work, and mothers lose the kindly help of charitable neighbours, which, in all other cases of sickness, the poor so cheerfully render to each other.

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