Notes on the sanitary clauses of the Birkenhead Corporation Act, 1881 / by Francis Vacher.

  • Vacher, Francis.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the sanitary clauses of the Birkenhead Corporation Act, 1881 / by Francis Vacher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    infectious disease in any house, to issue an order declaring such a house, or any rooms therein, an infected place; and no person ^ living in an infected place shall continue at an indoor occupation p necessitating the handling of articles likely to retain infection ; ^ and no such articles shall be removed from such place without ^ previous disinfection. The penalty for an offence under this clause is a sum not exceeding: ^ £5, and in case of a continuing offence a further sum not exceeding: « £2 for every day on which the offence continues. The Corporation are required to make compensation to any per- son sustaining loss owing to the exercise of these powers; but such compensation is only to be in respect of direct material loss. ^ Let me consider these four provisions. As regards the first, I may ^ say that the ability to remove the sound from the infected sick is ^ almost a necessary complement to the power to remove the infected [ sick from the sound. It must often happen that by the time the j Sanitary Authority has information of a case the subject of disease is , too ill to be removed, and the only way to prevent infection is to remove the members of the family not required for nursing. Again, the Authority sometimes gets advice of a case before it is possible to j diagnose whether it be one of infectious disease, and if the patient’s ^ family could be removed till the nature of the disease became ^ apparent, risk of infection might be avoided. Again, after the death or removal of an infectious patient a thorough disinfection is required, and this in small cottages is only practicable after the temporary j removal of the survivors. Under any of these circumstances accom- ] modation for the persons to be removed is a sine qua non. Power to ' j provide it has already been given to some other Sanitary Authorities. In Glasgow, where such accommodation has been afforded for many years, the medical officer of health has frequently borne testimony to its usefuhaess. _ j The advantage of being able to provide nurses to attend on infec- tious patients must be obvious to all. I have known a man and wife, prostrate with fever and too ill to be removed, dependent for nursing on the charity of two or three neighbours, every one of whom thus exposed herself and her family to the risk of infection. I may mention also that I have been told by a brother medical officer that having,to j>rovide nurses for certain infectious sick, he was advised . that the only way of getting their wages paid would be bj' certifying them as ‘ dishifectants,’ which he accordingly did. Powers to close public or private schools have also been granted to other Urban Authorities. The difference between the clause it was lately proposed to insert in the Liverpool Building and Sanitary Act and the portion of the Birkenhead Corporation Act referring to the closing of schools, is that Liverpool proposed to ask for powers to close schools situated in any neighbourhood “ threatened with or affected by infectious disease,” whereas our powers enable us to deal with schools only in neighbourhoods affected by infectious disease.