Health lectures for the people. Fourth series. Delivered in Edinburgh during the winter of 1883-84.
- Date:
- 1884
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Health lectures for the people. Fourth series. Delivered in Edinburgh during the winter of 1883-84. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![our Municipal Act, referring to the registration of infectious diseases, enables the Medical Officer of Health to put his finger at once on any case of infectious disease occurring in a dairy within the burgh. Much of the milk, however, sold in Edinburgh comes from dairies outside the city: over them he has no such power. He may never be aware, until much mischief is done. We may have at any time a repetition of what occurred not so very long ago in the Morningside district. Dundee is at present suffering from two epidemics, one of scarlet fever, and one of typhoid, both originating from infected milk. The Lord Advocate desires to extend the same law with regard to the registration of infectious diseases to the whole of Scotland. Give him your individual assistance in this matter, and the result no doubt will be a stamping out of milk epidemics. They will be strangled at their very beginning. I have spoken of the necessity of attending to the sanitary standard of health resorts as one reason why you should take an interest in the Lord Advocate's Act; the rural dairies is surely another reason for. your interest in this matter. There is much room for improvement in our milk shops where milk is sold. No milk shop should have any connection with an inhabited house. There should be no possibility of sewer gas reaching the basins of milk. All milk shops should be licensed, as in Birmingham. Keep a sharp lookout on your milk cart, and see that it is not utilized for carrying pig's meat. I have not time to speak of painters and servants being allowed to go outside windows to clean them without some protection. I have not time to speak of smoke nuisances. 1 have not time to speak of the importance of inspecting plumber work when building operations are going on, I have not time to speak of the importance of public baths and wash-houses. I have not time to speak of lodging houses. Common lodging houses, where a person pays fourpence a night, are well taken care of; what of the lodging houses of our students, clerks, shopmen, and shop- girls ] All lodgings should, in my opinion, be periodically inspected and officially registered. This, no doubt, means money spent, but it would be money saved. Every case of fever treated](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21908382_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
