[Report 1922] / Medical Officer of Health, Berwick County Council.
- Berwickshire (Scotland). County Council.
- Date:
- 1922
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1922] / Medical Officer of Health, Berwick County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![The City Fever Hospital, Edinburgh, admits the grave but less common infections such as cerebro-spinal fever, acute encephalitis lethargica, puerperal fever, and ordinary infections requiring operation. Cases of puerperal fever are now sent in by the Child Welfare Committee, and a 50 per cent, grant is payable on such expenses by the Board of Health. East Fortune Sanatorium admits all classes of tuber- culosis, although until it is fully opened, cases will require to be sent to Noranside, Hairmyres Colony, and Southfield. The position as regards the administrative control of infectious disease has, therefore, entirely changed within the last ten years. Ten years ago the official infectious diseases were those named in the Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act of ] 889, of which the commonest were Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, and occasionally Typhoid, and the only hospitals in which they could be treated were Millerton Hospital and Gordon Hospital. The list of infectious diseases has since been much extended, and for the year 1922 reference to Table I. will show that out of 26 deaths from infectious disease, only one death was on account of a disease notifiable under the 1889 Act. All the others were on account of diseases added. It is obvious, therefore, that with the lessening of the relative importance attributed to Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria, or, to be more correct, with an increasing sense of the infect- ivity and danger of diseases such as Consumption, Cerebro Spinal Fever, Syphilis and Gonorrhoea, etc., the administrative importance which formerly attached to the local hospitals has now passed to central institutions for a wider area, on account of the laboratory and other specialist facilities possessed by them, the lessened cost, and because with the modern motor ambulance a central hospital for a wide area can be reached both quickly and with comfort. All the border areas are now partners in the Border Com- bination Smallpox Hospital, and it seems difficult to under- stand why for the purposes of isolation and treatment of scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid, combination could not also](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28647610_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
