Report on the health of Paddington for the quarter ending Lady-Day, 1872 : with a special report of the small pox epidemic of 1871 / by Wm. Hardwicke.

  • William Hardwicke
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the health of Paddington for the quarter ending Lady-Day, 1872 : with a special report of the small pox epidemic of 1871 / by Wm. Hardwicke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    1] The Registration of Contagious Diseases. Without a Registration of Contagious Diseases, all Sanitary- organization must be very imperfect. At present, Officers of Health rarely get information of epidemic diseases at their early stages, and [often when it is too late to be of any real service. In Bristol Mews, for instance, the information of a death from Small Pox was first known through the Registrar Generals Returns; upon inspection it was found that a woman with 6 children, had 4 of them suffering from Small Pox ; next door, a lad fresh from the country caught it and died, giving it to 3 other children, in a house in this mews. Altogether 20 cases occurred, some of which were removed. This place is a cul-de-sac, it lies low, surrounded by lofty houses, entered by a covered archway; there is no current of air; it is closely packed with horses and dirty people. Thorough inspection has since been made from house to. house, and a number of Sanitary Orders issued. In the epidemic of Scarlet Fever 3 years ago, many young children in this mews suffered severely. I brought the subject of the Registration of Disease, before the Health Section of the Social Science Congress in 1869,* and as the present time is again favorable for discussing a question of so much importance I may be excused for repeating some of the suggestions, and. express the hope that sueh a Clause will be inserted in the Public Health Bill now before Parliament as shall be workable and satifactory to future Officers of Health. It could be readily shown that the legal registration of zymotic disease is an essential feature of public health legislation, and of any sound system of sanitary organization, and how its operation would benefit the community in checking contagious maladies. Means that might be employed for carrying it out, are fully adverted to in the paper. Curative skill applied to the contagious forms of preventa- ble diseases has reached its maximum success. Medical services should now be directed to “prevention, rather than cure.” Especially ought public school teaching, as well as medical practice, be directed to this end, if medical men are to be credited with sound doctrine and honest practice. In the last 10 years scarlet fever killed 280,000 children ; measles 130,000 ; whooping cough 150,000 ; by 4 diseases alone 600,000. • “ How the Government may beneficially interfere to limit the spread of infectious disease.”—Social Science Transactions, 1869.