[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Cannock U.D.C.

  • Cannock (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Cannock U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    are lowered in health and become more susceptible to the enteric poison. Again, it must be remembered that typhoid fever is an insidious disease and gi-adual in its onset, and that a patient when attacked may think it at first a simple attack of diarrhoea, and goes about ])retty much as usual, and yet at the same time casting broadcast the specific germ which, given the agencies of heat, moisture, and a favourable soil, multiplies and becomes the origin of a dangerous oiitbrcak, in which are generally found all the conditions for favouring its spread, viz., tbe crowded cottage household, with its front door securely ban ed and no means of ventilation except by the back door, ever open to receive the backyard dusty air, polluted, and possibly specifically polluted, with emanations from the filth accumulations of privies, refuse heaps, pig-styes, and fowl-pens. To free the district from this disease the following measures should be adopted, viz.:— (1) Isolation. (2) Disinfection by steam of all clothing, bedding, bed linen, and other articles exposed to the slightest risk of contamination. Disinfection of the excreta and their disposal by water carriage if available; if not, by burying them away from houses or sources of water .supply. (4) The substitution of waterclosets for privies where practicable, and where not, thorough and frequent scavenging, the middens and ashpits being covered and ventilated. (5) The drains to be well trapped and watertight. The backyard pavements should also be rendered watertight so as to prevent drain soakage. (6) The protection of w'ater, milk, and food sup- plies from risk of infection. With regard to this outbreak T sti-ongly urged the use of the Smallpox Ho.spital for the isolation of these cases, and after the Joint Hospital Committee had agreed to it no time was lost in removing them to the Hospital, through the active assistance of Hr. Blackshaw, Surveyor and Sanitary Inspector. The infected houses were thoi-oughly