[Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, St Albans Urban Sanitary District.

  • St. Albans (England). Urban Sanitary District.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, St Albans Urban Sanitary District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Enteric Fever. One ease of Enteric or Typhoid Fever was notified in January, that of a man aged 40, resident in St. Peter’s District. This was without doubt an imported case. Epidemic Diarrhoea. There was a great deal of Epidemic or Summer Diarrhoea last year, especially in August and Septem¬ ber. There were 16 deaths from this cause: 1 in May, 1 in July, 9 in August, and 5 in September. There were 3 deaths in the Abbey District, 6 in St. Peter’s, 6 in St. Michael’s and 1 in Sandridge. The extremely hot weather which we experienced during the past sum¬ mer is no doubt to some extent responsible for the mor¬ tality from this cause, for in the cool summers of 1902 and 1903 there were no deaths ascribed to this disease. Epidemic Diarrhoea, which prevails amongst infants in warm weather, especially amongst those brought up by hand, is essentially a filth disease, and is due to a specific micro-organism which flourishes in conditions more or less dirty and insanitary, and requires for its development weather sufficiently warm to raise the tem¬ perature of the ground to a certain height. Thus Epi¬ demic Diarrhoea is pre-eminently a preventible disease. It can be prevented by strict attention to the cleanliness and sanitary condition of our dwellings, and by taking especial care that all milk which is consumed by our infants should be boiled or sterilised, and that all feeding bottles, tubes, and utensils in which the milk is received or stored, should be frequently washed or rinsed with boiling Water, and kept most scrupulously clean. With the object more especially of preventing this disease, last summer I had some cards containing “Hints on the Feeding and Care of Infants” printed and distributed by means of the Registrars of Births, and the District Aurses, amongst mothers and other persons having the care of young children. I earnestly hope that this measure may be productive of good in the future, and do something to check the unnecessary sacrifice of young lives which goes on not only in this City, but throughout the length and breadth of the country. tj Measles and Whooping Cough. Although there were a few cases of Measles and Whooping Cough during the year, no death is attributed to either of these diseases. Still, I feel it my duty