Annual report of the Commissioner of Public Health / Queensland.

  • Queensland. Department of Public Health.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Commissioner of Public Health / Queensland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/22 (page 3)
    The serious and increasing danger arising from Blight or Acute Contagious Ophthalmia among the children of Western Queensland calls for the most prompt and energetic action. This disease is of a highly contagious character, and is largely disseminated through the medium of schools, where instances have occurred in the Western parts of Queensland of large numbers of healthy children becoming rapidly infected from other school children affected with “ bad eyes.” Contagion is effected by direct contact or by the fingers rubbing the eyelids after contamination with the discharge from an infected case, or by means of Hies. Dr. E. K. Row, of the Thargomindah Hospital, has furnished a report, in which he states that “ Some legislation should be brought in to compel parents to see that their children’s eyes are properly attended to when at home. Parents allow their children who are so affected to go about with dirty faces and untidy, and when at home to use the same washing utensils and the same towels, apparently not giving a passing thought as to the result, and thus the germs of granulation and other diseases of the eye, which are ever ready, are cast around, and all clean and healthy children soon become affected with granulation and in-growing eyelashes. ... I think the best means to eradicate the evil is to have the children examined periodically a,t school by a doctor, and the parents compelled to look after their children when at home. It children were debarred from attending school because of their bad eyes the school would soon be empty, as the majority of the children are so affected.” Dr. Hewer, of Longreaeh, who has had considerable experience of eye blight, also expressed his views to me in much the same terms. He pointed out the fact that no inconsiderable proportion of the children so affected ran the risk of becoming incurable or permanently blind. The value of healthy children as assets to the State cannot be over-estimated. The scientific study of the protection of infant life is engaging every year, more and more, the attention of thoughtful men. Instruction in the principles of hygiene is necessary to enable children to fitly discharge their duties in after life. The difficulty of finding the right kind of teachers would soon be overcome if the teaching was organised and fitted so as to fall in with the educational system. At the International Congress of School Hygiene held at London during the year, it was shown that in most of the countries represented at the congress—namely, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Norway, Servia, Roumania, Japan, Russia, and the Argentine Republic—medical inspection of schools is either a State institution or is enforced by magisterial decree or by legal enactment. The effect of such inspection modifies the spread of tuberculosis, it lessens the possibility of contagious diseases, and raises the standard of health in the community by special attention to the teeth, eyes, ears, throats, and bodies of the children. It detects and prevents deformities and favours o-rowth on normal lines: it assists moral control and encourages self-respect and thrift, aspects of paramount importance in any community of whatever country. The appoinment of Mr. L. E. Mellish to the position of Secretary to the Department will, I feel sure, do much to place the clerical work of the office on a sounder and more satisfactory basis than it has been for some time past. No case of sea-borne exotic disease was reported during the year. The proximity of the State to the East, and other principal endemic foci, the extent of the coast line, and the numerous ports of call, render the State of Queensland peculiarly liable to attack from foreign contagion, and it says much for the careful watch constantly maintained at our ports that so far nothing has happened to seriously affect the health of our people or the shipping and commerce of the State. The Federal Quarantine Bill now before the Senate should do much to secure that uniformity of action and certainty of procedure which up to the present has been absent in the Commonwealth. As in former years, plague again made its annual reappearance in Brisbane, the number of cases in human beings since the 1st July, 1906 to 30th June, 1907, being thirty-nine. For the same period 20,799 rats were destroyed by the departmental gang within the metro¬ politan area. Of the above number 14,631 rats were examined for evidence of plague infection, and 43, or '29 per cent., were found so infected. A voluminous report on plague in Queensland for a period covering eight successive years—1900- 1907_has been prepared by me, and will be shortly available for publication. Apart from the statistical data collected and collated, the report deals exhaustively with the medical, preventive, administrative, and epidemiological aspects of plague as observed in Queensland. The scientific nature of the report will, I venture to anticipate, be recognised by not only the health authorities of the Commonwealth and abroad, but by the diplomatic or consular agencies of the countries and Governments, which latter, as signatories to the International Sanitary Convention of Paris, 1903, are entitled to the detailed informa¬ tion set forth therein. The practical question for those who live in countries liable to visitations of the plague is best to exterminate the rat and the rat-flea, which are the principal carriers of the disease, species, habits, and habitats of the rats concerned in the spread of plague, and the life-history of flea which transmits the infection, are discussed at some length in the report.