[Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council.

  • Warwickshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    also be borne in mind that predisposition to the disease is produced by the ignorance of parents in feeding their children, and not only in feeding their children, but in storing food, particularly milk, under conditions which are inimical to its safe and proper keeping. 41. In connection with this, I have been struck in the reports of the Women Health Visitors by the unsatisfactory condition of many of the pantries and other places used for storing food. One of the most common complaints made is that the pantries particularly are insufficiently ventilated and lighted, and receive direct ventilation, when they do get it, from very undesirable places. 42. At the end of the Report, in that part devoted to tabular forms, will be found a chart showing the number of cases of the three principal Zymotic diseases notified in each week of the year. 43. Phthisis.—I am glad to be able to report that the mortality from this disease has been somewhat less than in the previous year, though rather higher than in the years 1901 and 1902. Although something is being done by the Women Health Visitors in visiting the houses of people where one or more cases of Phthisis or Consumption exists, with this exception little is being done generally in the County to mitigate the severity of the disease. Of course the improvement of sanitary surroundings has done much, as is evidenced by the decline in the rate of Phthisis throughout the country since the sanitary era commenced, but I do not think it is sufficiently understood by the people, particularly by the less educated classes, that it is an infectious disease, and that, therefore, if it is to be stamped out or its severity mitigated, it can only be done by taking those precautions which are necessary to prevent the spread of infection. 44. When the Health Visitors in their inspections find a house in which there is a Phthisical patient a printed leaflet is given and the various points on it explained, by which I hope and trust good is being done. Compared, however, with the number of cases existing in the County, the work thus being done, even by the augmented staff of Health Visitors, is comparatively small. 45. In Leamington there was a very high mortality, no less than 26 deaths being registered, while in Aston Manor also the mortality was very high. In every Urban district with the exception of Bulkington, deaths occurred, while in the Rural districts deaths occurred in all of them with the exception of the three small districts of Castle Bromwich, Coventry and Farnborough. In the Rural districts the largest mortality was shown in Atherstone, Foleshill and Southam. In Southam, with a population of under ten thousand, 13 deaths were registered. 46. Probably two things have more effect on the spread of Consumption than anything else, namely Overcrowding, and the habit of Spitting. As regards Overcrowding, it will be noticed that in Aston Manor, which shows the greatest overcrowding on space, that is the largest number of persons per acre in the County, the Medical Officer of Health reports that of late years, though the general death-rate has fallen, there has practically been no diminution in the rate from Phthisis. 47. Spitting, however, in enclosed spaces, is one of the causes most closely associated with the spread of the disease, and I trust that the cards issued by your Committee last year, which are exhibited in the elementary schools, will do much good in constantly keeping before the eyes of the children the im¬ portant fact that disease and death may be produced by the habit of spitting. In some instances manufacturers have written to me asking me to supply them with cards for their factories, and I have had great pleasure in doing so, and 1 trust that the help which, when the bills were originated, was afforded by the police in seeing that they were exhibited prominently in public houses, will still be con¬ tinued, for experiments in'the way of the bacteriological examination of the dust from the floors of public houses in London has shown that the tubercule bacilli are generally to be found in countless numbers in such places, while the high mortality of barmen and potmen is to be ascribed, at least to a large extent, to the existence of these organisms in public houses. 48. In conclusion I trust that it will become the habit of all the District Councils to offer disinfection, by their officers, of all houses in the County where deaths occur from the disease. This is being done in several of the districts, and it cannot but be productive of good, and I should like to find that such disinfection was a routine practice.