INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18458, 23 July 1923, Page 9

INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

IMPORTANCE of control. GREATER CO-OPERATION NEEDED. A lecture was given by Dr. R. H. Watts, Director of the Division of .Hygiene, in Wellington, before the Sanitary Inspectors' Association, on the subject, "Infectious Diseases and their Control." Dealing with, the cause of infectious diseases, Dr. Watts seated that virulent diseases fell on rich and poor alike, and were due to a living agent producing poisons which overcame the resistance of the body.', There were many channels for diseases, the principal being the respiratory, digestive, and skin, but 90 per cent, .were got through the mouth. :•■)[ Some toxins, he said, were very virulent, especially those which developed in food'which was left exposed. There were five principal methods of control 'of infectious diseases, said Dr. Watts: (1) Sanitation. (2) notification, (3) isolation, (4) disinfection, (5) vaccine and. serum : therapy. All wero not equally successful, but all had their uses and limitations. With notification the, sources of indications were gained more easily, and in some cases recrudescence was prevented. The. importance of sanitation, said the doctor, shocJd obvious :to all. In Great Britain ■: an amazing reduction had taken place in the last 30 _ years of the percentage ,of deaths by infections diseases, principally owing to the improvements in sanitation. With isolation there were two methods, hospital .and home, the former being ■ more curative than preventive. Home isolation was beneficial in many ways, but the greatest, care should be taken in the disinfecting. The infection produced by the contact of persons was of primary importance, also the using of infected materials, food, drinking' utensils, etc. Disinfection should be concurrent day by*-day and hour by hour. I The last method of control, that of vaccine serum, therapy, Dr. Watts Wid, offered the greatest field for advance. The enormous amount of life, saved during: the last war by inoculation, and the fact that enteric fever was pr?cticallv unknown, : caused very few people to doubt v: its : efficacy. Sernm therapy placed in the body a well-equipped army of mercenaries, ready to combat disease, e«neciallv in the case of diphtheria. Dr. Watts admitted the srreat difficulties presented in the unsolved problem of carriers, which were of two types, the convalescent (the more dangerous) who ,was recovering from a disease and .carrying virulent strains, and the contact carrier. Tt wps impossible •to isolate all carriers, as the maiorifv of the cases carried bacilli of a non-virulent type, and it was impracticable and too .- costly to determine who were cnrrving virulent and who nonvirulent bacilli.- • • In* conclusion the doctor '■ stated that notifin-.A'OT), isolation, and disinfection should he sufficient'to, stamp out an epidemic of diphtheria, enteric fever, or scarlet fever. While all sw»M«njr : of schools, etc., «was not -, a . practical procedure, the pwhhin? of home contacts w«s c most helpful; one., and bv excluding children from school and from those ensured in occupations, further cases were s prevented.. ,' > Th« general public were often sceptical of thee remedies, and prreater co-opera-tion was needed in some d : stricts on these questions of vital importance. ;■-..'