HEALTH NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 20833, 23 July 1929, Page 11

HEALTH NOTES

NUISANCES. INFECTIOUS DISEASES. (Contributed by the Department of Health.) From the earliest days of efforts io promote a better public health, the abatement of nuisances has been considered to be an essential part of such work. So much so, that the officers appointed under our earliv est English Act dealing with public health, were known as inspectors of nuisances, a title which has survived until quite recently. The earlier pioneers in health work attributed most, if not all, of what we know as epidemics of infectious diseases to the existence of those conditions known as nuisances, insanitation in dwellings, dampness, lack of sunlight, overcrowding, offensive accumulations of filth and garbage, keeping of animals under insanitary conditions, emanations from offensive trade processes, impure water supplies, and excessive production of smoke. To a very large extent this opinion survives to-day, and many people still think that an epidemic of diphtheria is directly due to some one or other of such nuisances. To a limited extent these early pioneers in health work were correct in their. deductions, and those insanitary condition:' known as nuisances still maintain their position as important factors in the production of epidemices, and in their relation to the standard of public health. But in the larger knowledge which has been acquired as to the causation of these epidemic diseases, it is now known that these conditions are not the immediate cause of such epidemics, as they are found occasionally to occur in quite good sanitary environment. Our knowledge of the life history of the organisms giving rise to these infectious diseases provided abundant proof that they do not always emanate from accumulations of filth or bad drinks. Disease Organisms. Within the limits of our present knowledge, we know that infection of the human organism with certain disease-producing bacteria will, certain favourable circumstances obtaining, produce specific infectious diseases. We know, however, ‘hat most of these disease-producing organisms will live outside the human body, but that to retain their viability they require a suitable medium' upon which to feed, and certain degree of warmth or moisture, and in many cases the absence of sunlight. The insanitary conditions which we know as nuisances provide ideal surroundings for the growth of these disease-produc-ing organisms, and thus we find typhoid fever prevailing where imperfect disposal of excreta obtains, and pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption more in evidence where overcrowding with absence of sunlight and fresh air is found. Again, these nuisances provide favourable surroundings in which those animal pests, responsible for the transmission of diseases to man, may live and thrive. An accumulation of excrement or filth inoculated with typhoid bacteria from some carrier is a favourable resort of the house fly, which in its turn infects our food and milk, and so spreads this disease. Deposits and rubbish and garbage provide both domicile and food for the plague-spreading rat. Stagnant pools of water and empty tins, harmless in themselves, no doubt, provide ideal nurseries for the mosquito. None of these states has any inherent power to produce a single disease-producing organism, but any of them has large potentialities for harm to our health. The surgeon before operating prepares his patient and his surroundings by ensuring a condition of asepsia, i.e., absence of germ life. We cannot go so far as this, it would be impracticable, but we can, by the prevention of nuisances go a very long way towards suppressing factors which are favourable to the growth of disease : producing organisms, and thus prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Insanitary Environment We must not, however, Jose sight of the fact that an insanitary environment, one subject to m ices, can exercise a prejudicial effect ci health and physique apart altogether from its possibilities for promoting the spread of infectious disease. To live under conditions subjecting one to the fumes from an offensive trade may not render us liable to infectious disease; a neighbour’s neglected fowlyard may produce no immediate ill results to health. But to be unable to eat one’s dinner in comfort in the one case, or to wake up in the morning with a headache, owing to inability to ventilate the bedroom during sleeping hours in the other case, may produce a state of unhealth, and, after all, unhealth means the same thing as ill-health. Toleration of such surroundings can be acquired, for the human organism has a wonderful adaptability in this respect, but such toleration is acquired at the expense of health and physique. Similarly, in respect to others of the nuisances enumerated, though the immediate discomfort may not be so obvious, the lowering of health and physique may be more insidious and more detrimental. The aim of present-day sanitation is to secure freedom from disease, a long term, full and useful period of life, and as many of the amenities and comforts of life as possible for the greatest number; and of the factors making for these ends, a thoroughly sanitary environment, free from nuisances either injurious to health or offensive, is by no means the least. The evil effects of a nuisance may be widespread, affecting others than the perpetrator thereof, therefore the Legislature has rightly made the causing of a nuisance to be a punishable offence. The good citizen will, however, require no such coercive measure; and the careless citizen should recognize that he is not carrying out the golden rule “to do to others as he would be done by.”