COMBATING EPIDEMICS.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15044, 11 April 1919, Page 7

COMBATING EPIDEMICS.

VALUE OF FRESH AtR

NEED FOR SOUND HYGIENE

The value of open-air treatment in the recent influenza epidemic was referred to by Dr. ©olqtihoun in the cdurse of iris evidence before the Epidemic Commission in Wellington. As to the use cf vaccines, medicines, etc., this,-.he said, was a technical subject which could only usefully be. discussed by a professional jury, but the following facts were suggestive :—At Ha'wera, owing to overcrowding of the hospital wards, many patients—some of them of the severest type—were treated on balconies and in tents. They all did well, he was informed. On the ships carrying men to England epidemics broke out and the medical men—Dr S. A. Moore in one! ease and 'Dr Wishart in the other— j treated their patients by placing them1 on deck. AH the patients did well His own experience was that those patients mi 10 got most fresh air suffered least I hose who were treated in small and illventilated rooms did Badly. . The inference which might be drawn fairly was that m preparing for a possible epidemic hospital and municipal authorities should try to get accommodation in j opctn sheds or tents. The fresh-air hospital had been tried extensively in England, with excellent results in medical and surgical pases. There .should be prepared ai series of tents or places where Jpatients could sleep in the open air mgbt and day, protected from wind and ram. But a great deal of opposition would have to be J ought. Until the public were educated one could not carry out reforms of that. kind. They would come when public opinion was ripe """ V v ; C, olf I"ncmn negatived the popular belief that persons who had the influenza once would be immune from further attacks. In influenza, he said, one attack predisposed to another ' In tlrs regard influenza differed from smallpox for instance, of which one attack protected against a subsequent infection As. to precautions .which might be taken Dr Colquhpun said he was not an advocate of ■, quarantine generally for soonei' or later the germ of the disease crept in.. He did not mean that "we sionJd nav-er quarantine boats, etcj But the English practice had been to place less, reliance on quarantine and more on hygiene; and the results liad shown that! the British method was the better The1 best defence of any. country was sound! hygiene. As long as -.ordinary laws oi'i hca.ltn w^ere neglected in tne.hmMincr of i ftiues and houses, so long would epi-1 demies be liable to occur If people! kept their bodies and,their houses clean! that would be the beist defence j •-■The Ohairmfmrls not,the position ofl aflTiirs in this direction Imprbvincr ? i _ Dr. Golquhoun: Yes,-there has be^nl immense improvement, and'there is"a grmvmg tendency thereto. But there h still too much conservatism.