PREVENTION OF SCARLET EEVER AND CONTAGION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 136, 10 December 1875, Page 14

PREVENTION OF SCARLET EEVER AND CONTAGION.

The above was the subject of a lecture recently delivered in the Victoria Hall, Druinmond street, Carlton, by Dr. Girdlestone, the health officer of Melbourne. Alderman O'Grady occupied the chair, and there was a numerous attendance. The lecturer observed that scarlet fever was a disease more easily prevented than cured, and this being the case it behoved every parent to study the leading principles of hygiene, and also that these principles should be made part of the elementary instruction in schools. Scarlet fever could not be so virulent in a clean well-ventilated house as in a place where cleanliness and ventilation were neglected, and in these cases the words of scripture were most applicable, " As a man soweth. so shall he also reap." The disease was given off in enormous quantities by persons suffering from it, and the patients required to be isolated. The abolition of cesspits, the drainage of streets, and the clearing away of filth by the public bodies, were good remedies^ but to make the remedy complete, assistance must come froirc within as well as from without. The authorities and householders ought to Avork together. To keep off attacks of fever, the water used by a family must be pure. The appearance of water wa,s no guarantee of its purity. Pure water was necessary for health ; if people drank impure water the tone of the health was lowered, and they were more likely to catch an epidemic. He therefore advised everybody to boil water before tising it, as the heat of boiling destroyed the poison it might contain. He believed that numbers of people placed dark blinds at their windows to save their furniture from the action of the sun, but he recommended them to consider their health before their furniture, and warned them that the sun must enter if a room was to be kept sweet and healthy. Speaking of the back premises of houses, Dr. Girdlestone urged that the authorities should appoint an officer whose duty should be to sec the plans of every house before it was built, and ascertain whether there were proper means of drainage before allowing the building to be erected. Under existing laws, it was often the case that half a dozen houses were put together where there should be only three, and it was found to be impossible to drain them, and the occupants suffered in health in consequence. Above all, the lecturer urged upon his hearers to allow a continuous supply of fresh air to enter th<j moms of their houses, as it diluted the poison of the disease.