575

demand for separation. But it is also a strong reason why that council should be made to do its duty rather than be- Public Health and Poor Law. assisted to shake off its responsibilities. REPORTS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH. LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. Hastings Urban District.-Dr. Scarlyn Wilson reports 8A case of some interest qua the infective power of desquama-- tion in scarlet fever. On examining some school-children REPORTS OF INSPECTORS OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT he found two members of one family peeling freely OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD. from an attack of scarlet fever contracted some six: On the Sanitary Oircumstances of the Bett7vs-y- Coed Rural week previously. Apparently these two children had school since their District and on Prevalence of Enteric Fever and -Dip7ttheria been attending regularly illness,. in the District, by Dr. S. W. WHEATON. I-The region of which was presumably not recognised. No other child, which Dr. Wheaton treats comprises hills, valleys, villages, however, sickened from the disease in spite of the attend- and hamlets familiar to almost every holiday maker in North ance of these two children until five weeks after the= when an the scholars.. Wales. Bettws-y-Coed rural district, some 60,000 acres in attack, outbreak occurred amongst us outbreak. area, contains the parishes of Bettws, Capel Curig, Trefriw, The question which occurs to is whether the Penmachno, and Dolwyddelan. The census population of the supposed to have been caused by these two desquamatory was so Dr. district in 1891 was 5598, but in summer time, as Dr. children really caused. Wilson also fumishes-- Wheaton points out, the number of inhabitants is probably another interesting narrative, this time as to diphtheria.. doubled. In each village and hamlet in the district Dr. After an outbreak in a boys’ school the scholars were sent. and in weeks to the Wheaton found a multiplicity of insanitary conditions. home, eight time, prior proposed1 of a Certain of these conditions, such as the absence of public reassembling the scholars, scraping from the throat of scavenging in the villages, nuisances from defective privies, each child was examined. In some the bacillus of diphtheria was detected even or from keeping pigs close to dwellings, are common although these children had never shown, enough in scattered rural communities, and their abun- signs of diphtheria ; nor did they do so subsequently. dance in the neighbourhood of Bettws can hardly be S’out7ampton Urban District. - Mr. Wellesley ,Harris. an considered unexpected. But we are scarcely prepared reports outbreak of pemphigus, apparently what is known to learn from the report that in this district of iiaoun- as I pemphigus neonatorum." Fourteen infants were affected and the cases arose about the or tain streams nearly every village has a water-supply eighth tenth day after birth.. liable to dangerous contamination, or that to judge They did not all occur in the practice of one midwife though of them did so. No from the condition of cowsheds and dairies pure milk is as many satisfactory explanation of the.’ cases was discovered. These bullous in far to seek as pure water. Yet it appears that in the case eruptions newly-born of Bettws the water-supply of the village is taken from the infants are very frequently of syphilitic origin, but it is not. that this was the cause in cases Llugwy at a point just above the Swallow Falls. Between apparent the here- in Mr. Harris calls to the this point and Capel Curig, three and a half miles higher up question. attention large- the stream, Dr. Wheaton found ° abundant evidence of quantities of milk which are being imported into’ from France. The milk reaches gross pollution of the river by sewage from dwellings" ; Southampton South-.- in and is from these thus almost all the water-closet and other sewage from ampton large cylinders despatched in the usual to its destination. of this. Capel Curig passes without treatment to the Llugwy, receptacles Samples milk have been and to be milk of privies are built over small watercourses falling into the analysed reported genuine contains in; river above the intake, and cottagers living near the average quality ; it, however, formaldehyde stream habitually empty their privy pails into it. large quantities. As Mr. Harris remarks, although this milk Again, in Trefriw village, instead of taking the public may in a sense be genuine we have no guarantee as to its- supply from the large and unpolluted mountain lake Llyn being drawn and stored under satisfactory conditions, an<Ì1 Crafnant, the water is obtained from the River Crafnant it seems rather an absurdity to make stringent regulations as. our home and to admit without at a point two miles below the lake. In the course of to supply foreign’ produce unless we can enable the to- these two miles the pure lake water has received pollution demur-that is to say, public from manured fields and by excrement and refuse from recognise what is of foreign origin and what is home pro- duce. In connexion with Mr.. houses near the banks of the river. The public supplies of foreign margarine, too, Harris has discovered a somewhat none the- Cwm Penmachno and of Dolwyddelan are open to similar amusing, though serious objections. Other defects pointed out by Dr. Wheaton less iniquitous, practice. Margarine from a French factory is taken on arrival at to a house- in nearly all the villages in the district are defective sewers Southampton private where it is worked into and improper means of disposal of sewage, unsatisfactory up half-pound pats, stamped slaughter-houses, and cowsheds 11 filth, overcrowded, and to resemble butter, and finally hawked around the- of without drainage," in which when the cows are shut up streets Southampton by country-looking persons specially- selected for this A has been raised! "the crevices are plastered up with filth to keep the air purpose. question out." Owing to the Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act by Mr. Harris which presses for settlement in places other- than The fact that the details of house- not having been adopted in the district, information as to Southampton. are so often settled in the or cases of infectious sickness was not easy to come by. drainage surveying engineering- Dr. Wheaton learned, however, of 13 cases of enteric fever department without reference to the medical officer of health must in such cases lead to friction between the: in Bettws-y-Coed last autumn; of other cases of the same frequently and to builders and disease at Trefriw both in 1896 and 1897 ; and of 104 cases departments injustice householders. of diphtheria, 12 of which proved fatal, occurring in the For the medical officer of health to condemn that which) village of Cwm Penmachno since the summer of 1897. As another department has sanctioned and approved is not an, might have been expected from the state of things easy matter, and yet that is the position in which a con- reported, sanitary administration by the rural district scientious medical officer of health must be frequently placed. council is practically nil. The medical officer of health, Mr. Harris suggests that the building by-laws shouldk Dr. Peter Fraser, has indeed drawn the attention of provide that no new house shall be occupied until the house- I has been certified to be free from defect the: the district council to many of the sanitary evils of thedrainage by medical officer of health. some reform is place, and an inspector of nuisances, whose salary is but .660 Clearly necessary in this direction. for whole-time work, has done his duty in reporting a variety of unwholesome conditions. But the district council has in most cases neglected to apply any remedy, and even when VITAL STATISTICS. moved to pass resolutions on sanitary matters it has taken no steps to see them carried out. It appears from the report that the Carnarvonshire County Council has now been success- HEALTH OF ENGLISH TOWNS. fully petitioned to create a separate Bettws-y-Coed urban IN thirty-three of the largest English towns 6510 births district. Creation of such small urban districts is in anyandf 4727 deaths were registered during the week ending case doubtful wisdom. In this instance the rural council’sAugustJ 20th. The annual rate of mortality in these towns, neglect of its sanitary duties gives some plausibility to thewhichi had increased in the five preceding weeks from 14’7 to4 20-5 per 1000, further rose last week to 22-0. In London. 1 London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, East Harding-street ; Edinburgh : the rate was 23’4 per 1000, while it averaged 21’0 in the- John Menzies and Co.; Dublin : Hodges, Figgis, and Co. Price 2d. thirty-two provincial towns. The lowest death-rates in these