TYPHOID FEVER.

Evening Star, Issue 3828, 1 June 1875, Page 3

TYPHOID FEVER.

fo the Editor. Sib,—l regret to have to trouble yon again on sanitary matters, for, as you wearily said in a late leader, it is of no use, the public will no! be aroused. And yet it is of some use, for by constant iteration and re-iteration the elementary truths of sanitary science have at last been_ driven into the heads of the English public, and by the same process it will be possible to drive them into the heads of the New Zealand public, who in this one point are at least a quarter of a century behind England. And so I continue to urge, both in public and private, the necessity for sanitary reform, and so must I say that if the medical men in Dunedin had, since its foundation, been as urgent in this matter as I have, the public of this city would have been better, informed on the subject of sanitary reform, and the state of the city would never have been what it unfortunately is now. Typhoid fever is epidemic—of that there can be no doubt, and it will gradually increase, and the epidemic will continue for a year at least, probably for eighteen months, before it wears itself out. During this time, no doubt, many schemes for the drainage of the city and the disposal of the sewage will be discussed, and I venture to prophesy that nothing will be done—at least such has been my invariable experience of municipalities. The plan I proposed to the City Council about a year ago, and which Dr Cole, the Medical Officer of Health, has so coolly adopted and called his own, that of irrigating the sandhills with the sewage, would undoubtedly be the best. I have no hope of seeing it adopted. The opposition to all costly sanitary works is too powerful. All the large holders of property live in good houses more or less isolated, or else in the outskirts of the town. They don’t want to pay for sanitary works of which they will not receive the benefit. The smaller house-owners are generally too little educated to see the importance of such works, and strenuously oppose them. In England the central authority intervenes and compels the local authorities to do something; but fancy any central authority trying to compel Dunedin to do anything! Why, it would declaie itself a separate Colony immediately or even secede from the British empire, if driven to extremities. In my youth, I used to think that sanitary reform should |be made compulsory, but many years’ experience has taught me that unless there is a large and enlightened majority in their favor it *is useless to adopt compels ry measures. The public must be educated and enlightened on the subject—led, not driven. I yphoid fever is epidemic in Dunedin, and indeed more er less throughout the Colony, because the conditions which produce it exist in abundance, I have seen the disease in English towns—including London—in agricultural districts, in the army et Scutari and in the Crimea, in the West Indies, and in an emigrant shl P* and in all these various places the same conditions were present—impure air, bad water and overcrowding. When I first arrived here m charge of the Charlotte Gladstone, we had tne disease on board. We were quarantined for a month, and I thought I was coming to some earthly paradise, where typhoid fever was unknown ; but on my first visit to Dunedin I went to the Hospital and there was a case—not from the Charlotte Gladstone, but from Dunedin—and Dr Yates informed me that such cases were not uncommon, but were called here Colonial fever. Colonial fever was the polite name for typhoid. It was not epidemic, because the conditions for making it epidemic did not then exi'-.t. But as thousands after thousands of immigrants poured in. these conditionsoon began to exist, and they are now in full fore®.

What then is to be done? First of all I should say erect an hospital on an elevated part Z ?- 1 T t ? n r B I U ’ " he, ° not only cases of typhoid but of other infectious diseases, such as dipthena, may be treated. The present hospital is unsuited by position and construction for a fever hospital. Besides, the public have no confidence in it or its management If ■- proper fever hospital were provided cases occurring m overcrowded houses might be at once sent to it, and the further spread of the diseasarrested. Such a ctee as one I was called in to see a week or two ago, where five children slept in one room, one of whom was attacked by typhoid, ought at once to be sent into hospital. There is no need for it to be made s . pauper hospital. Many persons would willingly pay for admission. There is a large number of single men here living in hotels and lodging™f’i lf , a “ acke ? illness, cannot & properly attended to, who would also be eligible for admission, and for the most part able to pay. In such an hospital, properly conducted, there would be some chance of having treatment earned out as it ought to be. Xu private houses this is next to impossible. The houses *be worst cases occur are just those in which there is the least chance for proper treatment. Good nursing ia worth more than all disease ICmeS -Pharmacopoeia in this; But I find I have already trespassed too far on your space, and must defer the consideration of other points to another letter.—l am, &c,, ■n 1- H - Bakewell, M.d! Dunodm, May 29,