SCARCET FEVER.

Evening Star, Issue 4007, 29 December 1875, Page 3

SCARCET FEVER.

To the Editor. Sir, —Dr Gillies arid his coadjutors in matters sanitary have only themselves to blame for nny annoyance they may feel at the various letters which have been written concerning the scarlet favor. By not publishing the steps which they were empowered and meant to ■' take they allowed a number of reports to be circulated of a nature calculated to excite alarm, and as I said in my former letter, that respecting the forcible removal of the children cost me tor one a complete fit of illness. I now know that there were no grounds whatever for my panic, for the law would not allow of the measure of which I speak. I am willing and anxious that all rational means shou’d ba taken to prevent the spread of disease, of which, however, in itself, I have no inordinate dread, but irrational movements should be checked in time, before they do far more harm than they pretend to hinder. Dr Gillies is not happy in his comparisons ; I fail to see any parallelism between the parents of a little child attacked by a dangerous illness and carried off from its home in such a state, and those of a convicted felon, and I hardly think it I'kely to incline persons to regard the Hospital more favorably when they hear its Superintendent hint that he looks upon his patients as he would upon the denizens of a condemned cell. I have neither time nor inclination to comment further on the matWhen I wrote ray first letter I had been excited almost to the verge of tever by a false report; but having discovered the falsehood, I found I had something else to think about, The report I saw in the letter of “Medicus,” and i s denial, came from a gentleman who had been present on an occasion when a proposal was made to remove a child, suffering from contagious illness,from its home, and when it was discovered, by turning to this “ Act,” that it was necessary in all cases to consult parents or guardians to obtain their consent.— I am, &c. „ Parent, Dunedin, Dec. 28,

Parent.