BOARD OE HEALTH.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2118, 7 December 1880, Page 4

BOARD OE HEALTH.

The usual meeting of this Board waa held after tho meeting of the Drainage Board. Present —Mr Harman (in the chair), and the members given above. In reply to Mr Hall, The Chairman said that Dr. Shoe had not yet reported to the Government. The medical officer’s report was read aa follows: —

Christchurch, December 3rd, 1880. The Chairman Board of Health. Sir, —I have the honor to point out for your information that from the 16th of October till the 36th of November sixteen householders have reported to the Board of Health that there ia typhoid fever in their houses, and that during tie same period last year only two reported oases. The sixteen families live in various parts of the district, and at several of the houses I have been quite unable to discover any local cause. As one milkman, however, supplies nine of the sixteen families with milk, I have had my attention, as a matter of course, directed to the milk as being the cause most likely to explain the outbreak at this early period of the season. On inquiry I have not been able to discover that there has been any case of typhoid fever in the milkman’s house ; I found that the water nsed on the premises is from an artesian overflow, and there was not to be seen the usually disgusting cesspit commonly doing duty at these country places. I found enough amiss, however, to raise very strong suspicion, and to show the urgent necessity that exists for the Board of Health using the utmost despatch in having dairies licensed and inspected. The pigsty and cowshed and dwelling-house are all drained into an open ditch running alongside and through one of the paddocks, and although an artesian well has a discharge pipe for filling a tub in this paddock; on the three occasions when I visited the farm the key ef the tap was removed. On one of my visits I found the tub quite empty, and fresh cow tracks into the ditch above mentioned, which contained water so filthy, that sewage worms were disporting in clusters all through it. I was told that dry cows only were kept in this paddock, but I strongly suspected the milk cows had only quite recently been removed from it. In another paddock, where the milk cows are now kept, the only water to be obtained was decidedly stale, but no sewage found its way into it. The question nos, I believe, already been mooted whether cows drinking from sewage water might not produce milk capable of giving typhoid fever to those partaking of it. That some of the cows drink this sewage water the numerous footmarks into the ditch abundantly testify, and as I said before, I have doubts about only dry cows having had admission to this water. The closet has a pan, which I am told ia emptied regularly and the contents buried, but the closet is much too near the shed where the milk pails are washed and the dairy where the milk ia stored. The dairy should bo separated from

land not kept under the same roof aa the cowshed, and the ditch which receives the drainage from the pigsty, the cow-shed, and the dwelling- ' house should bo fenced off so that it would be impossible for cows to drink from its necessarily decomposing and filthy water. I have, &c.» CoUBTNBT NbDWII/L, M.D.. Medical Officer. Mr Hall and Mr Brown suggested that probably the cows might have eaten ergot, which was a blood poison. The Chairman said he would call the attention of the medical officer to the question of the possibility of the cattle having taken ergot. Mr Hall called attention to the bad state of the side channels in Fapanui. They certainly required to be concreted, and the Board of Health should confer with the Avon Boad Board on the matter. He would move—“ That the Local Board of Health cannot too strongly urge upon the Avon Boad Board the necessity of forming concrete channels from Mr Jackson’s corner, running north-east to connect with the drain, as they think the present state likely to cause an outbreak of disease.” Mr Tancred seconded the motion, which was carried. The Board then adjourned.