THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1881. THE LATE OUTBREAK OF TYPHOID FEVER.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2269, 12 July 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1881. THE LATE OUTBREAK OF TYPHOID FEVER.

The reports of Doctors Nedwili and Frankish have once again called attention to a very serious matter connected with the public health. We allude, of course, to our milk supply. A clearer case of tracing a disease to its source than that which is reported in to-day’s issue, it is impossible to conceive. In the first place, the existence of the fever in Victoria street and Hereford street west are reported to Dr. Frankish. The premises where the patients live are perfectly clean, but it is the same milkman who supplies both houses. Then comes Dr. Nedwill’s report. Fifteen cases occur at the Lunatic Asylum and six cases in different parts of Christchurch, and in each of the six establishments, where these patients exist, the same milkman is dealt with. We repeat it is impossible to have clearer evidence than this, and the danger of dairies existing under conditions where the milk is liable to be infected becomes more manifest than ever. Now let us see what has been done to remedy the e vil alluded to. The Board of Health not long ago wrote to the Government a letter embodying one of its resolutions to the effect that provision should be made for control over dairies by local sanitary bodies. The Board in passing this resolution recorded its conviction that its existing powers were not sufficiently extensive, because the pollution of milk by typhoid germs cannot be detected until after the mischief is done. The Government, however, seems to have altogether overlooked the essential reason why the resolution was passed, and has referred the Board to sections 80 to 83 of the Public Health Act, 1876. The powers given to the Board by those sections are the following : —-Any Medical Officer or Inspector of Nuisances may inspect and examino any animal carcase, meat, poultry, game, llesh, fish, fruit, vegetable, corn, bread, flour, or milk exposed for sale, and if the object inspected appears to bo diseased, or unsound, or unwholesome, or unfit for the food of man, it may bo seized, to bo dealt with by a Resident Magistrate’s Court, and the person exposing the same for sale is liable to a penalty not exceeding £2O. Any person obstructing an officer in discharging this duty is liable to a penalty not exceeding £o. And, finally, on complaint made on oath by a Medical Officer or Inspector of Nuisances or other officer of a Local Board, any Resident Magistrate may grant a warrant to have any building searched where such officer has reason to believe that any of the above articles in an unsound condition are ;kept. Now, it must be evident that the powers granted under these sections are quite useless in dealing with infected milk. Until Medical Officers and Inspectors of Nuisances are able to detect typhoid germs in milk exposed for sale it is ridiculous to say that they shall have the power to make a seizure. It is comparatively easy to discover diseased meat, poultry, or game, or unsound flour, or bad milk, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but milk impregnated with typhoid germs is quite a different matter, and its diseaseimparting qualities are only discovered after it has done its work. Why, then, should the Government point to these clauses and say that the remedy for the present unsatisfac-

tory state of affairs lies there? It can only be from the fact that they have entirely mistaken the present position. If, with regard to onr milk supply, the powers of the Board of Health are confined to tracing an outbreak of typhoid fever to a dairy or of reporting to the Government the result of a' pouf mortem examination, where death is traced to the said fever, we should much like to know what is the good of the Board. Prevention is bettor than cure, but in the present instance there is no possible cure except by prevention, and the Government do not, apparently, feel inclined to grant the necessary authority to the Board to cause such prevention. We can only trust that the Board will taka energetic stops in the matter, and we feel confident that the public will back it np to the utmost of its power. For the danger cannot well be overrated. Take the present instance. The milkman whose milk has occasioned the present outbreak has, we are told, twenty-eight cows. Giving an average household a quart of milk a day; this moans that between one and two hundred households would be supplied by him, if he wore not selling to a large institution like the Lunatic Asylum. This number of households, therefore, are placed in imminent jeopardy by the want of cleanliness or caution exhibited by one man. It is all very well for a number of milkmen to meet together, as they did not long ago, and protest against any action in the direction of inspecting dairies. But milkmen exist for the public, and not the public for milkmen. Milkmen are no doubt a well meaning body of people, but they are hardly liable to recognise the fact that the article they supply the public with is one which is, if improperly treated, as dangerous in its way as an explosive material. With regard to gunpowder, local bodies, such as Borough Councils and Harbor Boards, can enforce that it is properly stored; their powers are not merely limited to reporting on explosions. It should be the same with dairies. Reporting on outbreaks of fever, or on post mortem examinations, is not the sole function which should be left to a Board of Health. If milkmen’s premises were invariably found to be clean, the matter might be different. But it is notorious that many of them are not. Dr. Nedwill shows that the surroundings of the dairy from whence issued the late outbreak were in many ways filthy., If the Government do not see the danger, and cannot recognise what is really wanted by the public, we trust that public agitation in Christchurch will force them to grant such powers to the Board of Health as will meet the demand.