THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1882. THE HEALTH OFFICER'S REPORT.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2440, 31 January 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1882. THE HEALTH OFFICER'S REPORT.

The reports of the Health Officer generally contain good matter. They are not overburdened with verbiage, bat go straight to the point. The suggestions contained in thorn appeal to the common sense of the public, and are always well worthy of consideration. The report handed in to the Board of Health yesterday does not differ from its predecessors in value. After certain statistics have been disposed of, the Health Officer draws attention to the necessity that exists of the powers granted to the Board hy Government with regard to the inspection [of dairies being put. into force. The late 1 Board, no doubt, did not care to move in this matter just as it was on the point of decease, but with the new Board evidently lies the duty of at once taking advantage of the provisions of the amended Public Health Act. The public will not be properly protected until the Board brings the powers it possesses into full swing. The second point the Health Officer deals with is the necessity of having an infectious diseases hospital. He says very truly, that it is no use for medical men to report cases of infectious disease to the Board unless the said cases can be isolated, and all chance of the spread of the infection done away with. Thirdly, the Board’s officer turns its attention to the question of the near approach of smallpox. A few days back we wrote with regard to the daily increasing necessity for vigilance at onr port?, and to the obligation all are under to see that they themselves and their families are properly vaccinated. Smallpox has arrived in these colonies by all three of the mail routes, so that we shall be exceptionally lucky if we can keep it ont of the 'country. As the Health Officer says—“ Quarantine regulation s are by no means always successful, and it is to vaccination and revaecination we must look to for protect! on from this loathsome and'fatal complaint.” There can ha no doubt that, as the Health Officer observes, it is necessary to see that the children attending public schools should he properly vaccinated, for, if such a disease were once to break out in a large school, there is no knowing where the infection would spread to. Wo shall he curious to sea the correspondence which has passed between the Government and the Health Officer with regard to the subject of the vaccination of children in public schools. The 164th section of the Public Health Act of 1876 certainly contains the provision that all children attending schools which “ shall bo maintained in whole or in part by grant, or from rates, or any public funds, or hy any endowments, whether colonial, provincial, municipal, or district, shall be vaccinated by a public vaccinator, unless such child shall have been previously vaccinated.” This is clear enough, and it is hard to see how the Government have managed to refuse the Health Officer’s request that the provisions of the Act should he enforced.

A final point made in the report wo are alluding to is that the inspection all over the district should bo regular and systematic, and that inspectors should place themselves more frequently in communication with the Health Officer. Serious nuisances are of too frequent occurrence. They are caused by ignorance or culpable carelessness, and nothing but a good official organization can bring the offenders to book. It is to the true interests of all parties that such organization should be perfected.