COMBATING EPIDEMICS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1964, 12 April 1919, Page 1

COMBATING EPIDEMICS.

VALUE OF FRESH AIR

NEED FOR SOUND HYGIENE.

The value of open-air treatment in the recent influenza epidemic was referred to by Dr. Colquhoun in the course of his evidence before the Epidemic Commission in Wellington. As to the use of vaccines, medicines, etc., this, he said, was a technical subject which could only usefully be discussed by a professional jury, but the following facts were suggestiveAt Hawera, owing to overcrowding of the hospital wards, many patients —some of them ,of the severest type —were treated on balconies and in tents. They all did well, he was informed. On the ships carrying men to England epidemics broke out, and the medical men —Dr. S. A. Moore, in one case, and Dr. Wishart in the other —treated their patients by placing them on deck. All the patients did well. His own experience was that those patients who got most fresh air suffered least. Those who were treated in small and illventilated rooms did badly. The inference which might be drawn fairly was that in preparing for a possible epidemic hospital and municipal authorities should try to get accommodation in open sheds or tents. The fresh-air hospital had been tried extensively in England, with excellent results in medical and surgical cases. There should be prepared a series of tents or places where patients could sleep in the open air night and day, protected from wind and rain. But a great deal of opposition would have to be fought. Until the public were educated one could not carry out reforms of that kind. They would come when public opinion was ripe. Dr. Colquhoun negatived the popular belief that persons who had the influenza would be immune from further attacks. In influenza, hq said, one attack predisposed to another. In this regard influenza differed from smallpox, for instance, of which one attack protected a, gainst a subsequent infection. As to precautions which might be taken, Dr. Colquhoun said he was not an advocate of quarantine generally, for sootier or later (he germ of the disease crept in. He did not mean that we should never guarantine boats, etc. But the English practice had been to place less reliance on quarantine and more on hygiene; and (he results had shown that the British method was the better. The best defence of any country was sound hygiene. As long as ordinary laws of health were neglected in the building of cities and houses, so long would epidemics he liable to occur. If people would keep their bodies and their houses clean that would be the best defence. The Chairman: Is not the position of affairs in this direction improving? Dr. Colquhoun: Yes, there has been immense improvement, and there is a growing tendency thereto. But there is still too much conservatism.