PUBLIC HEALTH ACT.

Motueka Star, Volume III, Issue 126, 28 October 1902, Page 5

PUBLIC HEALTH ACT.

Some important alterations in th»i> Public Health Act are made by the amending measure passed last session. JLocal authorities are empowered to cause to be disinfected any premisesi n which any infectious disease has occurred, and to recover the cost from the owner. Where a local authority has reason to suspect that any infectious disease exists in any premises, and no notice of it has been given, it may authorise a medical man to visit the premises and report thereon. If the medical man finds that infectious disease does exist there, the local authority must use its powers under the Public Health Act, 1900, to prevent the spread of the disease. If the neglect to give notice was wilful, all costs and expenses incuned by the local authority must be paid by the owner and occupier of the premises in every case where an infectious disease is found to exist and no notice has been given. Sections 32 and 35 of the Act of 1900 impose penalties on persons for exposing themselves in public while sueringfrom any “dangerous”infectious disease, or for letting a house within which there has been a case of “dangerous” infectious disease without first having the premises disinfected. The Act of last session .strikes out the word “dangerous” from these sections, and thus widens their scope very considerably, and makes apply to any infectious disease. The Act also provides that districts combined for the purposes of carrying out the Public Health- Act may be placed under the control of the Department if the local authority which has been put in charge of the combined district so requests. The Coroner or the coroners jury need not view *a body on which an inquest is being held where a doctor certifies that the deceased, died of any infectious disease, or where, in the opinion of the Chief Health Officer, the viewing of the body might be dangerous to the health of the jury.

Thus an American writer : —“With the retirement of Bob Fitzsimmons there passes away from the limelight of [the ring the greatest fighter that ever bent elbow. According to all previously established standards he ought to have been out by age long ago, but, at last, when he is nearlv fifty years of age, the curtain falls on the most remarkable athlete of any time or country. He is still an athlete, a great fighter, and a man of vitality and vigor, but he appreciates the truth of the old axiom, ‘Youth must be served,’ and he quits the game- in a blaze of glory.