Health Notes

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 7

Health Notes

NUISANCES INFECTIOUS DISEASES (Contributed by the Department of I Health.) From the earliest efforts to promote a better public health, the abatement of nuisances has been considered to be an essential part of the work—so much so, that the officers appointed under our earliest English Act dealing with public health were known as inspectors of nuisances, a title which survived until quite recently. The earlier pioneers in health work j attributed most, if not all, of what we know as epidemics of infectious diseases to the existence of those conditions known as nuisances—insanita- I tion in dwellings, dampness, lack of sunlight, overcrowding, offensive ac- ; cumulations of filth and garbage, keep- 1 ing of animals under insanitary conditions, emanations from offensive trade processes, impure water supplies, and excessive production of smoke. To a very large extent this opinion survives to-day, and many people still think that an epidemic of diphtheria is directly due to some one or other of such nuisances. To a limited extent these early pioneers in health work were correct in their deductions, and those insanitary conditions still maintain tlieir position as important factors in the production of epidemics, and in their relation to the standard of public health. But in the larger knowledge now acquired, it is known that these conditions are not the immediate cause of such epidemics, as they are found occasionally to occur in quite good sanitary environment. Our knowledge of the life history of the organisms giving rise to these infectious diseases provides abundant proof that they do not always emanate from accumulations of filth or bad drains. Disease Organisms Within the limits of our present knowledge, we know that infection of the human organism with certain disease-producing bacteria will, certain favourable circumstances obtaining, produce specific infectious diseases. We know, however, that most of these disease-producing organisms will live outside the human body, but that to retain their viability they require a suitable medium upon which to feed, and a certain degree of warmth or moisture, and in many cases the absence of sunlight. The insanitary conditions which we know as nuisances provide ideal surroundings for the growth of these disease producing organisms, and thus we find typhoid fever prevailing where imperfect disposal of excreta obtains, and pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption more in evidence where overcrowding with absence of sunlight and fresh air is found. Again, these nuisances provide favourable surroundings in which those animal pests, responsible for the transmission of diseases to man, may live and thrive. An accumulation of excrement or filth inoculated with typhoid bacteria from some carrier is a favourable resort of the house fly, which, in its turn infects our food and milk, and so spreads this disease. Deposits of rubbish and garbage provide both domicile and food for the plaguespreading rat. Stagnant pools of water and empty tins, harmless in themselves, no doubt, provide ideal nurseries for the mosquito. None of these states has any inherent power to produce a single disease-producing organism, but any of them has large potentialities for harm to our health. The surgeon before operating prepares his patient and his surroundings

by ensuring a condition of asepsis, i.e.. absence of germ life. We cannot go so far as this, it would be impracticable, but we can, by the prevention of nuisances, go a very long way toward suppressing factors which are favourable to the growth of disease producing organisms, and thus prevent the spread of infectious diseases. Insanitary Environment We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that an insanitary environment, one subject to nuisances, can exercise a prejudicial effect on health and physique apart altogether from its possibilities for promoting the spread of infectious disease. To live under conditions subjecting one to the fumes from an offensive trade may not render us liable to infectious disease; a neighbour’s neglected fowlyard may produce no immediate ill results to health. But to be unable to eat one’s dinner In comfort in the one case, or to wake up in the morning with a headache, owing to inability to ventilate the bedroom during sleeping hours in the other case, may produce a state of unhealth and after all unhealth means the same thing as ill-health. Toleration of such surroundings can be acquired, for the human organism has a wonderful adaptability in this respect, but such toleration is acquired at the expense of health and physique. Similarly, in respect to others of the nuisances enumerated, though the immediate discomfort may not be so obvious, the lowering of health and physique may be more insidious and more detrimental. The aim of present-day sanitation is to secure freedom from disease, a long term, full and useful period of life, and as many of the amenities and comforts of life as possible for the greatest

number; and of the factors making for these ends, a thoroughly sanitary environment, free from nuisances either injurious to health or offensive, is by no means the least. The evil effects of a nuisance may be widespread, affecting others than the perpetrator thereof, therefore the Legislature rightly made the causing of s. nuisance to be a punishable offence. The good citizen will, however, require no Filch coercive measure; and the careless citizen should recognise that he is not carrying out the golden rule “to do t* others as he would be done by.**