Danger in the Baths

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 302, 13 March 1928, Page 10

Danger in the Baths

Sidelights on Parnell Problem

Debated Question of Infection

THE presence of septic organisms in tlie water of tlie Parnell Baths has been announced by the Health Department, and the swimming public is now speculating as to the effect these have had upon its health.

Uneasiness may be allayed by the fact that there is, at least, a wide difference of opinion among medieal men.

go ME months ago Christchurch, was startled by a specialist’s intimation that bathing in the city’s tepid baths involved a grave liability to infection of the nose and throat with disease germs. Auckland and Wellington, also, were interested in the question, but no accepted theory was established. It was again a case in which doctors differed. Some idea of the extent to which

infection may be conveyed in swimming pools will probably be yielded by the City Councils bacteriological investigation, which will cover the Tepid, Shelly Beach, and Point Resolution baths, and will show whether the relative danger (if any) is greater in the Tepid pool. Opposing contentions raise the old argument of the wisdom of bathing at all, and carry the investigator hack to the days when bathing, in any form, was considered a highly unhygienic practice. This was not because the presence of germs was suspected, but because of a general prejudice against swimming as an exercise. But to-day the value of swimming is established, its popularity is firm, and doctors have been among regular attendants at the Parnell baths. COLDS AND SORE THROATS It Is agreed that swimming makes many people more liable than usual

to colds and sore throats. Risk of these ills is greater when bathers stay in the water too long, sit shivering" in a wind after their swim, or go away chilled and insufficiently clad. When sickness is contracted under any of these conditions it cannot be attributed to infection from the water, or to the intrinsic perils of bathing, but more reasonably to the fact that lowered vitaliy is the inevitable result of bathing in unwisely-tempered doses. The attitude of most swimmers, though they have been for a long time suspicious of the cloudy waters ;at Parnell, will be that a risk in the baths is better than no swim at all. The average city worker cannot pick and choose his bathing places. Outside the three baths there are very few places close enough to the city to be convenient for a swim after business hours. Thirty years ago conditions were different. Walls, reclamations, piers and embankments had not turned pleasant bays into industrial areas, and sandy beaches had not been converted into mud and slime. But to-day the charge that they are unreasonably fastidious cannot be made against people who prefer not to bathe anywhere, except in the baths, along the long harbour-front between Point Erin and Point Resolution. Dr. H. Chesson. Medical Officer of Health, endorses this attitude, with the observation that bathers should be cauious in choosing their swim-ming-places, but the dyed-in-the-wool swimming enthusiast would be reluctant to defer his swim, as the doctor does, until he can get “up the ebast,” well away from the harbour. CONTENDING OPINIONS Now, as to the ills that can be picked up in baths and harbour, one doctor said yesterday that the danger was restricted to the risk of infection from towels, warm and moist kerbings alongside the baths, and from promiscuous contacts in dressing-rooms. His experience, he said, was that infection would not be conveyed by the salt water, which was a mild antiseptic, though he agreed that too much swimming, or swimming after meals, was conducive to throat or gastric troubles. Another doctor said the thing for Auckland to beware of, in view of the Health Department’s disclosures concerning beach-pollution, was a typhoid outbreak. Typhoid or lesser internal ills could easily be picked up in dirty water, such as that which the Health authorities had condemned at Parnell. Further, there was a risk of skin disease, particularly ringworm, through indirect contacts on the kerbings beside the pool, but this risk would be present under any circumstances.

* * * So there it is. Bathers are invited to make their own decision.