The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1916. INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 77, 30 March 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1916. INFANTILE PARALYSIS.

(With which is incorporated The Tai bape Post and Waimarino News.)

The conditions for a serious, if not a devastating, disease epidemic, almost with intelligent-like design and purpose, seem to insidiously steal upon a people until everything is ready for an overwhelming general attack. Isolated cases of infantile paralysis have been reported for some years past, but it was mostly in Auckland that the warning became the more pressing as seasons rolled by. The disease is associated with high weather temperature, but other countries give contradiction to the notion that hot climates are the chief cause of the trouble, and that it is only when the heat is accompanied with insanitary conditions, be they of a natural character or the result of neglect and want of due regard to health 'considerations in large and growing aggregations of people, that such infectious inflictions as infantile paralysis flourish. Auckland, no doubt, owes its notoriety for infantile paralysis to its comparatively recent, almost criminal inattention to sanitary necessities. That the chief thoroughfare of the city is the bed of an old creek that drained the surrounding country into the sea is Auckland's disadvantage, but for many years this source of infection, this hotbed of disease germ growth, was unpardonably left to remain a menace to the city's, health, and the people there will suffer from the sins of former town governments for many years to come yet. For, with the effecting of any sanitary improvement such as the banishment of the rumblings of nocturnal perambulations from house to house and the laying of drain pipes to take their place, anything approaching absolute freedom from the breeding of infection cannot foHow in a place like Auckland for many years, and it is imperative that iri a locality so situated as Queen Street is—the bed of the old creek on either side of which primitive New Zealandcrs first built their huts —the utmost cleaniness should obtain and

for infection. Auckland is being dwelt Wip'on here because t*he first cases of infantile paralysis in the Wellington Province were found to be contacts with people from that town. It should be unnecessary to repeat that the disease can be carried as freely and effectually by healthy people as by those still in the infectious stage of the disease, and seeing that ,our population is constantly moving; that a hundred people in Auckland yesterday may be in Wellington to-morrow, or in any other centre where people from the country assemble for business and other purposes, we realise how easy it is for infection to be spread all over the Dominion in a remarkably short space of time. Well, we -have four cases in the Taihape district, and instead of allowing the germs to remain dangerously vital to spring into activity another season, we should be fumigating, disinfecting, and rendering innocuous wherever conditions senm 1o invite our attention. In the schools where children meet from all parts of the district there is a likelihood of the 1 scourge lurking, and no time should he lost in doing everything reasonably possible to cleanse floors, Avails, ceilings, and atmosphere, and even if it is necessary to close the school in Taihape for the purpose, we think, in the best interests of the publ'ic health, there should be ho hesitation a.bcut doing it, In fact, the danger to infant life is so great and so serious that the health authorities would be doing good service in taking the precaution to have every building in New Zealand, where people or children congregate, uniformly subjected to a series of thorough disinfections.

Since writing the above it is gratifying to learn that Mr. A. .T. Joblin, chairman of the Taihape School Committee, has been persistently working to have the school thoroughly fumigated and disinfected. It appears that late yesterday he received a telegram from the secretary of the Wanganui District School Board advising him that if the local Health Inspector thought the public health would be conserved by a disinfection of ' the school, the building might be e>osed for the purpose. Mr. Joblin called the Committee together last night, when it w r as resolved to close the school from midday to-day till Monday morning. Getting the building ready for the Health Officer will require the Committee's attentions to-day and to-morrow and the disinfecting will be done on Saturday, leaving time for: reventilation before the children assemble on Monday.