The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1913. HEALTH MENACES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 309, 22 May 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1913. HEALTH MENACES.

The action of the South Canterbury Hospital Board in bringing a case against a diphtheria patient for travelling 011 a train is just about due. It is unfortunate that the subject of the action, should be a girl, but the Board, before issuing the summons, has announced that it does not intend to press for a penalty, but simply wishes to give publicity to a practice which is fraught with serious danger to the public, with a view to , drawing attention to the existing railway j regulation which forbids any person suffering from an infectious disease travelling in an open railway carriage. The regulation, as a matter of fact, has been more or less a dead letter, exfcept in serious cases, and although it is naturally extremely difficult to administer the regulation there really does not seem to have been any very great effort to do so. The travelling public has every right to demand the most extreme care in this respect, and while they cannot expect the Railway Department to employ ■at medical officer to go through every train and examine the passengers, they can much more emphatically what are notifiable and the penalties attaching to a non : observance of the regulations concerning them. But the menace to public health does not stop here. Many of our towns have bylaws forbidding expectoration in the streets, but these are more honored in the breach than in the observance, and is not once in the proverbial blue moon I that one hears of a prosecution on account of this disgusting habit. Then

there comes in the question of the proper protection of our food supply. Our nteat aiid our bread and our groceries even are often openly displayed, in-carta and on counters, where the four winds of heaven are free to deposit dust and germs of all sorts and conditions. There is no desire to harass tradesmen in their legitimate business, but their convenience should not be allowed to conflict with .the health of the general community. Many of the American cities are more up-to-date" in this respect than we are, and they insist upon all provisions exposed for sale being properly protected from the vagrant germ and the vagrant dog, and they ev<jn go to the length of a strict sterilisation of all barbers' appliances. This is as it should be, for half "the ills that the flesh is heir to" arc contracted and not inherited. We should be a healthier country if more attention were paid to details of this character, for we have the physique of a virile race and the climate to sustain it, if only we j care to protect it. But there is too j little administrative attention paid to ex- ! isting laws and regulations for the safei guarding of the public health, and too much apathy among !o»aI bodies in framing further safeguards. The Timaru gir! will not have been ''butchered to make a Roman holiday" in vain, if the exploitation of her case results in a stimulating of public interest and administrative action in a matter which is of serious importance to us all.