A TIMELY WARNING.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4296, 7 October 1882, Page 2

A TIMELY WARNING.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sir, —I congratulate the people of the Thames on the '"happy-go-lucky" dis« position evinced by the local Board of Health in the face of a possible epidemic. That body at their Thursday afternoon's sitting pronounced the dictum, through their mouthpiece Cr Speight, that they would take no notice of the " Diphtheria Scare " until the existence of the disease was confirmed by a " second medical opinion." I can afford to pass by the slur on my professional character implied in Cr Speight's remarks, but if the action of the Board means anything it means that those gentlemen are prepared to sit in their easy chairs until the disease does become epidemic, and thereby give opportunities for observing its existence to other medical gentlemen. My report of the first case (a fatal one) was laid on the table sixteen days since. I believe there is a medical officer to the Board. Now I should have thought the practical course to adopt would have been to have ascer tamed by a " second medical opinion" whether or no the disease existed then, and at once to hare taken such preventive measures as their medical officer thought necessary. Instead of that, after fifteen days incubation they give birth, to the idea that it is better to wait until an epidemic has declared itself. We have quite enough, old women on the Thames ready to waste their energies in raising a " scare," diphtheritic or otherwise, and I had hoped that the Local Board of Health would have taken a practical view of the matter. They should remember that they are, to a certain extent, the custodians of the put lie health, and that the principle of " locking the door when' the steed is (stolen " may entail very heavy liabilities on them.—l am, &c,

P. Calian,