A CASE OF DIPHTHERIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8504, 7 August 1907, Page 5

A CASE OF DIPHTHERIA.

SANITARY INSPECTOR'S REPORT.

MATTER REFERRED TO THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

"At the meeting of the Masterton Borough Council, last evening, the following report was received from the Borough Sanitary Inspector, Mr J. Cairns:—l respectfully beg to report that on Saturday, the 3rd inst., I received notice from Dr. Archer Hosking of a case of diphtheria in Kuripuni. lat once made enquiries, and found that a child named John Fosbrook Woodward was taken ill. A doctor was brought, and the child removed to the district hospital, where he died shortly after being admitted. A consultation and professional examination was made, and it was proved that deceased died from diphtheria. The deceased's body, notwithstanding, was allowed to be brought from the hospital in an open trap, and conveyed to Woodward's residence in Kuripuni where there are two other small children. When I visited the house on Saturday morning I found one of the children —a child three years of age—suffering apparently frorr the same disease, and the other child running in and out of the room where the corpse was laid out. I asked Mrs Woodward why she had not sent for a doctor for the child. She replied that she had sent, and the doctors would not come. I then saw Dr. Cook, who at once went and visited the child, and pronounced it to be diphtheria, and prescribed for him. As the Woodwards are in poor circumstances, the man being an invalid, and in receipt of charitable aid, I procured the medicine through Mr Holmes, Chairman of the Charitable Aid Board, and sent it to them. I then thoroughly fumigated the trap in which the corpse was brought from the hospital. I then informed the undertaker, Mr Hoar, who at once went along and screwed down the coffin. I was present on Sunday when the corpse was removed to be burier 1 , and sprayed those who left the house. I afterwards had the clothing removed and soaked in a bath of strong disinfectant and thoroughly fumigated the room. I made an inspection of the ]-remises. The house, which is a four roomed one, is very old and very much out of repair. It is built in a hollow, the surface water and the water from the roof, runs under the house, which is a reel hot-bed for fever, there being r.o drainage in the locality, which is urgently needed.

Cr Morris stated that he was aware of some of the circumstances of the case which he termed " a scandalous state of affairs." Mrs Woodward told him about the child'.« illness. He telephoned to two doctors asking them to attend the case, and both "absolutely refused to have anything to do with it."

The Mayor contended that the Council should use some discretion before censuring the doctors, who at the time they were asked might have had olher cases in-hand. He considered that the Council was not the body to deal with the matter and moved that the Inspector's report be forwarded to the Health Department for them to make enquiries into the case. Cr Haughey referred to the removal of the corpse from the hospital and said that that was due to negligence on'the part of somebody. Other Councillors concurred in this view. The motion was then put to the meeting and carried unanimously.