HH62/2/LANARK/73

Transcription

[Page] 73

certain of its life processes a substance which is a virulent
chemical poison; and
"That this chemical substance is in the human body the
material cause of epidemic diarrhœa."

I have quoted thus fully from Dr. Ballard's report, as the
opinions therein expressed unmistakably point to diarrhœa
as being emphatically a filth disease. Its occurrence,
therefore, to any marked degree in a community indicates
the necessity for greater cleanliness both inside and outside
the homes of the people. That this necessity exists in the
Middle Ward is, to my mind, evident from the fact that no
fewer than 145 deaths were recorded from diarrhœa (of
which 131 were in children under 5 years of age), equal to
a mortality rate from this disease alone of 1·013 per 1,000,
or more than double the rate for the eight large towns of
Scotland in 1890.
The rates in the three divisions were 0·515 in the First,
1·179 in the Second, and 0·823 in the Third.

Tubercular Diseases. - In recent years it is becoming
more and more clearly recognised that tubercular diseases
generally, and pulmonary phthisis or consumption specially,
are to a great extent influenced by sanitary measures.
Dampness of soil, impure air, insufficient food and clothing,
all predispose to tubercular affections. That tuberculosis
is a specific disease - a disease, that is to say, always
associated with a particular micro-organism - was proved
by Koch in 1882 by the discovery of the bacillus tuber-
culosis. There can be little doubt that this organism
enters the body, as a rule, by the air passages, but there are
many writers who believe that it may obtain ingress by
milk, or in the flesh of animals which have suffered from
tuberculosis, as admittedly so many do - hence the import-
ance of cleanly, well-ventilated cowsheds.
The deaths from phthisis or consumption registered
during 1891 numbered no fewer then 223. When we con-
sider that in the majority the disease is of a lingering