HH62/2/SUTHER/31

Transcription

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the human beings who work the land and have by their own exertions
made it valuable.
Many people can hardly make ends meet, and the laudable effort
to give every man his due often results in limiting the endeavours of
a hardworking, honest crofter for his own improvement or that of his
dwelling-house or outhouses.
However, it should be the constant determination of our people,
whether aided by the proprietor or the County Council or the
Government, to depend more on self-help and independent effort than
on any extraneous aid, knowing that now whatever improvements
have been effected in the past or will in the future be carried out in
compliance with the demands of sanitation, will alwavs enhance the
value of their own health as well as that of the houses, for whose
bettering equivalent compensation will be given should they choose
to leave them.
For the overcrowding of our Fishing Villages the remedy is most
diffcult. At present every available cubic foot is occupied, and at
busy seasons over-occupied by additional strangers, to the detriment
of the health of all the inmates, especially of women and children.
The Council should see to the erection or leasing of proper lodging-
houses, or make arrangements for capitalists expending money on
new model lodging-houses, where required. The fact is, there is
more demand for healthy houses in all our villages than can be
supplied, and overcrowding can never be cured or prevented till there
is increased accommodation offered to people, and then stringent
regulations made to permit of only a certain number of people
dwelling in certain houses.
To cure the ill health of fisherwomen, and prevent their so rapid
breaking down into premature old age, there ought to be a lessening
of their work where possible, as in the case of their most harassing
and unwomanly labour in aiding fishermen to enter and leave their
boats, which cannot be approached otherwise because of the absence
of boat slips or small piers. It seems so barbarous and inhuman -
not to speak of the real dangers to health - that fisherwomen in many
places should be supposed to act thus, as movable gangways between
the shore and the boats; and I know much ill health also results
from their having to act as veritable beasts of burden in some parts
where the cultivated patches of land have no roads, and the approaches
to them are impossible of access for a horse and cart.
Here clearly there is a case for prevention, and the way to act is
to have more roads where required for land worth cultivating, and
also small harbours or jetties for landing the contents of boats.
Not until such practical benefits are granted, or equivalent
advantages to compensate for the longstanding disadvantages of com-
pulsory residence on rock-bound coasts, without necessary approaches
beween men and their boats, coupled with a greater extension of
roads, railways, or tramways to their villages, will life be easy or
desirable for the greater number of our present inhabitants; and the

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maintenance of good health will always be handicapped so long as
these removable causes of ill health are unremedied.

THE RESULT ATTAINED IN 1891.
With such powers and means at the disposal of the Local
Authority, some work would naturally be expected to have been
accomplished. But the "something done" resolves itself into very
little more than the discovery of the state of affairs in the county,
and the jointing together of machinery and equipments for doing
work in the future. At this stage a statement is required to be made
of the matters in regard to which the Medical Officer has given advice+
or taken action during the year, and the following is a summary:-
Visits of preliminary inspection were made in the first part of the
year of a general nature, as no new Sanitary Inspector was appointed,
and the old Parochial Inspectors in their various districts were in
touch with me in regard to several matters. Advice and opinion
were given to suit the necessities of the case.
Opinions on the relation of School Boards to epidemics were given
in the case of Rogart and Lairg for Diphtheria, and for Scourie and
Kinlochbervie for Measles, but virtually the people act for themselves;
they keep children from school indiscriminately in times of epidemic,
which action tends to reduce the average attendance, and necessarily
the income of the school, which is reckoned on attendance. The
schools consequently are closed altogether more for pecuniary than
sanitary reasons, for in most cases it would be possible, because of
our Infectious Diseases Act and information to teachers, to limit the
attendance at school to healthy children coming from unaffected
houses. Some teachers, in terms of instructions, were notified to
refuse admission to certain children should they present themselves
at school, and the suggestion was made, which found publicity, that
if teachers noticed any commencing disease, such as bad throats or
other symptoms to signify Diphtheria, &c., they might confer at once
with the proper authority.
The question of disinfection of schools and periodic washing of
desks, seats, slates, &c., was also dealt with.
When opportunity offered, advice was given to children and
teachers regarding their duties if any sudden storm came on, causing
wet clothes or boots, and how to act, so as to prevent illness there-
from.
Consultations with doctors and people about the Infectious
Diseases Notification Act and its requirements were also held, and I
am to ask that the Burgh of Dornoch also adopt this Act for their
own and the county's sake.
Special directions were given about how to disinfect houses after
infectious fevers, and in one case after Phthisis, where I had an
opportunity. [A simple and effective plan for reducing the dangers of