280 The Public Health. | April, 
induce action of a much more efficient kind than the passing of the 
Vaccination Act of last year. We fear that no mere legislation 
will effect much for staying this plague. There must be a deep 
sense of responsibility with regard to the existence of this disease 
impressed upon the community, so that every parent and neighbour 
may recognize it as a duty to see that the only means of preventing 
its occurrence, early vaccination, is had recourse to. 
Sir James Simpson, in a recent communication to one of the 
Medical Journals, proposes to “stamp out” small-pox in the same 
manner as the cattle plague has been stamped out. Of course he 
excepts the process of immediately killing the animal attacked. 
What he really means is this, if a case of small-pox is at once taken 
in hand, placed in strict quarantine, and only those allowed to 
approach the individual attacked who have already had the disease, 
or been vaccinated, and every article of clothing in contact with the 
diseased body destroyed, you may defy the extension of the disease. 
This is true of all other infectious diseases. Ifa child attacked with 
scarlet fever is at once placed in a room by itself, and only those 
allowed to enter who have had the disease, and every precaution 
taken to destroy poison in the excretions, and in the clothes worn 
and used by the patient, then the disease will not spread. It isa 
well-known fact that when a case of typhus fever 1s taken into a 
hospital, and every precaution taken to prevent the spread of the 
poison, it seldom or never spreads. It is the utterly careless and 
abandoned way in which these pestilential diseases are treated in the 
homes of the poor that causes their spread and the desclation that 
follows. When these diseases occur, whether it be in London or 
other towns, no serious efforts are made to “stamp them out;” a 
laissez-faire system is adopted, which at the end of the year is 
summed up in such forms as follow: “ Whooping-cough carried off 
many children all over London; and diarrhoea, which was the most 
fatal of the Zymotic class, caused 2,294 deaths. Cholera, chiefly 
cholera infantum, was fatal in 241 cases; typhus and typhoid fever, 
&c., in 2,174 against 3,232, and 2,681 in the two previous years.” 
The London people have, no doubt, occasion to be thankful that 
those two last diseases had diminished in severity. But why should 
there be 2,000, or 200, or any typhus and typhoid at all? These 
fevers are bred of causes which are well known. Typhus is the 
offspring of overcrowding, and typhoid of bad drainage. In some 
districts of London, as Mayfair, in St. George’s, Hanover Square, 
Eltham, and Lee not a single case occurred in the whole year. In 
Dulwich, the Golden Square district of St. James, Westminster, and 
St. Olave’s, Southwark, only one fatal case occurred in the year. 
These instances taken at random from the Registrar-General’s re- 
turns, show that these diseases may be kept at bay, and are kept at 
bay, and very diligent inquiries ought immediately to be set on foot, 
