Section I. 



SANITARY SCIENCE AND HYGIENE. 



(Owing to the absence of the President, no Presidential Address was 



delivered.) 



PAPERS READ IN SECTION I. 



1. THE KEDUCTION OF TYPHOID FEVER IN AUSTRALASIA 



By Dr. J. S. Purdij. 



2. REMARKS ON THE SPREAD AND CONTROL OF 

 TYPHOID FEVER. 



By Burton Bradley, M.B.,t'k.M. (Syd.), D.P.H. 



There are, I think, two principal equipments which the medical 

 officer of public health will find requisite in the consideration of 

 the question of the spread and the prevention of the spread of 

 typhoid fever in any part of the world. The first of these is a 

 thorough knowledge of the epidemiology and bacteriology of the 

 disease, or else the co-operation of specialists thoroughly conversant 

 with the subject; the second is a mind which is capable of rising 

 above mere scientific data, and which is capable of utilizing that 

 God-begotten quality of "common sense," so as to control and 

 utilize the available scientific facts, and not to be simply over- 

 whelmed by them. 



The ideal person to elucidate such a problem is one who, besides 

 having access to the records and returns of a well-organized health 

 department, and understanding the epidemiological and bacterio- 

 logical problems, possesses the above quality of judging things in 

 their relative degrees of importance. Under existing circumstances 

 it is not always easy to find such a person and, from the practical 

 point of view, it is probably best for such investigations to be con- 

 ducted by several people, each conversant with their special part 

 of the problem, and working in harmony to the orderly elucida- 

 tion of the whole. The special work in this matter of the public 

 health ofiicial should, undoubtedly, lie in the strict surveillance of 

 his particular district, so as to find, as soon as possible, each case 

 as it occurs, and, by means of statistical methods and careful card 

 indexing according to years, districts, streets, &c., and so forth, 

 so as to have as complete a knowledge as possible of past and pre- 

 sent " typhoid districts," and by means of such legislative measures 

 as are possible to attempt to prevent the incidence and spread of 

 the disease. 



