August i i, 1904] 



NA TURE 



557 



THE HEALTH CONGRESS AT GLASGOW. 



\ r the congress of the Sanitary Institute recently held 

 "^ at Glasgow, a large number of sanitary officials, 

 delegates from sanitary authorities, and others interested 

 in public health matters assembled, and a busy four days 

 of discussions were relieved by a generous programme of 

 local entertainments. Glasgow is an excellent centre for 

 such a meeting. The hospitality of the city is proverbial, 

 and the enlightened enterprise of the corporation and its 

 ofl'icials in dealing with the sanitary needs of " The Second 

 City in the Empire " is generally recognised. The city 

 abounds in interest to those who appreciate what a far- 

 sighted and energetic civic management of affairs has 

 achieved in the direction of solving the many public health 

 problems which present themselves in every large industrial 

 community. .\n enlightened municipality has provided an 

 excellent system of electric trams, and acquired its own 

 water supply and lighting ; four public abattoirs have been 

 established, and private slaughter-houses abolished ; and 

 hospital accommodation amounting to ij beds to every 

 1000 of the population has been provided for the infectious 

 sick. But the energy and wisdom which have characterised 

 the civic management of affairs is in no respect better 

 evidenced than by the circumstance that in comparatively 

 recent years no fewer than fifteen parks or open spaces, 

 together amounting to more than looo acres in area, have 

 been procured as lungs for the city. There is, indeed, no 

 form of municipal enterprise in the interest of public health, 

 however recent or advanced, which has not been adopted 

 and put to the test in Glasgow ; and hence the attractiveness 

 of the city to the hygienist and to the earnest municipal 

 representative. Model lodgings for the poor and labourers' 

 dwellings now replace some of the insanitary property which 

 has been demolished : the corporation owns a municipal 

 infants' milk depot, reception houses for the temporary de- 

 tention of those who have been in close contact with certain 

 of the infectious diseases, municipal chemical and bacterio- 

 logical laboratories, public baths and wash-houses, and it 

 has recently had the courage to demand the closing of the 

 public houses at lo p.m. Drunkenness is very prevalent in 

 Glasgow, and the more drunkenness can be reduced the 

 <?asier does the solution become of most public health 

 problems. 



Despite all this good work, the conditions under which 

 so many of the poor are still housed in Glasgow continue 

 to demand the exercise of much energy and enterprise on 

 the part of the local authority. A tremendous amount of 

 " spade-work " still remains to be done, and it is not easy 

 to contemplate the state of things which would now exist 

 if the corporation had shown less wisdom and vigour in 

 dealing with the poorer section of the community in the 

 past, for few, if any. cities of Great Britain have stood 

 more in need of enlightened administration. Glasgow is 

 essentially a manufacturing and trading community. A 

 city cannot be this and beautiful at the same time. It has 

 an atmosphere in which poverty, dirt, and intemperance 

 naturally take root and thrive. But the corporation has 

 proved itself to be quite wide awake to the wants of Glasgow, 

 and it is administering to those wants with no niggard 

 hand. Would that it could deal effectively with those 

 pernicious individuals who fatten on the poorest section of 

 the community by the system of " farming " tenements, 

 and would that it could succeed in abolishing that almost 

 essentially Scotch custom of placing beds in air-stagnant 

 recesses in the walls of living rooms, for it is not easy to 

 exaggerate the harmful effect the custom must have upon 

 the public health. 



It is, of course, impossible within the limits of a short 

 article to deal adequately with the extensive programme 

 of work performed at the congress. Figuring most 

 prominently among the more important subjects which came 

 under discussion were those of the milk supply, the disposal 

 of sewage, the housing of the poor, infant feeding, school 

 hvijiene. the hospital isolation of infectious disease, and 

 disinfection. 



Dissatisfaction was generally expressed at the lack of 

 suitable precautions to guard our milk supply from con- 

 tamination, ai^d there was a general conviction that this 

 •circumstance was responsible for much preventable infantile 

 mortality. The same unanimity was not accorded to the 



NO. 1815. VOL. 70] 



subject of the value of hospital isolation of scarlet fever 

 patients, and this was responsible for a lengthy discussion 

 at the conference of medical officers of health. There is a 

 considerable body of expert opinion opposed to the present 

 wholesale and indiscriminate hospital isolation of this 

 disease, which now generally assumes so mild a type. 

 Hospital isolation seems incapable of materially reducing 

 the attack rate among the community, and so few children 

 escape attack altogether that the good obtained is dis- 

 proportionate to the enormous expense entailed, and there- 

 fore the restriction of the number of cases admitted to 

 hospital to those who cannot possibly be nursed at home 

 without great risks, is advocated by many. This restriction, 

 strictly enforced, would reduce the number of admissions 

 by some 50 per cent, in many large towns, and the money 

 thus saved could be spent with far greater effect upon other 

 public health measures. 



Many of the papers contributed to the congress dealt 

 with controversial subjects, and contained nothing of scien- 

 tific value ; these contributions, however, serve a most useful 

 purpose at such meetings, for the adoption or otherwise of 

 administrative measures of public health importance is 

 largely determined by the trend of the general discussions 

 which they evoke. 



Reference may be made to one or two of the more practical 

 papers which were of general interest. 



In a paper read by Dr. R. H. Crowley upon the spread 

 of diphtheria in schools, it was pointed out with reference 

 to a school outbreak of this disease in Bradford that 

 whereas the throats of ninety-three scholars gave no clinical 

 evidence of diphtheria, in forty-two instances diphtheria 

 bacilli were present ; and the importance of such an examin- 

 ation and the necessity of isolating scholars who, though 

 apparently healthy, contain the germ on their throats during 

 such outbreaks were emphasised. 



Dr. Louis Cobbett, in another paper, concludes from the 

 result of his experience in the Chelmsford and Cambridge 

 outbreaks of the disease that d'iphtheria bacilli in healthy 

 persons are only to be found among such as have come into 

 contact with cases of diphtheria, and possibly also in those 

 who have come into contact with healthy people who harbour 

 the bacilli, and he advocates that all sanitary authorities 

 should have at their disposal the services of a skilled 

 bacteriologist. 



Dr. A. Greenwood brought before the notice of the 

 congress the results of his examination of the air of certain 

 school class-rooms in Blackburn. He found that the average 

 amount of carbon dioxide (CO,) present in the air of Black- 

 burn was 437 per 10,000. whereas that of the air of Black- 

 burn schools was 9 6q. This amount of vitiation of the air 

 in the class-rooms of schools is doubtless very general, and 

 improved means of ventilation are demanded in the interest 

 of scholars. 



Dr. H. Wright Thompson gave the results of his ex- 

 amination of the eyes of 7.!;o Glasgow school children. He 

 found that 34 2 per cent, of the 600 Christian children were 

 in need of medical ophthalmic treatment, and that 47-6 per 

 cent, of the 150 Jewish children required such treatment. 

 .So far as eyesight is concerned, Glasgow children are in a 

 worse condition than those in either Edinburgh or .Aberdeen. 



Mr. W. C. Tyndale and Lieut. -Colonel Davies, R.A.M.C, 

 in a paper recording valuable experimental work (including 

 suitable bacteriological experiments), conclude that when 

 t!ie surface of a chalk formation is deluged with sewage, 

 traces of sewage, as evidenced bacteriologicallv, mav 

 penetrate to a considerable depth, but that when sewage 

 is applied in an ordinary and reasonable way over the surface 

 no such contamination of the subsoil takes place. 



Prof. Kenwood and Dr. .Allan, in dealing with practical 

 disinfection, furnished the results of experiments upon the 

 disinfecting action of certain disinfectants after being ex- 

 posed for four weeks to the air. The results show a con- 

 siderable loss of power in most instances, even in the case 

 of carbolic acid. 



.A rather sensational paper was read by the chief sanitarv 

 inspector for Glasgow, Mr. Peter Fyfe, upon the result of 

 the examination of certain flock material taken from 

 mattresses. This material is sometimes made from rags and 

 cast-off clothing sorted from ash-pits, &c., and the bacteri- 

 ological examination of the flock taken from some 

 recently purchased mattresses disclosed an amount of un- 



