Contagious Diseases Acts

“ If the one would consent to restrict their use of the term contagious, for which there is the best authority and ancient custom, to those diseases which arise from a specific contagion, and would call those which arise from every other poison infectious, there would be an end to this apparently interminable, and in many respects mischievous, controversy. ”

“ Philanthropy of this pernicious sort is essentially sentimental and feminine.
But the most disastrous interference, up to the present, of sentimental fanatics—women and femininely-influenced men—has been their successful campaign against those beneficent Acts of Parliament, the Contagious Diseases Acts, framed from time to time for the protection of Her Majesty’s forces of the Army and Navy. ”

“ Until recently the most reliable test of health rights not enforced was the number of cases of preventable, communicable, contagious, infectious, transmissible diseases, such as smallpox, typhoid fever, yellow fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough. By noticing streets and houses where these diseases occurred, students learned a century ago that the darker and more congested the street the greater the prevalence of fevers and the greater the chance that one attacked would die. ”

“ The number of buildings, their isolation and peculiar structure, allows a perfect classification of all kinds of diseases. Thus, there are buildings appropriated to contagious diseases, while others contain exclusively non-contagious maladies; a means by which the spreading of an epidemic is not only prevented, but the chance of an outbreak lessened, because every case, as soon as detected, is immediately sent to its proper place, and all possible sanitary precautions, such as fumigation, disinfection, administered. ”

“ But it is obvious that, in the majority of cases, it must be impossible to decide by which of these channels the disease is conveyed, from the nature of the intercourse between the physician and the patient.
3. It is not pretended that the contagion of puerperal fever must always be followed by the disease. It is true of all contagious diseases that they frequently spare those who appear to be fully submitted to their influence. Even the vaccine virus, fresh from the subject, fails every day to produce its legitimate effect, though every precaution is taken to insure its action. ”

“ They are desirous that this inquiry should be conducted with care in large towns, where the sources of contagion or the circumstances which promote its rapid diffusion among the population are more rife than in the rural districts; they are anxious to obtain the assistance of the medical practitioners having charge of hospitals and dispensaries in such towns, because such institutions afford the best means of observing under what circumstances febrile contagious diseases are disseminated ”

“ This is precisely what ought to be done with every one in a densely-populated place laboring under an infectious or contagious disease. When out of a city, such dangerously-affected persons should be watchfully excluded until cured of their disorder; and, when in, a cordon should be placed around them, so that the community would be in no danger; all the while carefully stamping out with disinfectants the means or the germs by which disease and death are carried from house to house. ”

“ The word infection is applied to the vehicle by which a malady is transmitted from one person to another by the air, and with or without actual contact. The type of infectious disease is small-pox, and this is also, as is well-known, a highly contagious complaint. Scarlet-fever, measles, whooping-cough, mumps, etc., are likewise both contagious and infectious, and make up the class of disorders popularly known as diseases which are "catching." ”

“ There is no better method for preventing the spread of contagious diseases than perfect isolation of the infected, and thorough disinfection of all articles of clothing or bedding which have been in contact with the infected. ”

“ We do not think it is right to interfere in the way in which the work is done, but that it is only for the Government to see that their inspectors have power to prevent the spread of contagion. At all events, the fact of a contagious disease being in the house of a workman might be made known, and then the public could defend themselves. I may mention one or two other cases. I visited a house in Glasgow where, in a room some 6 feet by 8 feet, a man and his wife and boy lived and worked. ”

“ The theory is, that any contagious disease can be eradicated; or, at all events, limited within a very slender area; and that various diseases are in reality contagious, such as typhoid fever and consumption, where the ordinary medical and general mind does not admit the fact of the contagiousness. If we resort to the primitive processes of counting noses, or listening for the largest amount of shouting, we shall decide against the theory ”

“ Loathsome contagious diseases include those whose presence excites abhorrence in others, and which are essentially chronic, such as favus, ringworm of the scalp, parasitic fungus diseases, Madura foot, leprosy and venereal disease. Dangerous contagious diseases are such as trachoma, filariasis, hookworm infection, amœbic dysentery, and endemic hematuria. ”

“ If disease were to break out in his house, and it were known, he would be requested by both men and masters to leave the shop until a clean bill of health was received and his place disinfected.
Mr. Cross: That is what I wanted to know. Then the object of your deputation to-day is this—that a workman, wherever he may be employed (whether in a workshop or in his own house) , if he should be living with a wife or child suffering from a contagious disease, he should be prevented from spreading that disease. ”

“ As a consequence, the death-rate was 26·47 in 1880, 31·08 in 1881, and 29·64 in 1882.
In overcrowded places the danger is great when contagious disease makes its appearance. The spread of such diseases as typhus, measles, and whooping-cough is very much favoured by overcrowding. ”

“ First, that they are contagious and absolutely dependent upon a living germ, whose spread can be prevented; and secondly, and practically even more important, that more than half the deaths from them are due, not to the disease itself, but to complications occurring during the period of recovery, caused, for the most part, by gross carelessness on the part of the mother or nurse. ”

“ How far any such disease may have been prevented from invading new countries, or from spreading from any particular center, by measures directed against contagion. Above all, to determine what is the nature, and what the true value, of the evidence supposed to show that the specific poison of a contagious disease may originate spontaneously, or be generated de novo. "What we most want to know," adds Budd, "in regard to this whole group of diseases is, where and how the specific poisons which cause them breed and multiply." ”

“ Contagion is properly a poisoning of one individual from contact with a diseased individual in some way known or unknown. It may be conveyed indirectly through clothes, etc., or other person; but always comes from some person sick with the same disease. Diseases may be both infectious and contagious. Nearly all the epidemic diseases of infancy are both infectious and contagious and accompanied by fever. ”

“ One is the ascertainment through the Agricultural Department of the condition of the domestic animals of the United States, the causes of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases affecting them, the best methods for treating, transporting, and caring for animals, the means to be adopted for the suppression and extirpation of such diseases, particularly that of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and to collect such information on those subjects as will be valuable to the agricultural and commercial interests of the country. ”

“ Society seems to take a different attitude towards other contagious and infectious diseases, such as measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, etc. In these diseases, a physician has some responsibility toward society; he must report each case as it comes to his attention, to the Board of Health, who in turn assume some responsibility by isolating the disease. ”

“ He was the first to recognize the specificity of the epidemic diseases, and argued from this that each disease must have a specific cause. "Just as a certain plant comes from the seed of the same plant and not from any plant at will, so each contagious disease must be propagated from a similar disease and cannot be the result of any other disease." Further he says, "It is necessary to assume that during the prevalence of an epidemic the contagious material undergoes an enormous increase, and this is compatible only with the assumption that it is a living substance." ”

“ Much real injury has, however, been sustained from a propensity to identify with this epidemic, and to call by the same name, fevers of very different kinds, which have been known at all times and in all countries, and never have been placed among those deemed contagious. As we advance in our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the sources from which individuals receive it, the state authorities charged with the care of the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce, will become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in these departments. ”

“ While their devouring work is as a "bottling up" of injurious and infectious matters, thus purifying our world, the substances their little bodies may contain and their parasitic action when inoculated into the bodies of higher living organisms by contact, inhalation, eating, etc., render some kinds extremely dangerous as conveyers of the various contagious diseases, hence to be strenuously avoided by strict cleanliness and rigid hygienic measures of every kind. ”

“ Boards of health require the reporting of all contagious diseases as soon as their presence is known, and failure to comply with their rules also renders the offender liable to fine or imprisonment in most places. ”

“ Dirt and contagious diseases certainly thrive in the same atmosphere, and yet one often sees sanitary laws, as we construe them, deliberately outraged without any such results as our best reason would lead us to expect. ”

“ All the many appliances for "stamping out" epidemic diseases not having succeeded in preventing outbreaks of small-pox, fevers, and the like, a further remedy is applied for in the shape of police-power to search houses for diseased persons, and authority for medical officers to examine any one they think fit, to see whether he or she is suffering from an infectious or contagious malady. ”

“ That when the Constitution of the Air happens to favour Infection, it rages there with great Violence; That at that Time more especially diseased Persons give it to one another, and Contagious Matter is lodged in Goods of a loose and soft Texture, which being packt up, and carried into other Countries, let out, when opened, the imprisoned XXVIISeeds of Contagion: And lastly, That the Air cannot diffuse and spread these to any great Distance, if Intercourse and Commerce with the Place infected be strictly prevented. ”

“ Dirty food and the use of articles soiled with choleraic discharges may also convey it, but most authorities assert that it is never carried through the medium of the air—that is, the disease is contagious, but, unlike scarlet fever and measles, is not infectious. Physicians and nurses work among it with impunity, even in its most virulent form, so long as rigid cleanliness of person and clothing is observed. ”

“ This clause deserves very particular attention, for though we have been happily free from any very severe visitation of contagious disease, yet there are instances where local regulations would have been highly expedient, at least to the extent of directing the destruction of the clothes and beddings of persons dying of highly infectious disorders, and securing the purification, fumigation, and ventilation of their rooms or houses ”

“ But under the statute law of this State, a man having knowledge of the existence of a contagious disease among any species of domestic animals is liable to a fine of five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for one year, if he does not forthwith inform the public authorities of such disease.99 Aside from the penalty of the statute law, it is clearly an indictable offence for any one to take domestic animals affected with contagious diseases, knowing or having reason to know them to be so affected, upon the public ways, where they are likely to give such diseases to sound animals ”

“ That the termination of epidemics is peculiar, since they cease suddenly at the exact period when the greatest number of persons is affected by them, and when the greatest mortality prevails. This fact is inexplicable under the supposition that epidemics owe their spread from person to person. To suppose that a disease which is propagated by contagion can rapidly decline and even suddenly cease, just when most persons are affected and the mortality is greatest—that is, when the contagious matter is proved to be in its most active and malignant state—is utterly absurd. ”

“ When the doctor shall teach that tuberculosis is contagious, the people will believe, and will govern themselves accordingly. In combating contagious diseases the preventive measures taken often give discouraging results. This will be particularly so in tubercular disease. Half-way measures secure less than half-way results, and these alienate the support of those who only indifferently believe in contagion and the importance of precautionary measures. Efficient means of suppression are radical, and bear hard on the individual; they are not complied with, and they produce violent opposition. ”