EVERY Medical Officer realizes the importance of "sani tary environment of the community and sound nutrition Bovril enables the system to extract from food nourishment BOVRIL has been proved by independent scientific research to have Urgent Calls You will always be on time, "Gutta Percha" Tires "Tire trouble" has almost been Gutta Percha & Rubber, Limited Head Offices and Factory, Toronto Branches from Coast to Coast An indigent man fell ill in a certain township. He went to a relatives' in a near-by town, not in the township. A town doctor was called to see him and sent him to the town hospital. The town endeavored to secure payment for his care from the township. The township refused. Action was entered against this municipality but without success. It would appear to us that the township should have been made to pay. There are (we are told) several patients in the Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Muskoka who got there and are supported as follows: Their friends shipped them from the counties in which they resided to Toronto, where they remained three months. They were then sent to Muskoka and Toronto is paying for them, which is manifestly unfair. If these patients' relatives are unable to pay for their care, the municipalities from which they come should foot the bills. In the unorganized sections of Northern Ontario there are a good many cases of sickness and poverty. The unfortunate sufferers live in sparsely settled districts, and so are remote from neighborly help. They are a charge, we understand, on the provincial government. The Red Cross and various religious bodies are doing good work in helping the enterprising folk who have sought to build homes in these rough outof-the-way places. But as yet there is no regular systematic way of extending help to them when in trouble. With the establishment of an Ontario Hospital Association we trust the question of the responsibility for the care of these people on our frontiers will be fixed. The sooner the better! Smallpox at the Border Up to March 3rd there had occurred at our western border forty cases of smallpox with twelve deaths, "the worst epidemic of smallpox in Canada since the 1885 epidemic in Montreal." One good byproduct ensued-the vaccination of some 50,000 people. The Provincial Board of Health has been on the alert, and the local M.O.H. has done his part well. The profession has been informed by mimeographed circular of the history of the epidemic, the nature and course of typical cases, the source of infection and the peculiar points respecting the outbreak. The early minor cases seemed to have been contracted by an infection from Detroit. The malignant cases followed the death of a man who died from hemorrhagic smallpox, whose case hadn't been diagnosed by even medical men of the highest education. The patient had had many visitors and many friends attended his funeral! The hemorrhagic cases were all fatal; none of such patients had been vaccinated. They were difficult to diagnose, even though smallpox was known to be in the locality. Some were at first diagnosed as appendicitis, others, stone in the kidney and still others, scarlet fever and measles. Some of the hemorrhagic cases showed a typical "lobster rash" as mentioned by Ker in his book on Infectious Diseases, others somewhat resembled the rash of scarlet fever though it was of a more dusky character and no other symptoms of scarlet fever were present. Still others showed a rash like measles but the other symptoms of measles such as dry cough, running eyes, and cold in the head, were absent. All of these rashes were, of course, prodromal rashes and in many cases the true smallpox rash was not seen owing to the patient's early death. Hemorrhage into the conjunctivae was a common symptom in these cases also hemorrhages from the mouth, bowel and bladder as well as hemorrhages under the skin. This epidemic has been a lesson to the profession, Boards of Health and the public, as to the value of general vaccination and of the compulsory vaccination of school children. Doctors should be on the alert for any suspect cases and promptly segregate such patients until a diagnosis has been established. Our country brethren should keep a dozen vaccine tubes constantly on hand for use on contacts when a suspect case develops in any family. |