New Britain herald., 1927-05-18
plant chosen was entirely to be de-

plant chosen was entirely to be de-
 sired
 The remaining contracts offered
 no such difficulty. They were award
 ed as recommended by the health department and approved by the begun. Process of construction pro- ceeded with out any delay of any sort and the building was completed in record time.
 S25,OOO For Improvement There was no interruption in the operation of the Abattoir, although there was some slight decrease in the total amount of work done. The fact that it was unnecessary to shut down the plant is the more remark able, since part Of the work there consisted of removing and replacing all the old tracking in the original abattoir. This work was done eff ciently by the Worcester Tram Rail Company. The total appropriation asked for the work was s25.000 and d detailed financial statement ac- companies this report. The depart ment feels convinced that the new structure is entirely as expected. is built in the best possible manner, and should operate without undue depreciation for a long period of years.
 "A review of the communicable disease conditions brings to light several important facts. It has been stated previously in reports from this department that the public is inclined to place disproportionate importance on communicable dis ease work. It is hoped that this statement has not created the i'm pression that communicable disease work is of no importance. The point to be emphasized is that a great deal of work in communicable dis ease is entirely necessary and is a logical part of the health depart ment's work. But it is not the only work done by the department.
 During the past two years very material aid has been given by the Visiting Nurse association. who have in their employ a well trained, thoroughly competent, communi- able disease nurse. It is now pos sible for families in the city who could not afford to employ a full time nurse to have the aid offered by the communicable disease nurse at moderate cost. in fact at no cost at all, where circumstances justify it. It should be remembered too, that a nurse going into the homes has an ideal chance to educate the family in the proper care of con- municable diseases, and in this way to limit the number of cases in each family. The effort of such work is definitely noticeable in the number of families where cases of scarlet fever, for example, have been limit ed to one patient. A fact of further interest is the improvement of re- porting communicable diseases. This is due to several causes. The nurse has reported to us a great number of cases which would not otherwise have come to our atten- ton, since no doctor had been call ed to take care of them.
 "A similar stimulation of the re- porting of other communicable dis eases has been accomplished by a more complete placarding and quarantining program than has ever been carried out by this department previously. We have found that when we placard a case of whoop- ing cough. for example. we are al- most invariably informed by the quarantined family of other cases in the immediate vicinity where no physician has been in attendance. This enables us to make an in- vestigation and thus extend the pre- vention campaign.
 Analysis of the figures on the cases and deaths from communicable diseases is always apt to be misin- terpreted, as figures often are. In the first place it is careless proce- dure to draw any definite conclusions from the figures of one year. Take for example measles. In the accom- panying report it will be found that during the past year there were 611 cases of measles reported while dur ing the previous year there were only 192. It would seem obvious from these figures that measles had increased enormously. This, however, we do not believe to be the case. In