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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

mmimmimC.O. 885

23 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

Short title.

Meaning of

82

Enclosure 1 in No. 46.

JAMAICA-LAW 19 OF 1914.

A Law to provide for the Compulsory Treatment of persons suffering from Yaws.

[12th May, 1914.]

Be it enacted by the Governor and Legislative Council of Jamaica as follows:-

1. This Law may be cited as the Yaws (Compulsory Treatment) Law, 1914. 2. In this Law," Treatment” means treatment by means of the preparation "Treatment." known as salvarsan and any other preparation, whether of a different character or not, for the treatment of persons suffering from yaws approved by the Superintend- ing Medical Officer for the purposes of this Law;

Meaning of "Child' Governor

building or

place for

Jawa

10

23

Child means a person under the age of fourteen years.

3. (1) It shall be lawful for the Governor to appoint any building or place for may appoint the treatment of persons suffering from yaws and any District Medical Officer or registered medical practitioner appointed by the Governor in that behalf may by treatment of notice in writing require any person suffering from yaws to attend at any building or place so appointed by the Governor for the purpose of being treated for yaws and may by notice in writing require any parent, guardian or person in charge of any child suffering from yaws to bring such child to any building or place 80 appointed by the Governor for the purpose of being treated for yaws and may administer treatment to any person or child suffering from yaws in any such building or place, and any person who refuses or wilfully neglects to comply with the terms of any such notice as aforesaid or who refuses or wilfully neglects to submit himself to treatment in any such building or place or who quits such build- ing or place without being discharged therefrom by a District Medical Officer or registered medical practitioner appointed by the Governor as hereinbefore provided or who refuses or unlawfully neglects while in such building or place to conform to the regulations made under this Law shall, unless he makes a reasonable excuse to the satisfaction of the Resident Magistrate, be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction before a Resident Magistrate to a fine not exceeding Forty Shillings and in default of payment of such fine to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding one month or in the case of a second or subse- quent offence either to such fine with such imprisonment in default or to imprison- ment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding two months.

Governor

may make regulations

(2) In the case of a person suffering from yaws the Resident Magistrate may, in lieu of imposing a fine, order on any such conviction as aforesaid that the offender be arrested and detained in any building or place appointed under this Law for the treatment of yaws until duly discharged therefrom, and it shall be lawful for a District Medical Officer or registered medical practitioner appointed by the Governor as aforesaid to administer to such person while detained in such building or place the treatment authorized by this Law.

4. (1) It shall be lawful for the Governor to make regulations for the management and control of any building or place appointed under the next preced- for the man ing section, and for the treatment and control of persons therein suffering

from yaws.

agement and control of

building or place.

(2) Regulations made under this Law shall be of the same effect as if they Regulations were contained in this Law and shall be judicially noticed.

to have force

of law.

Law not to

5. This Law shall not apply to any person or child suffering from yaws, who

is under the care of and is being treated for yaws by a registered medical apply to any practitioner.

one under

care of or

treatment by

a registered

medical

practitioner. SIB,

Enclosure 2 in No. 46.

Attorney-General's Chambers, Kingston, 8th May, 1914.

I HAVE the honour to report that, in my opinion, His Excellency may properly assent to a Bill entitled, "A Law to provide for the compulsory treatment of persons suffering from yaws."

2. This Bill provides for the compulsory treatment of yaws by salvarsan (606) and by any other preparation approved by the Superintending Medical Officer.

3. Under Clause 3 (1) the Governor may appoint any building or place for the treatment of persons suffering from yaws, and any District Medical Officer or registered medical practitioner appointed by the Governor may require any person suffering from yaws and any person in charge of a child suffering from

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yaws to attend at any building or place so appointed for the purpose of being treated there by salvarsan or other preparation approved by the Superintending Medical Officer. The clause proceeds to impose penalties.

4. Clause 2 of Clause was added in Committee on the motion of an Elected Member, Mr. Simpson. It allows a Resident Magistrate to send a person suffer- ing from yaws and convicted under Section 3 to a building appointed under the Law for the purpose of being there treated by salvarsan or other approved preparation.

5. Clause 4 provides for Regulations, and Clause 5 exempts from compulsory treatment any person or child suffering from yaws who is under the care of a registered medical practitioner.

6. The question of whether treatment by salvarsan is sufficiently free from risk and is sufficiently certain in its results to justify legislation such as that under report is one for the medical advisers of the Government, and the main principle I think, of the measure has, of course, been approved in the vaccination laws. however, that it would have been preferable if Sub-clause 2 of Clause 3 had been omitted from the Bill.

The Honourable

The Colonial Secretary,

Kingston.

I have, &c.,

E. ST. JOHN BRANCH,

Attorney-General.

Enclosure 3 in No. 46.

REPORT FROM DR. J. G. Moseley, Assistant DISTRICT MEDICAL OFFICER, to THE SUPERINTENDING MEDICAL OFFICER.

HONOURABLE SUPERINTENDING MEDICAL OFFICER,

I HAVE the honour to submit herewith a report on thirty cases of yaws which were treated with salvarsan at their own homes. Twenty-six of these cases were given intramuscular injections at Moore Town on the 5th February. They were instructed to stay in bed for three days and apply poultices to the seat of injection in case of swelling or pain, also that they should keep any ulcers they had clean.

On the 5th March sixteen of these cases had lost all symptoms of the disease, that is, 58 per cent. were apparently cured after twenty-eight days.

On the 20th March eight more cases were cured-four of these had not appeared for inspection on the 5th and were probably cured then. They would Of the have brought the total of cured after twenty-eight days to 66 per cent. remainder one case was discharged on the 26th March; the other, a child suffering from anti-yaws, is not quite well yet, due, no doubt, to having received too small a dose.

Case No. 27 'E.M., had been in the hospital for sixty-six days in 1911 with an ulcer. He had received a dose of salvarsan then. This attack was probably a re-infection.

Cases 28, 29, and 30 were injected on the 14th March, and seen on the 11th April, when they were free from symptoms.

The number of days necessary for a cure would, undoubtedly, have been greatly lessened if the cases had been seen daily as in a hospital, and discharged

as soon as cured.

The cures were remarkably rapid when the period during which the patient suffered is taken into consideration. No. 6, 1.0., a man, aged thirty years, suffer- ing from orab yaws, was unable to work and could scarcely walk, had suffered, so he states, for twenty years, was practically cured in twenty-eight days and quite in forty-three days.

The average length of sickness was over three years, while the average time in recovering after salvarsan was just over one month.

On each visit to Moore Town I was met by a large number of people, ranging in age from over fifty to children in arms, they and their parents wishing to know when I would give them a dose-simply in consequence of the rapid cures they had seen.

The only difficulty in the way of completely eradicating the disease by this method lies in the fact that there are many cases scattered in the back lands whom it would be practically impossible to visit in their own homes (it would he a day's work to visit one such case, and there are quite a number of them); but unless these

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