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is the treatment of the eyes at birth with a view to safeguarding them from infection with the
gonococcus and this treatment should be carried out in every case whether the mother shows signs
of gonorrhoea or not. The second necessary step is to secure the immediate application of curative
measures by a qualified person if any sign of ophthalmia appears. In such cases the delay of a
few hours may make the difference between permanent blindness and recovery with normal vision.
In London the supervising authority for midwives is the London Countv Council, a body which
has already done much to secure attention to the eyes of infants at birth by enforcing the rules
of the Central Midwives Board. For securing treatment when ophthalmia has developed the first
necessary step was taken when the disease was made compulsorily notifiable in March, 1911. The
duty of visiting the cases notified and seeing that appropriate treatment is obtained has in
Kensington been allotted to the Council's Health Visitors.
In cases where the eyes require constant attention the local branch of the Queen Victoria
Jubilee Institute has very kindly arranged for their nurses to attend at the request of the Health
Visitors on children who are under medical treatment in their homes. In certain cases it has also
been found possible for patients to attend daily at the Western Ophthalmic Hospital in Marylebone,
which is within easy access by train from Notting Hill Station. The London Hospital is
unfortunately the only public institution in London, with the exception of the Infirmaries, where
the mother and child can both be received as in-patients. Where immediate removal to hospital
of mother and child is imperative, the Metropolitan Asylums Board ambulances are available without
charge for the purpose, but the Board do not provide a nurse with the ambulance.
During the year 22 cases of Ophthalmia Neonatorum were notified. Only one child, which was
removed by ambulance to the London Hospital on the second day after birth, is known to have
suffered permanent injury to the eyes. In this case there are large opacities on both corneae.
Four children have died and 14 are known to have recovered with the eyes uninjured. In the case
of two children admitted to the Infirmary, and one child who was treated at the Western
Ophthalmic Hospital the parents moved and the final results were not ascertained.
NON-NOTIFIABLE EPIDEMIC DISEASES.
The immense cost which the community is called upon to bear in order that persons suffering
from Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, and certain other notifiable diseases may be removed from their
homes and isolated in Hospital diverts in some measure the attention of the public from the very
heavy mortality which results from epidemics of the diseases which are not notifiable. The part
played by these two artificial classes of disease has accordingly been represented in the following
table of deaths occurring in the year 1911.

Comment on such figures is unnecessary, except to say that they illustrated the urgency of the
problem presented by such diseases as diarrhoea and measles without necessarily indicating notification
as the solution. The following table shows the seasonal incidence of deaths from the
non-notifiable cpidemic diseases and the age periods in which death occurs :—