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notification, disinfection, and the increase in the staff which
would be necessary, would be considerable. As far as can
be gathered from the experience of those districts where the
notification of Measles is in force, the results, in the absence
of isolation hospitals, do not seem to be commensurate with
the heavy outlay incurred. The Local Government Board
are now engaged in an enquiry on the subject, and being
in a position to obtain all the details bearing on the question,
will probably be able to form an authoritative opinion;
though, of course, an enquiry of this nature must necessarily
be of long duration. In reply to a request made by the
parish of Westminster to confirm its order, providing that
Measles should be added to the list of infectious diseases
required to be notified, the Board replied that, pending
the completion of enquiries on the subject, they had
deferred the consideration of the request. A modified system
of notification of Measles has been suggested, and is, I
believe, in force in some provincial towns, by which the
first attack in every house invaded is notified, but no subsequent
case arising in the same house within 30 days.
This would, at any rate, have an educational effect, by
impressing upon parents the serious nature of the disease,
and the attendance at schools from infected houses could be
controlled much more effectively than is now the case ; for,
though at present the children are excluded by the teachers
as soon as it is known that there is a case of Measles in the
house, as a rule the teachers only become aware of this when
a child who has been attending the particular school is absent
through the disease, and have no means of knowing that a
house is infected when a child not attending any school, or
a child attending some other school, is affected.
Another question of great importance is that of the provision
of hospital accommodation for the children of the poor
when suffering from Measles; not so much on the ground of
the necessity for isolation, but for the sake of the welfare of
the patients, as a large proportion of those who succumb to
the disease would be saved if they could be removed from
the unfavourable conditions by which they are surrounded,
and treated in a rational manner. The wide differences