View report page

169
living with their parents in the basement were ill. He visited
the house immediately and found four children convalescing
after mild attacks of small-pox. He also ascertained that the
children had been playing in the streets. The children were
removed to hospital and their father—who evidently knew what
was the matter with them—was prosecuted, not for the
offence of exposing them, but for failure to notify the illness
to the Medical Officer of Health under the provisions of
section 55 (a) of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. This
section requires " the head of the family .... as soon
as he becomes aware that the patient is suffering from an infectious
disease . . . (to) send notice to the Medical Officer
of Health of the District "■—a provision which, doubtless, was
inserted for the purpose of meeting cases like this when no
medical practitioner is " attending on " or has been " called
in to visit the patient." The man was fined forty shillings
and costs, all four offences, i.e., in respect of the four children,
having been included in one summons in consideration of
the defendant's position in life.
Failure to Notify by Medical Practitioners.—
In two cases it became necessary to take proceedings against
medical practitioners. In one instance, alluded to at page 48, a
conviction was obtained and a fine of forty shillings was imposed.
In a second instance, also alluded to previously, at page
40, the proceedings proved abortive, the case having been
dismissed by the Magistrate, without costs, on the ground that
the imperfect wording of the section, 55 (2), of the Public
Health Act under which the proceedings were instituted, did
no enable your Vestry to bring home to the defendant the
particular offence with which he was charged. It might have
been expected that the defendant, who was represented by
counsel, would have pleaded guilty, as advised, and submitted
to the small pecuniary fine with which the alleged offence is
punishable. But, to the end of the second day of the hearing,
his defence was that he was not able to satisfy himself that the