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ally be supposed to be well acquainted with them, as shown
by a case to which I adverted in the twelfth monthly report
(December 16th, page 161), as follows: —
" Exposure of Infected Persons.—A woman took her
sick son to a Chelsea dispensary, where, upon examination, he
was found to have diphtheria. The doctor told the mother to
take the child home at once, and when she asked him to allow
the porter of the institution to call a cab for her, he did so,
the porter thus—as it was put—merely acting as her messenger.
But the cabman, who was not aware of the complaint
from which the child was suffering, was directed to drive
to the Town Hall, Chelsea. On arriving, his number was taken
by a sanitary inspector, who told him to return to the hall after
discharging his fare at home. He did so, and was then told
that his cab would be detained as the child he had carried was
suffering from diphtheria. He lost the use of his cab for two
days whilst it was being disinfected, and, as neither the Sanitary
Authority nor the dispensary doctor would compensate him, he
took out a summons at the police-court against the latter—whom
he appears to have regarded as the hirer of his cab—for the
modest sum of one pound. The magistrate, whilst expressing
sympathy for the cabman, held that the doctor was not liable,
and dismissed the summons. All through the case no one
appears to have remarked on the fact that a serious breach of
the law had been committed by the use of the cab for the conveyance
of the sufferer. The law on the subject is explicit, as set
out in Section 70 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, as
follows:—
Section 70.—It shall not be lawful for any owner or driver of a public
conveyance knowingly to convey, or for any other person knowingly
to place in any public conveyance, a person suffering from any
dangerous infectious disease, or for a person suffering from any such
disease to enter any public conveyance, and if he does so he shall be
liable to a fine not exceeding ten pounds ; and if any person so
Buffering is conveyed in any public conveyance, the owner or driver
thereof, as soon as it comes to his knowledge, shall give notice to the
Sanitary Authority and shall cause such conveyance to he disinfected.