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32
Should Measles be made a Notifiable Disease?—
In the early part of 1898, the London County Council received
from the School Board a communication urging them "to include
'measles' in the term 'dangerous infectious disease,' in order
that the local sanitary authorities might have power to proceed
against parents who should send their children to school when
suffering from measles." The said communication was based
upon a report from the School Board's medical officer, stating
that "several cases had come under his notice, of children
being present at school whilst suffering from measles;" and
calling attention to the fact that "the local authorities have no
power at present to take any action in such cases." The
Public Health Committee of the Council, "before coming to
any decision in the matter," desired to "learn the views of
the London sanitary authorities," and therefore asked if your
Vestry "would be in favour of the extension to measles of the
provisions contained in the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,
relating to notification, etc., of infectious disease.' Personally
I do not doubt that it would be useful to bring measles within
the meaning of the expression, "infectious disease," so far as
relates to exposure, and to the prohibition of the use of public
vehicles for the conveyance of infected persons (Public Health
(London) Act, 1891, Section 70); but I see no reason to
modify the views adverse to the notification of measles expressed
in these reports,* and approved, on more than one
occasion, by your Vestry. Probably not a moiety of the cases
of measles in any epidemic come to the knowledge of medical
practitioners. Unless, therefore, the child is obviously very
ill,—i.e., unless one or other of the complications occur to
which the fatal issue in measles is usually due—the malady is
*The question of the notification of measles was fully dealt with in my Annual
Report for 1891 (pp. 97-106 inclusive), in which it was shown that no benefit had
accrued therefrom at Edinburgh; 30,000 cases of measles having been notified
(at a cost of ,£3,000) in the ten years, 1880-1889.