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4
MEASLES.
Measles has been epidemic during the past five weeks.
Its presence is recorded by 24 deaths: all but three of the
24 deaths have been young children under five years of age.
There seems to be something wrong in our system, when
the writer has to confess that the only official intimation he
receives of measles is the Registrar's Death Return, supplemented
by casual observations made to him personally by
medical confreres. Measles is an intensely infectious
disorder, in which, in this district, no isolation is attempted;
only occasionally is there any effort to restrict its spread by
disinfection. Measles, so far as the writer is aware, is not
received at any hospital. When measles breaks out in a
tenement dwelling, it spreads unheeded and unchecked.
In some districts, notification of this malady has been
adopted by Resolution. Notification of measles would be a
certain expense, and, under present conditions, an uncertain
benefit. It must be conceded that there might be some
advantages in making "measles" notifiable in St. Marylebone:
the various schools would receive notice of the attacks in
the several houses affected, and a certain number of
children would be forbidden to attend school. This, in some
instances, would, without a doubt, prevent spread. A
second benefit would be that disinfection of the rooms
and clothing, &c., would be regularly practised and enforced.
Besides which it would be unlawful for children affected by
measles to be conveyed in public conveyances, such as
omnibuses, cabs, and railway carriages, without notice. But
the writer has always been consistently of opinion that,
under present conditions, notification would make but little
impression on the spread or the mortality. Something more
is wanted, and that something is a hospital or hospitals that
would receive cases of measles. For a vast community like