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56
dangerous infectious disease, without disinfection, or notice to the
owner, or making a false answer to questioning on the subject.
Section 68 relates to the exposure of infected persons and things
in any street, public place, shop, or inn.
Section 69 prohibits an infected person carrying on business.
Section 70 prohibits conveyance of an infected person in a public
conveyance.
Section 72 prohibits retention of an infected dead body in a room
used as a dwelling place, sleeping place, or workroom, in certain
cases.
Section 73 prohibits the body of a person dying of infectious
disease in hospital, &c., being removed therefrom excepting to a
mortuary or for burial.
Section 74 requires disinfection of any public conveyance after
being used for carrying an infected corpse.
For each of the offences dealt with in the foregoing sections a
penalty is prescribed.
The sections have been in force since the beginning of 1592, in
reaped to notifiable diseases, named in section 55 (8), but the offences
specified appear to have been rare- rarely heard of certainly, and
probably it will not be otherwise now that measles is added to the
list.
But the main significance of the Order is in connexion with
sections 60 and 61, which provide for the cleansing and disinfecting
of infected premises and articles therein, a course which will certainly
involve, at times, but for limited periods only, considerable labour and
no little expense to the sanitary authority.
Measles becomes epidemic about every second or third year, continues
with variable severity for a time, and then dies down. In
some years the deaths are relatively few. Thus, in Kensington, they
were but 29, 18, 33, 33 and 24 in the years 1891, 1893, 1895, 1897
and 1899 respectively; in other years the deaths are numerous—e.g.,
109, 108, 173, 120 and 98 in the years 1892, 1894, 1896, 1898, and
1900. The average number in the ten years 1892-1901 was 79 ; those
from scarlet fever, diphtheria, and enteric fever were 26, 57, and 17
respectively. The deaths from scarlet fever exceeded 30 on three
occasions only in the ten years—the maximum number was 59; the
maximum from diphtheria was 89, 23 being the highest number
recorded from enteric fever.
There is no very wide variation in the annual number of deaths
from notifiable diseases, or in the prevalence of them (as shown by
notifications), and no difficulty has been, at any time, experienced in
regard to disinfection. With measles it will be otherwise, for in consecutive
periods of a few weeks the cases may range from practically