View report page

is impossible. I am aware also, of course, of the objections on
financial grounds, and those that can be urged to the hurried provision
of a staff ready to act in the early days of an epidemic, for it is
no use waiting until it is well established to try and stop it.
Expense, however, should not be allowed to stand in the way of a
scheme which has a reasonable chance of success. A further difficulty
will arise when the Inspectors may be called upon to visit
cases reported from the schools, for they will in some instances have
to distinguish between those cases which are measles and those
which are not, a task which could only be discharged by a medical
man.
All these measures are, however, likely to be a costly experiment,
and their chances of success, to my mind, are far from
certain or even probable. The establishment of facilities for removal
of the cases to the Metropolitan Asylums Board hospitals, whether
Poor Law or not, seems to be a step very much in the right
direction. Many of the bronchitis and pneumonia cases could be
saved by attention better than that possible to be obtained in the
homes, and so far the system seems to be working smoothly, fifteen
cases in all having been removed in the latter half of 1911. At
present nearly all of them, being attended by the Poor Law medical
officers, have been removed through the agency of the relieving
officer, and usually from the very poorest homes.
During the year application was made to me to close a school
in East Dulwich on account of the special prevalence of measles
therein, but after carefully inquiring into the attendances in the
course of the outbreak, I came to the conclusion that no good
purpose would be served by then ordering its closure.
During the year a number of inquiries at houses have been made
by me where infants and very young children had been attacked by
measles, and where, according to the rules of the London County
Council, the elder children, if they are protected by a previous
attack, had not been precluded from attending school in the boys'
and girls' departments. I found that there was no evidence that
this action, however much it might theoretically be condemned,
had had the slightest effect in spreading the disease.
At the same time, treating measles in such an obviously different
way to scarlet fever must tend to confirm the popular mind in the
prevailing idea that measles is a disease of little account. They see
and know the stringent rules that are enforced on the first of these
diseases, and as it is not so with the second, they are inclined to
treat it as of less moment.
The deaths from enteric showed a very welcome decrease of 5.
In 1910 there were 9 deaths, there being one or more in each of
the Registration Districts except Dulwich, which escaped altogether
from death or notification, just as it did in 1911, when there was no
death in South Camberwell, only one being assigned to each of
the other Registration Districts. The notifications received were 33,
of which 25 were removed to hospital or to the infirmary. They
were reported from all the districts except Dulwich, the notifications