View report page

65
NOTIFIABLE DISEASES, Etc.
There is a superficial paradox in the fact that
while the Public Health service rightly boasts of its
preventive and positive outlook, at the same time the
list of diseases which come within its purview steadily
lengthens. The explanation is that making a disease
notifiable is one of the means of getting to know more
about it and the best methods for its treatment and
eventual prevention. The notifiable diseases are no
longer restricted to the generally recognised "infectious"
diseases, although it would perhaps be truer to say that
the conception of infection has undergone considerable
modification and that many of the old descriptions and
categories of disease are no longer adequate.
The statistics which follow indicate in a general
way the sphere of the local Public Health service in
dealing with disease. The great bulk of it not being
notifiable does not come to the knowledge of the Medical
Officer of Health except by inference from the death
returns—an unfortunately late stage for any helpful
intervention. Cancer, Rheumatism, Heart Disease are
outside his official control. Although Scarlet Fever
and Diphtheria have been notifiable for many years,
Measles and Whooping Cough, far more dangerous in
their consequences for young children, are not notifiable.
It is, I think, also worthy of note that many valuable
means for the prevention and treatment of disease
do not appear to be readily available to the people in
the Borough and it seems doubtful whether the Borough
Council is empowered to provide such apparatus. Artificial
light bathing and treatment has become generally
recognised as a useful aid to the maintenance of good
health and the removal of debilitated conditions. This
applies particularly during the winter and with special
force to such a sun-starved, over-built, depressing part
of London as the East End. Yet the major part of
the population has no practical opportunity of enjoying
such benefits as may be derived from artificial ultra-