View report page

47
The more frequent cleansing and emptying of cisterns can be dealt
with under the Poplar Borough Council's bye-laws, which require
cisterns "to be emptied and cleansed once at least in every six
months, and at such other times as may be necessary to keep the
same in a cleanly state and free from pollution."
PLAGUE PRECAUTIONS : NOTICES FROM PORT SANITARY
AUTHORITIES.
A letter was received from the Metropolitan Asylums Board
stating: "That the Superintendents of the Board's Ambulance
Stations have received instructions to remove forthwith to the South
Eastern Hospital any person duly certified to be suffering from plague.'
This fact was communicated to the various practitioners in the
parishes of Poplar and Bromley and the immediate neighbourhood.
With the communication were enclosed copies of the papers forwarded
to the medical practitioners in November of last year, viz. : (1)
Letter re Plague in Portuguese Ports and other places. (2) Directions
for obtaining and sending material from "pestis" for bacterioscopic
examination. The medical practitioners were requested to com
municate the fact forthwith to the Medical Officer should they remove
a case of plague, otherwise than through the Council's offices, so that
immediate disinfection might take place.
On account of plague appearing to threaten England and Wales,
the Local Government Board, on the 19th September, issued an
"order" making plague a notifiable disease under the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891.
A communication was also received from the Medical Officer of
the London County Council that the Public Health Committee had
authorised him to employ for clinical diagnosis tbe services of Mr.
James Cantlie, M.B., F.R.C.S., formerly medical officer in one of the
plague hospitals in Hong Kong.
The Medical Officer of the Council asked that he might be