View report page

43
clothes worn by the other inmates, are properly disinfected, and the
other inmates of the house are immediately vaccinated or re-vaccinated
(as the case may he), there is no material advantage to be gained by
keeping these other inmates at home. They are not likely to infect
other people unless they themselves develop small-pox; and all that is
required is to keep such persons under medical observation for a fortnight,
and particularly to examine them carefully day by day towards
the end of the second week from their exposure to infection, in order to
ascertain whether any of them are developing small-pox. If none of
them do so by the beginning of the third week from exposure, the revaccination
(or vaccination) to which they were submitted on the
occurrence of the first case in the invaded house should secure them
from attack by the disease.
"The Board consider that in ordinary circumstances the course of
action indicated above (is the correct one. Occasions, however, may
arise in which additional precautions may be necessary, as, for example,
when laundries- are in question, or where the business or habits of the
inmates of the invaded house are such as to make it difficult for proper
medical observation of them to be maintained. In exceptional cases of
this kind in which the City Council are advised by their Medical Officer
of Health, that in the special circumstances it is essential that the
inmates should remain in their own houses, the Board would be
prepared to sanction a reasonable expenditure in securing- such a
result."
Conference of Metropolitan Sanitary Authorities.—A conference took
place at the offices of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on February 7th,
1902. It was well attended, and the following resolutions were agreed
to:—
1. "That, in the opinion of the Conference, the powers and duties at
present vested in Guardians of the Poor with regard to vaccination
and re-vaccination should be transferred to and
enforced by Borough Councils."
(An amendment suggesting that the administration of the Vaccination
Acts should be vested in a Central Authority, so as to secure
uniform and consistent action, was lost by 26 to 16.)
2. "That, in the opinion of the Conference, an amendment of the
law is necessary, to ensure compulsory vaccination and revaccination
of all persons in a dwelling house wherein Smallpox
has broken out."
"That, in the opinion of the Conference, it should be declared an
offence, under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, to refuse
or withhold information, or give false information, with respect
to persons living in a house in which Smallpox has broken out,