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41
It will be seen that the results of the Voluntary Notification of
Consumption during the past year have been no more satisfactory
than those recorded in previous years. I have no doubt that compulsory
notification is essential to success in the administrative
control of Phthisis— the disease which is the cause of more suffering
and death than the whole of those other diseases the notification of
which is compulsory.
In my Report for the year 1907 the following paragraph appears:
"In connection with the compulsory notification of Consumption,
a very good compromise between those who oppose it and those who
favour it has been suggested, namely, that such notification should
be compulsory at first only with regard to cases coming under the
Poor Law Medical Officers or attending Public Institutions. In this
way we should learn the number and distribution of those cases of
Consumption which were most dangerous to the community, and
thus extend the application of the necessary precautionary measures."
This provision has now been made by the Public Health
(Tuberculosis) Regulation of 1908, which was issued by the Local
Government Board towards the end of the year and came into
operation on January 1st of this year.
By these Regulations it is required that any person who is
diagnosed as suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis and who is now
in receipt of, or compelled for various reasons to seek, any form of
Poor-law medical relief has to be notified to the medical officer of
health of the district. Nothing in the regulations authorises the
medical officer of health, directly or indirectly, to put in force with
respect to any poor person in relation to whom a notification has
been received, any enactment which renders the poor person, or a
person in charge of the poor person, liable to a penalty or subjects
him "to any restriction, prohibition, or disability affecting himself
or his employment, occupation, means of livelihood, or residence on
the ground of his suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis." Another