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37
NOTIFICATION OF ERYSIPELAS.
In September last, the Deptford Borough Council sought the opinion of the
Corporation as to the value of the compulsory notification of Erysipelas.
The matter was referred to your Medical Officer of Health, on whose
recommendation the Town Clerk of Deptford was informed that the Committee
were of opinion that no good purpose was served by the inclusion of
Erysipelas as a notifiable dangerous infectious disease under Section 55 (8)
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. While in the City the expense
of payment for notifying this disease is a small one, that is not the case in the
Metropolitan Boroughs. In the City in 1905 only 23 cases were notified,
representing a payment of 21. 18s., whereas in London daring the whole
period 4,972 cases were notified, representing a very large expense in
proportion to the benefit resulting from such notification.
PREVENTION OF TUBERCULOSIS.
SANATORIA FOR CONSUMPTION.
With regard to the proposal referred to in my last Annual Report that the
Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board should undertake the duty of
establishing Sanatoria for persons suffering from Consumption in the
Metropolis, and the opinion expressed by the Local Government Board on the
subject in their letter of the 27th June, 1905, to the effect that they were not
then able to decide whether the Managers should undertake such duties, a
further letter on the subject was addressed to the Managers by the Local
Government Board on the 22nd March, 1906, in which the latter stated that
after giving the matter the most careful consideration, the Board were of
opinion that the information then before them did not appear to afford
sufficient justification for the very heavy outlay which would be involved in
the proposal.
This subject has been considered by the Sanitary Committee from time to
time since 1903, and the Corporation, in 1905, approved a recommendation of
the Sanitary Committee that the provision of a Sanatorium for Consumption
is absolutely essential as a reasonable precaution to public health, and that the
Metropolitan Asylums Board are the proper authority for dealing with it.
It is unfortunate that the Local Government Board were unable to support
the proposal, especially as, as pointed out by Dr. Orme Dudfield in his
Annual Report for 1905, the Board had on several occasions shown themselves