View report page

26
In looking forward to a new system, however, I would wish to bear my
testimony to the efficiency of the present system, so far as it has been illustrated
in this parish, and it affords me pleasure to state that owing to the
cordial support your Vestry's officers have received from the Guardians
and their officers, no difficulty has been experienced of late years in
obtaining the removal of suitable cases to the hospitals. Indeed I am
not sure that any system is likely to surpass the present one in convenience,
for the organization of the Poor-Law service, with a
relieving officer and a medical officer in every district of the parish
has answered well in practice, and could only be improved, probably,
by one modification, viz., by the acceptance of the certificate of any
registered medical practitioner as evidence of the nature of an infectious
disease—a step, whereby, in many cases, delay in removal would be
avoided, and the District Poor-Law Medical Officer would be spared
a needless visit to the bedside of the sick person. Should your Vestry
be compelled to take up the work now so well done by the PoorLaw
officials, it will probably be found necessary to appoint a special
officer to perform the functions of the relieving officer, and I am
confident it will be found necessary to receive the certificate of any
duly qualified medical man as evidence of the nature of the disease.
It may reasonably be hoped that by the time we have a "Common
Sanitary Fund" for the maintenance of the infectious sick, we shall
also have a law to compel the disclosure of cases of infectious disease.
When this reform shall have been achieved, and concealment can no
longer be practised with impunity, we may hope to be able to combat
diseases like small-pox and scarlet fever with more success than we
can at present boast.
"DISQUALIFICATION BY MEDICAL RELIEF."
"The Tower Hamlets case" mentioned in the previous section, and
to which I referred to in my Monthly Report for October 16th (No.
12, 1878, page 85), excited considerable stir—my report having
been quoted and commented on in many influential organs of public
opinion. And well it might, for the case brought us face to face at
last with a contingency I had long foreseen, and against which your
Vestry had endeavoured to provide. It added another difficulty,
as I pointed out, to those which already beset us in our efforts to induce
—or, as some would say, "compel"—people suffering from infectious