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3i
out the Metropolis to desire the "Visitors" to report to the
several Medical Officers of Health any cases of infectious
disease that might come to their knowledge in the discharge of
their official duties, which take them constantly into the homes
of the poorer classes. To facilitate the transmission of this
information by the "Visitors," your Vestry authorised me to
prepare a form for their use, which has been done. I must say,
however, that hitherto the resolution of the Board has not
been attended with the hoped for results, very few cases having
been reported, and those a long time back.
6. Clergymen and District Visitors not unfrequently report cases of
sickness.
7. The Resident Medical Officers of St. George's and St. Mary's
Hospitals have on many occasions reported the admission of
cases, or the application of inadmissible cases of illness from
houses in this parish.
8. Occasionally anonymous communications are the source of information,
for I have not felt at liberty to disregard such
communications, which have generally proved accurate.
In one or other of these several ways cases come to our knowledge;
but, all told, they form only a small percentage of total cases,
as proved by the fact that the great majority of fatal cases remain
unknown till after registration of death—a fact from which it is a fair
inference that a still larger proportion of non-fatal cases never come to
our knowledge at all.
The only remedy for this regrettable state of affairs is legislation to
ensure the compulsory disclosure of the occurrence of infectious diseases.
The only question among sanitarians is, Who should be the informant?
As a rule the information will have to come, directly or indirectly,
from medical men. In those cases, and they are not few, where
either no medical aid is sought, or where unregistered practitioners are
employed, the information, if supplied at all, must come from the
head of the family or from the ''occupier" of the house. Where there
is a duly qualified medical man in attendance it would suffice to require
that he should give a certificate showing the nature of the complaint
whicli it should then be the duty of the head of the family, or the
occupier of the house, to forward without delay to the sanitary