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45
Appendix No. 2 embraces the "provisions as to dealing with
infectious disease," which may be briefly summarised as follows:—
1. Cowkeepers and others to furnish lists of customers in certain cases ;
the object being to enable the Medical Officer of Health to ascertain
the origin of infection, when an infectious disease is presumed to
be spreading through the agency of milk.
2. Further powers in relation to disinfection of premises enable the
Sanitary Authority, if they think fit, to carry out cleansing and
disinfection of houses or parts thereof, at their own cost, and to
compensate owner or occupier for any property or articles destroyed
or injured by the exercise of the provisions of the Section.
3. Penalty on persons ceasing to occupy houses without previous
disinfection, or giving notice to owner or making false answers: but
the infectious disease must have existed within six weeks previous
to the close of the tenancy to bring the section into operation, a
limitation which would largely reduce the value of the provision.
4. Prohibiting the retention of dead bodies in certain cases, the
object being to secure the burial within 48 hours of the dead body of a
person who had died of an infectious disease, unless the body be
placed in a mortuary.
5. Bodies of persons dying in hospital, &c., of infectious diseases, to be
removed only for burial, the object being to prevent spread of
disease from removal of the body to a private house. No reference
is made to removal to a mortuary, so that under the provision of
the previous section (4), the body, presumably, would be buried
within 48 hours. The "hospital" referred to is that provided by
the Sanitary Authority.
6. Justices may in certain cases, order dead bodies to be buried, viz.,
if the body of any person who has died of any infectious disease
remains unburied elsewhere than in a mortuary for more than 48
hours after death, without the sanction of the Medical Officer of
Health or of a registered medical practitioner, and if the body is
retained in a house so as to endanger the health of the inmates of the
house or the inmates of adjoining houses, the Justices may order the
removal of the body to a public mortuary, and fix a time within which it
shall be buried: but immediate burial may be ordered, and unless
the friends bury the body the relieving officer must do so at the
expense of the poor rate, power being reserved to him to recover
the amount expended in a summary manner.
7. Corpses of persons who have died from any infectious disease not
to be carried in public conveyance other than a hearse, without
previous notice to the owner of the conveyance, who is required to
provide for the immediate disinfection of the same.
8. Temporary shelter or house accommodation to be provided for
families while house is being disinfected, and nurses to be provided
for attendance upon infectious sick persons, the Sanitary Authority
"to charge a reasonable sum for the service of any nurse provided
by them."