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A few cases have been notified, but the rule appears to have been not
very strictly carried out.
7. In my annual report for 1877 I referred to an important step then lately
effected through the action of the London School Board which, at my
request, had instructed the Superintendents of Divisions throughout
the Metropolis, to desire the "Visitors" to report to the Medical
Officers of Health all cases of infectious disease that should come
to their knowledge in the discharge of their official duties, which
take them frequently into the homes of the poorer classes.
To facilitate the transmission of this information by the Visitors,
your Vestry authorized me to prepare a form for their use.
This was done; but, I must say, the resolution of the Board,
hitherto, has not been attended with all the hoped-for results. The
Board, moreover, at one time, showed a disposition to recede from the
position they had taken up, for on my calling their attention to the
omission on the part of the Visitors to report cases, the " divisional
members," to whom my communication had been referred, simply agreed
that the Visitors should report cases when they had reason to suppose
that no duly qualified medical man was in attendance. "When a duly
qualified medical man has charge of a case, they are not prepared to do
more than take steps for seeing that proper precautions are taken at the
Schools." This decision, if final, would have been regrettable, the
Board, however, has recently passed a resolution directing Teachers also,
to inform the Medical Officer of Health of the case of any child excluded
from the school on account of its showing symptoms of an infectious
disease, or of its coming from a house where an infectious disease exists.
The result of this new departure will be awaited with interest. Some
of the teachers in our part of the Chelsea Division, I may mention, had
occasionally reported cases, as a result of an application I made to all of
them in 1879, at which time I furnished them with printed forms for the
purpose.
8. Clergymen, and District Visitors, occasionally report cases of sickness.
9. The Resident Medical Officers of St. George's and St. Mary's Hospitals
report the admission of cases, or the application of inadmissable cases,
of infectious illness from houses in this parish.
10. Occasionally anonymous communications are the source of information,
for I have not felt at liberty to disregard such communications, which
have frequently proved accurate.
In one or another of these ways some hundreds of cases
come to our knowledge in the course of every year. How
many never get reported at all it is impossible to say, but
from the fact that the majority of the fatal cases are concealed
until after registration of death, it may be inferred
that unrecorded cases of recovery are numerous.