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stated that, as the desirability of the extension of such legislation
in the shape of a Public Act was generally acknowledged, it only
remained for the Government to introduce a measure for the
purpose of securing notification. In the Session of 1882, several
Private Bills providing for " Police or Sanitary Regulations " were
introduced, at the instance of provincial Corporations, and referred
to a Select Committee, of which Mr. Sclater-Booth, an ex-President
of the Local Government Board, was the Chairman. In their
Report on the “Sanitary Regulations” the Committee stated,
with respect to “Notification,” that they had “little difficulty in
forming the opinion that the time had arrived when provisions of
law on this subject may be sanctioned, at least, in the most
important Urban Sanitary Districts.” Encouraged by this Report,
Mr. Hastings, who was a member of the Committee, with Sir
Trevor Lawrence, Dr. Farquharson and Mr. Brinton, introduced
a Bill in the Session of 1883, “To provide for the better Notification
of Infectious Diseases,” drawn on the lines sketched by the
Committee in a “Model Clause,” which will be found at page 44
of my Annual Report for 1881. Without entering into details I
may state that the Bill proposed to throw upon the householder,
-and upon the medical attendant, equally, the duty of notifying
cases to the Medical Officer of Health—the so called "dual system."
The gentlemen named are active members of the Social Science
Association, the Health Section of which body has taken a
prominent part in promoting legislation to secure Notification.
The Bill was, in fact, the Bill of the Association, which, moreover,
organized a deputation to the Local Government Board in support
of it. The deputation comprised, in addition to members of the
Association, numerous medical and other persons known to take
an interest in the question. The President, Sir Charles Dilke, in
his reply, said, in effect, that “There was no difference of opinion
at the Board as to the advantageous nature of the powers asked for
where they were possessed: the evidence from the various
localities where they had been worked was ample on that head.
The Board, however, was not quite ready to adopt the Bill, or to
support it in its existing form, there being great fear, in going at all