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94
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. A few such cases have been
reported. Some of the teachers in our part of the “Chelsea Division,” I
may mention, had previously reported cases occasionally, 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. As a whole, however, the
results of my labours in this direction have not realised my anticipations.
9. Clergymen and District Visitors occasionally report cases of sickness.
10. 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.
11. Occasionally anonymous communications are the source of information, for
I have not felt at liberty to disregard such communications, which have
frequently proved to be accurate.
In one or another of the above ways some hundreds of cases come
to my 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 of infectious diseases, other than
small-pox, are concealed until after registration of death, it may
be inferred that unrecorded cases of recovery are numerous.
THE RESULTS OF VOLUNTARY NOTIFICATION
OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
With the view of ascertaining the results likely to follow upon
a system of compulsory notification, I some time since made an
investigation as to the results of the system of voluntary notification
in the parish of Kensington. I took the statistics of
mortality for twenty-four years, in respect of the "principal
diseases of the zymotic class," comparing the total number of
deaths in the first half-period (1859-70), before I entered upon
the duties of Medical Officer, with the number in the second halfperiod
(1871-82), during which we have had the inestimable
advantage of hospital accommodation. The results of the investigation
are set out in the following Tables.