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8. In my annual report for 1877 I referred to a resolution of the London
School Board directing the Superintendents of Divisions throughout
the Metropolis, to instruct the "Visitors" to report to the several
Medical Officers of Health cases of infectious disease coming to their
knowledge in the discharge of their official duties. The Board subsequently
passed a resolution directing- Teachers also, to inform the
Medical Officer of Health of the case of any child excluded from
School on account of its showing symptoms of an infectious disease, or
coming from a house where an infectious disease exists. A few such
cases have been reported, but on the whole the results of my
labours to promote notification through the School Board organisation
have not realized expectations.
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 eases, or the application of inadmissible 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 fatal cases of infectious disease, 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 probable results of a system
of compulsory notification, I some time since made an investigation
of the results that had attended voluntary notification as
practised in this parish. I took the statistics of mortality for
twenty-four years, in respect of the "principal diseases of the
zymotic class," comparing the number of deaths in the first halfperiod
(1859-70), before I entered upon the duties of Medical
Officer, with the number in the second half-period (1871-82),
during which we had the advantage of hospital accommodation.
The results of the investigation are set out in the following
Tables.