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structed, that if in their district it be not already the rule to give
notice of such disease to the Sanitary Authority, it would be well
that such a rule should be introduced in the case of post office
servantsand another, also issued in 1883, “indicating how, so
far as the metropolitan district is concerned, admission to hospital
can best be secured and the removal of the sick effected. As
regards compulsion, however, which would seem to be suggested
in Dr. Orme Dudfield's letter of the 30th October last, this
the Department is not prepared to employ.” The letter having
been considered by the Works, Sanitary and General Purposes
Committee, my suggestion was adopted, that your Vestry should
be recommended to request the Postmaster.General to issue an
instruction to the numerous Medical Officers of the Department,
to give notice to the Sanitary Authority of the existence of
dangerous infectious disease in the persons or families of post
office servants, no such notice having hitherto been given or
received; and this was done accordingly.
Very little information, however, has reached me, in regard
to illness in the families of letter carriers, etc., since the date of
the correspondence, July, 1883. My attention was redirected to
the subject by the occurence, a short time back, of scarlet fever
in the families of three postmen, information of which was withheld
from me until the services of your Vestry's disinfecting staff
were called into requisition at the termination of the respective
illnesses. Such being the facts, I wrote to the Chief Medical
Officer to the Post Office, recalling attention to the correspondence
that had taken place in 1882.3 when, as above stated, "the
co.operation of the Post Office Authorities in measures to secure
the isolation of cases of infectious illness occuring in the families
of post office employes “was solicited by your Vestry, together
with the assistance of the Authorities” to facilitate the removal
of the sick to hospital when they cannot be safely treated at
home." I also stated that—
“Within the current month only, I have received information of three
cases of scarlet fever in the families of three postmen. . . . Probably
I should not have heard of either case had not the services of the