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79
an Instruction to the Postal Medical Officers and Postal employes,
providing for immediate information to be given to Sanitary
Authorities of the existence of infectious disease in the families
of such employes. “The Vestry, as a Sanitary Authority,” it was
stated, “is anxious to obtain such information, with a view to the
discharge of its duty, in checking and preventing the spread of infectious
disease—viz., by necessary supervision of the patient,
during illness, when the patient is kept at home, and by measures
for disinfection, after the patient's death or recovery.” Attention
was called to the fact, by reference to the correspondence in
1883, that the Postal Authorities were “at one in principle with
the Vestry, in regard to these matters, and regret was expressed
that “the judicious recommendations of the Postal Authorities
then issued to Medical Officers “had not been carried into effect.
It was, therefore, suggested that” alike in the public interest, and
in the interest of Postal employes themselves, positive instructions
should take the place of recommendations, instructions
similar to those issued by the Commissioners of Police in like
circumstances.”
To the above communication a reply was received from one
of the Assistant Secretaries of the Department in the following
terms:—
“General Post Office,
“Sir, “April 28th, 1887.
“I am desired, by the Postmaster General to reply to your letter of
the 15th instant, written to him by direction of the Vestry of the
Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.
“Confining himself to the particular Parish over which your Vestry
holds jurisdiction, Mr. Raikes directs me to state that the omission to
communicate with the Local Sanitary Authority in the cases of Scarlet
Fever mentioned in Dr. Orme Dudfield's printed Report, appears to
have been due to inadvertence, and he feels assured, now that the
attention of the Department's Local Medical Officers has been called
to the matter, that the notification of the existence of infectious disease
in the families of Post Office Servants residing in the Kensington District
will for the future be punctually made.
“As regards the suggestion that positive instructions should take
the place of recommendations, I am to state that it is the experience of
this Department that in dealing with gentlemen of education, who are