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105
7. The Postal Authorities have intimated to the medical officers of the
Department that, if in their several districts it be not already the
rule to give notice of infectious diseases to the Sanitary Authority,
it would be well that such a rule should be introduced in the case of
Post Office servants.
8. In my report for 1877 I referred to a resolution of the London School
Board, adopted upon my recommendation, 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 Officers 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. Such cases have been reported,
but on the whole the results of my efforts 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 cases, or the application of inadmissible
cases, of infectious illness, from houses in this parish.
11. Occasionally, anonymous communications are the source of
tion for I have not felt at liberty to disregard such communications,
which have frequently proved to be accurate.
In one way or another some hundreds of cases come to my
knowledge in the course of the year. How many never get
reported at all it is impossible to say; but from the fact that
sometimes fatal cases of infectious disease are unheard of until
after registration of death, it may be inferred that unrecorded
cases of recovery are numerous.
RECENT ACTION BY THE VESTRY TO PROMOTE
VOLUNTARY NOTIFICATION.
A considerable stimulus to voluntary notification was given
in October by your Vestry's adoption of certain recommendations
made, at my suggestion, by the Works, Sanitary, and
General Purposes Committee, in continuation of those relating
to Compulsory Notification, already referred to at page 88.
The Committee, thinking it desirable to make an effort to
increase our knowledge of the occurrence of cases of scarlet
fever, which was epidemic at the time, recommended:—
H