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possessed to close schools—powers which it need hardly be said
should be used with discretion. It has always been my
endeavour to obtain the co-operation of school teachers in
respect to infectious disease occurring in school children, and
their help has often proved very serviceable. A regretable
fact connected with the occurrence of infectious disease, in
relation to education, is the length of time during which
children living in infected houses, but in good health themselves,
have to be kept from school, to the curtailment of
the short period devoted to education; and although they
may at the same time be meeting their school-fellows at
play, thus to a certain extent neutralising the precautions
taken at school. It is obvious that fresh and even stringent
legislation is needed to enable us to cope with a difficulty
of this sort—viz., an Act for the compulsory removal of the
sick when such removal is necessary to secure isolation.
REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON
INFECTIOUS DISEASE HOSPITALS.
The Commission presented their Report in 1882, and its
influence is still at work in moulding the sanitary administration
of the Metropolis to the shape indicated in several of the preceding
sections. In that weighty document, as I stated in my
Annual Report for 1882, I find the justification for "nearly
every principle in dealing with infectious disease that I had
advocated, chiefly in reports to your Vestry," during the ten
years preceding the appointment of the Commission, and I
instanced the following, among other of their "Practical Recommendations":—
1. Compulsory Notification.
2. Compulsory Removal when necessary.
3. Unity in Hospital administration, and representation
of Sanitary Authorities on the Hospital Board.