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89
in the sanitary and poor law departments alike, and there can be no doubt
that any moderate measure would receive favourable consideration from both
Houses of Parliament. In this connexion it may be mentioned that in 1882
a Select Committee of the House of Commons, of which Lord Basing (then
Mr. Sclater-Booth), an ex-president of the Local Government Board, was
chairman, not only reported that they had ' little difficulty in forming the
opinion that the time had arrived when provisions of law on this subject
(notification) may be sanctioned, at least in the more important Urban
Sanitary Districts,' but also framed a 'model clause' which has since been
incorporated in divers local Acts, and the terms of which are set out in my
last Annual Report, at page 67. The Asylums Board we know to be well
disposed to promote legislation in this direction. To what extent the forty
Sanitary Authorities of the Metropolis are prepared to go in the matter I am
not able to state ; but there is no doubt as to the advice they will receive from
the Medical Officers of Health, should the subject be brought under their
notice. It seems to me very desirable that a communication should be
addressed to the several Vestries and District Boards, so as to elicit their
opinions, with a view to combined action by an appeal to the Government to
procure a general Act, or an Act limited to the Metropolis. Should such
an application be made unsuccessfully, I trust that your Vestry, either alone,
or in conjunction with others, may be disposed to take the necessary steps
to obtain a 'Local Act,' in the terms, with necessary modifications, of the
'Model Clause.' "
I have reproduced the above passage because it had the
desired result of re-opening the question of Compulsory Notification,
and was productive of action which promises to bear
fruit in the near future. But before stating what form that
action took I think it desirable to submit a resume of the proceedings
taken under the leading of your Vestry, in 1881, when
the matter was first taken vigorously in hand by the Metropolitan
Sanitary Authorities.
In my monthly Reports for November and December, 1880,
I had referred, not for the first time, to the necessity for legislation
to secure Notification, and in January, 1881, your Vestry,
on the motion of Mr. C. H. Campbell, J.P., unanimously
adopted a resolution approving "the principle of compulsory
intimation to the Public Health Authority of all cases of such
diseases as small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid,
and cholera."
G