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in the previous seven days. In 1887 the system of voluntary
notification was made as perfect as it can be by your Vestry
agreeing, upon my recommendation, to pay a fee to medical
men for each case reported. As at this time, moreover, the
Asylums Board were admitting patients upon the application of
medical men, your Vestry further agreed to pay a fee for the
certificate upon which any case should have been removed to
hospital.
Compulsory Notification.—Valuable as voluntary notification
has proved, it is necessarily imperfect. In 1880,
therefore, I advised your Vestry to make an effort to obtain
Compulsory Notification. A conference of Sanitary Authorities
was convened at the Town Hall. As a preliminary proceeding, I
drew up a Memorandum on the subject, a copy of which was
placed in the hands of each member of the several Vestries and
District Boards, nearly 3,000 in number. At the Conference,
held in March, 1881, 24 of the 39 Sanitary Authorities were
directly represented, and 23 Medical Officers of Health were
present, six of them indirectly representing their respective
authorities. The resolutions which I had drawn up to be submitted
to the Conference, had been forwarded with the
Memorandum, to the Vestries and Vestrymen, and were unanimously
adopted by the meeting. These resolutions were in
favour of (1) Compulsory Notification, (2) Compulsory removal
to hospital when the patient cannot be isolated at home, and (3)
Free admission of the sick to hospital, without loss of social or
political status. It was agreed that the resolutions should be
transmitted to the Sanitary Authorities, and that a Deputation
should present them to the Local Government Board.
The President of the Local Government Board received the
deputation in April, 1881. It comprised the representatives of
the Sanitary Authorities—none of these bodies dissenting—the
Council of the British Medical Association, the Society of
Medical Officers of Health, the Social Science Association