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77
mation contained in the returns, with which they are entrusted for
public purposes, that in the Public Health (London) Law Amendment
Bill, a Government measure brought in by the President and
the Parliamentary Secretary of the Local Government Board, and
the Home Secretary, in the current Session, provision is made that
the full return itself, required by the Notification Act to be sent by
the Managers to the County Council, "shall be sent by those
Managers to every Sanitary Authority in London, to the London
School Board, and to the managers of every public elementary
school in London." This, in principle, is as it should be, but
all the good results desired can be obtained without such an
amount of publicity, which would probably be detrimental to the
efficient working of the Act. It must be obvious that the information
should be made available for the use of sanitary authorities,
by being sent to the Medical Officer of Health, and that
profitable use might be made of it by those responsible for the
management of public elementary schools, as is being done in
this Parish at the present time, under circumstances set out at
page 81. But, for the information of the Managers themselves,
and of the medical and general public, nothing more is required
than such a summary as I publish in my four-weekly reports;
such summary to be issued weekly.
That the Local Government Board attach value to a
summary of the information contained in the medical certificates,
is evidenced by the circular letter, dated 11th February, 1891,
in which they invited the Sanitary Authorities of such of the
large provincial towns as had adopted the Infectious Disease
(Notification) Act, 1889, to take part in an arrangement under
which, during the last two years, most of the towns where the
compulsory notification system had been established by local
Acts, had furnished the Board with weekly returns of the cases
notified, and had, in the course of a few days, been supplied by
the Board with a tabular statement embodying all the returns.
The Board forwarded a copy of the letter to the Managers
in March, and stated that they would be glad to be able to