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unfavourable type, and to kill by complications which might be
averted could the sufferers be placed where the) would have
pure air and suitable diet, with medical attendance and nursing."This
being so, I said that "I should welcome the
admission of cases of measles to the hospitals, for a time at
any rate, as an experiment of high value,"the only present
means of isolation available, being the parochial and union
infirmaries, of which not much advantage is taken. To give
full effect to notification of measles it would be necessary to
make provision of hospital accommodation, and this could be
best done by the Asylums Board : without such accommodation,
no very great benefit probably would follow the
notification.
Measles, it may be mentioned is notified in man)' places, includingEdinburgh,and
much interesting information bearing on
this subject is contained in a pamphlet entitled, "Ten Years of
Notification in Edinburgh," by Dr. Harvey Littlejohn, son to
the Medical Officer of Health to that City, and himself
Medical Officer of Health to Sheffield. The statistics contained
in the said pamphlet, supplemented as they were by additional
information courteously given to me by Dr. Harvey Littlejohn,
and also by the Medical Officer of Health to Edinburgh himself,
may enable us to estimate to some extent the probable
effects to be anticipated from notification of measles in London,
regarded as a means for lessening the spread and reducing the
mortality of the disease. Nearly 30,000 cases of measles were
notified (at a cost in fees of £3,500) in the ten years, 1880-89,
dealt with by Dr. Harvey Littlejohn, without obvious benefit—
the cases in the second half of the period having been 2,600 more
than in the first five years,—unless it be that the casemortality,
which in the ten years was 3-1 per cent, was l'O per
cent less in 1885-89 than in 1880-84, This apparent advantage,
however, disappeared when the figures for 1890-91 came to be
added to those for the preceding ten year; for dividing the 12
years (1880-91) equally, it appears that in the first half-period