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one days of birth. By the Public Health Infectious Diseases Amendment
Regulations 1960, anthrax was added to those conditions listed in the
Public Health Infectious Diseases Regulations, 1953.
Food poisoning is notifiable to the Medical Officer of Health under
the provisions of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938.
Under the Leprosy Regulations, 1951, a medical practitioner must
notify the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health of any case of
leprosy he is attending.
Enquiries. Following the receipt of a notification a visit is made to
the home. For most of the infections these visits are made by the health
visitor; she is the most suitable person to advise about isolation and
concurrent disinfection. In certain conditions though such as food
poisoning or the enteric or the dysenteric infections or smallpox, the
Public Health Inspector visits. Enquiries are directed to two ends. The
first is to determine if possible the source of the infection with the object
of taking whatever steps might be practicable to avoid others being
infected from that source. It is for this reason that enquiries are made as
to the source of water or milk or about the school or other places the
sufferer has been at. The second line of enquiry is to enable such steps to
be taken as will minimise the spread of infection by the infected person.
It is for this reason that enquiries about his place of occupation are made
and lists obtained of the contacts and their places of work.
Aid to Diagnosis. The earlier the diagnosis, the greater the likelihood
that preventive measures will limit the spread of infection. In some
diseases, the laboratory is of help. (See Laboratory Service, page 34).
Where a patient is suffering from some clinical condition which is
suspected as being infectious, and in which the help of the laboratory is
sought, it is usually advisable, pending the confirmatory diagnosis, for the
same precautionary steps to be taken as if the patient were known to be
suffering from the infectious condition.
The other assistance a practitioner can obtain in the making of a
diagnosis is having a second opinion. Because of his training and because
too, he was so often associated with an isolation hospital, the Medical
Officer of Health usually had more experience in infectious diseases than
his colleagues in general practice. It was quite usual then for him to see
cases about which the general practitioner was in doubt. Since 1948, the
Medical Officer of Health has not been any more closely associated with
infectious cases than the medical practitioners, who now obtain the second
opinion from the medical superintendent of the isolation hospital. To
obtain a consultant's opinion in doubtful cases of smallpox or typhus
fever, advantage is taken of the arrangements made by the Ministry of
Health. Section 38 of the Public Health Act, 1961 provides for the medica
examination of a person who is suspected to be or to have been suffering
from a notifiable disease.