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from an outbreak of smallpox relieves the local national insurance
office of any direct contact with the claimants. The effect of
this was that the public health department was called upon to act
as agent for all the claimants It was thus necessary to arrange
for the contacts to complete various benefit claim and authorisation
forms which were retained in the department and from these
to complete weekly certified summaries which were forwarded to the
Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, A lump sum covering
the benefits accruing was paid weekly to an officer in the public
health department who was responsible for its distribution to the
claimants
Compensation for loss of earnings
Section 51 of the Tottenham Corporation Act, 1952, enabled
the local authority to compensate primary contacts for loss of
earnings resulting from their exclusion from work The Corporation
agreed that compensation should be paid to the extent of
making up the difference between the earnings lost and the national
insurance benefits received Fortunately the early restriction
of the outbreak limited the number of primary contacts so that
expenditure on this account did not exceed £100
Supplies of goods to households in isolation
A particular difficulty experienced in this connection was
that whole households had become primary contacts and were subjected
to isolation within their homes, This meant there was
nobody available to carry out essential shopping, nor, in one or
two cases, had the families any ready money available to pay for
the goods required A health visitor was therefore, asked to
visit these families daily and to do any necessary shopping on
their behalf Recognition is due to the local tradesmen for
their ready co-operation in providing goods on credit pending
settlement of the families' claims for National Health Insurance
benefit„
Distribution of Calf Lymph
Lymph was made available to medical practitioners at the Town
Hall The demand grew rapidly after the first week-end and
altogether 11,500 units were obtained for use by family doctors
and at the public, vaccination centre 4,291 units were issued to
medical practitioners and the remainder used by the local author-