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9
and southern continents of America. When established in the great
centres of commerce it spreads in the adjacent and outlying
districts. The epidemic docs not roll as a broad wave from cast
to west, but leaps from capital to capital, from town to town, from
village to village, whilst the place of its incidence becomes the
centre of a broadening area of infection. This mode of invasion
has been repeatedly observed, and the uniformity in the plan of
attack indicates obedience to certain definite laws. In the manner
of its generation, evolution, and decadence, Influenza exhibits
many qualities in common with the life history of Asiatic Cholera.
Hut there is this point of distinction in the characteristics of the
two diseases: sanitary measures arc effective in arresting the
progress of Cholera, whilst the course of Influenza is neither
diverted nor in any measure affected by the most stringent hygienic
precautions.
Notification
of Infectious
Diseases.
Under the provisions of the Infectious Diseases
Notification Act, 1974 cases have been reported.
Few notifications are made by householders or
persons in charge. The Act has alone been rendered
effective by the action of medical practitioners. But the dual
responsibility prescribed by the Act has doubtless assisted those
gentlemen in the performance of their duty. Probably the number
notified includes all but a small percentage of the persons affected
with the diseases scheduled under the Act. Sometimes cases occur
where the symptoms are not prominent, and the infectious character
of the attack is unsuspected. Such cases may run a neglected
course without recourse to medical advice, and without the adoption
of any precautions in regard to isolation and disinfection. If
the subject of attack be a child, it may attend school and mix with
children at play. If an adult, he may come into contact with
others at a place of business, or in the public conveyances. A
limited outbreak at Stockwell was traced to the contagion resulting
from an unrecognised attack of scarlet fever in a child. The child,