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admitted to the Ealing Isolation Hospital. Here is a concrete
case again of infectious disease among these people
likely to be propagated to many others. It is very evident
that the law is quite insufficient to deal with this class. What
is required is the compulsory registration of the van as well
a:s of the owner in the same way as the canal boats are
registered. We can board canal boats and have little difficulty
in controlling their condition and the number of occupants,
etc., and report defects found to the authority granting
registration. With gipsies there is very little real control.
They are here to-day and, on receiving a summons, are off
to-morrow. They may be tolerated on some farms on the
condition that the property of that particular farm is not
damaged, and then again they often change their names.
The great evil is, of course, that we are all contributing
to the support of a race which is breeding potential criminals
in large numbers with no education, no definite trade, and
nothing to recommend them as useful and respectable members
of society.
I recommend that the matter be brought before the
notice of all Boroughs and Districts on the outskirts of
London and to the Urban District Councils' Association,
with a view to co-operation and concerted action to amend
the law relating to this class of traveller.
A RETROSPECT IN PUBLIC HEALTH.
As an old practitioner of forty years' standing and as
a Medical Officer of Health of nearly thirty, I have witnessed
the following among many other stages of progress in the
physical and social well-being of the people, for example:—
In my youth, cases of Typhoid Fever were common, even
in epidemic form, and were then always attributed, though
erroneously, to the poison of sewer gas. At the present time
typhoid (enteric) is comparatively rare and when occurring
is so skilfully attended and watched that "return" cases
are infrequent.
Scarlet Fever, except for the throat and ear complications
is now a comparatively mild complaint, but formerly
it often assumed a virulent or malignant type, wiping out
three, four or five children in a large family. The virus has