Statistics of the incidence of notifiable infectious diseases in each sanitary district in England and Wales during the year 1911.

Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Statistics of the incidence of notifiable infectious diseases in each sanitary district in England and Wales during the year 1911. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    5 action. Huddersfield in 1876, and Bolton in 1877, by local Acts secured the compulsory notification of the chief infectious diseases within their areas of administration. Other towns followed their example. In 1889 the Infectious Disease (Notifi- cation) Act was passed. This Act provided for the notification, in districts where it was adopted, of a specified list of infectious diseases, and gave power to sanitary authorities to add to the list of notifiable diseases with the consent of the Board. In a few years it was adopted in the majority* of the sanitary districts of England and Wales. In 1899 an amending Act rendered notification of the scheduled infectious diseases compulsory in all districts. Plague was made compulsorily notifiable throughout England and Wales on 19th September, 1900, by Order of the Board. Cases of pulmonary tuberculosis occurring in patients under the medical care of poor-law medical officers became compul- sorily notifiable under the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1908, from the 1st January, 1909. Under the Public Health (Tuberculosis in Hospitals) Regula- tions, 1911, cases of pulmonary tuberculosis occurring in the practice of hospitals, including dispensaries and similar institu- tions, wholly or partially supported otherwise than by the contributions of the patients or from rates and taxes, became similarly notifiable from the 1st May, 1911; and from the 1st January, 1912, under the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regula- tions, 1911, all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis under medical care became compulsorily notifiable, except in a few instances set out in the Order. Of the local value of the notifications of infectious disease thus received no doubt can be entertained. These notifications have forced on sanitary authorities the knowledge of the presence of these diseases in their midst, and the reiteration of the lesson thus imparted has led to investigation of sources of disease, and to the adoption, to a greater extent than would otherwise have been likely, of measures for preventing the spread of infection. Under active local administration, particularly, each notified case has become the starting-point for the discovery of cases previously overlooked. The possession by each Medical Officer of Health of infor- mation as to the number of cases of the different infectious diseases in his own district does not exhaust the utility of notification. The interchange of prompt and trustworthy in- formation as to similar cases in neighbouring districts, in the rest of the country, and even in other countries, evidently would enable the Medical Officer of Health to forecast the possibilities of introduction of a given disease and to be on the alert on the first suspicion of its presence. The realisation of these pos- sibilities led Dr. Tatham, then Medical Officer of Health of Salford, to arrange in 1888 with the Medical Officers of Health of 32 other towns, to exchange weekly lists of notifications, these being tabulated and confidentially circulated. In 1889 the Local Government Board undertook this tabulation and distri- bution of weekly returns to the towns which co-operated in the scheme, and has continued this task. From 1892 onwards the