880 
PROCEEDINGS OE SECTION I. 
41‘85 years ; while a life table based on the mortality of 1871-1880 
gives the mean expectation of life for males 41'35, for females 44*62 
years — an increase of 1*44 years for males and 2'77 for females. 
The registration of births and deaths is recognised to be of very 
high value in many ways, but from a practical point of view it is surely 
more useful to the community at large that they should be made 
aware of a threatening epidemic in their midst, and that the necessary 
steps be taken to strangle it in its infancy. 
It is of more immediate importance to the individual that he 
should know that typhoid is being disseminated from a particular 
dairy or through the medium of a water supply than that he should 
know the mortality of typhoid during any given period. The know- 
ledge of the existence of an infectious disease naturally implies the 
necessary means for isolation and prevention of its spread. This 
advantage, with others, I shall hope to show maybe in a great measure 
secured by the adoption of a rational system of notification. The 
subject is one which even now demands attention in these Australian 
colonies. The spread of sanitary science will no longer allow us to 
say of every case of typhoid and diphtheria, “ Kismet ! it is the will of 
Allah” ; for that is practically the attitude of the community and, I 
fear, of many of the medical profession at present. 
I propose to consider the following points : — (1.) Is a system of 
notification necessary ? (2.) If so, what are the best means of 
securing it ? (3.) What are the results which have accrued from 
such notification ? 
I would here premise that what is meant by compulsory notifica- 
tion is the “immediate notification to the sanitary authority of the 
occurrence of a case of infectious disease, a penalty being attached for 
neglect of such timely notification.” 
The diseases usually included are the seven zymotic* : Cholera, 
smallpox, typhus, typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles ; while 
erysipelas, whooping-cough, relapsing and puerperal fever are occa- 
sionally included. Leprosy in the Australian colonies is generally 
included. In some quarters it has been seriously urged that phthisis 
should be included. 
To proceed to the first point for consideration — Is compulsory 
notification necessary ? 
If an epidemic break out in a community, the more densely 
populated that community is the greater the number of cases and the 
higher the gross mortality. This is a lesson which has been learned 
by experience in the large cities of Europe, America, and Great 
Britain ; and the adoption of compulsory notification is fast becoming 
universal. In Great Britain it has been optional for sanitary 
authorities to adopt the Compulsory Notification Act (1889), but 
steps are now being taken to enforce the inclusion of those^ few 
sanitary corporations which do not recognise it {vide 16-12-93, 
foot-note p. 1332). The question may be asked, “ Is it so necessary 
in Australia — population is nowhere so dense as in the cities of the 
old world, and epidemics are not nearly so rife 
I will reply in the words of Dr. \erco, in his inaugural address 
at the Adelaide Intercolonial Medical Congress : — “ Coming, as our 
enterprising forefathers did, a three or four months’ voyage over a 
disinfecting sea, they left many of the terrible scourges of humanity 
