COMPULSORY NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 831 
behind. The plagues of the olden time and of the new are largely 
only names and phantoms among us. Hydrophobia, the sweating 
sickness, relapsing fever, typhus, and cholera have never from their 
shrivelled lips breathed pestilence and death over our fair land. Now 
and again a foul form is seen prowling at our doors ; the people are 
anxiously uneasy at the threatening danger, but hitherto the monster 
has been strangled on our threshold. 1 ask, Is not the heritage we 
enjoy in our freedom from these plagues a special boon ? Does it not 
involve in common prudence a special duty, a special vigilance? And 
since our communication with the old world lias become more rapid 
• — and hence the liability to the importation of infection increased — 
and our intercommunication is more effective and more speedy, and 
hence the distribution of infection greatly facilitated— is there not 
special need for concerted intercolonial action, for discussion amongst 
ourselves of such subjects as federal quarantine,” and compulsory 
notification ? “And how is this emphasised by the virulence and wildfire 
spread which characterises infectious diseases in tropical and sub-tropical 
regions, and still more by the fact that it is in the domain of preven- 
tive medicine that the grandest victories of late years have been 
gained; and if I can read the times aright, it is in the department 
of preventive medicine that the largest, if not the most brilliant, 
triumphs will yet be won.” 
In Queensland during the past five years we have had visitations 
of scarlet fever and measles, as well as several outbursts of influenza ; 
and to these with other miasmatic diseases are attributed during the 
first four years of the present decade no less than 1,76(3 deaths or over 
8 per cent, of the total death-rate. In the Brisbane district during 
the same period there have been 411 deaths, or nearly 12 per cent, of 
the total death-rate. 
Again, of the Queensland total of 1,766, 1,192 of these deaths 
occurred in children under ten years of age, a proportion of 68 per 
cent.; while in the more thickly populated Brisbane district 316 out of 
the total 411 deaths were those of children under ten, a proportion of 
77 per cent. Consequently the children, in addition to the very heavy 
mortality of teething, diarrhoea, and dietetic troubles, have to be further 
saddled with the heavy mortality of epidemic disease — a serious thing 
for a young colony which depends so largely on its rising generations. 
Moreover, we must take into account not only the direct mortality 
but also the indirect mortality arising from subsequent disease. 
The zymotic diseases have been called the preventable diseases ; 
and if that is so, surely every effort should be used to prevent their 
introduction, or, if introduced, to prevent their spread. If compulsory 
notification can aid in any way towards this desired end, let it be used 
to the fullest extent. Salus populi suprema lex . 
The early discovery of infectious disease to a local authority is 
like the early notification of a fire at a fire station, whereby a 
conflagration which might otherwise lay a city in ashes can be 
prevented if the warning be sufficiently timely. “A spark is a 
molecule of matter that may kindle a world.” 
The necessity for notification proved, we must next consider the 
best means of securing it. Yarious experiments as to voluntary 
notification have resulted in total failure, as might be expected, for 
nothing short of a complete return would be of avail, and this could 
