§ Mr. HARRY LAWSONasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has considered the expediency of making ophthalmia a notifiable disease under the Infectious Diseases (Notification) Act, involving at it does infectious inflammation of the cornea; and whether, seeing that this course would lead to the discovery of many cases which, if they be not dealt with in the first stage, conduce to blindness and a charge upon public funds and private charity, he will issue an order to that effect?
§ Mr. BURNSI have been willing to approve Orders extending the application of the Infectious Disease (Notification) Act, 1889, to ophthalmia neonatorum, and such Orders have now been made in respect of 179 districts. I shall be glad to see the practice of making this disease notifiable still further extended, and any application for approval of an Order to that end which I may receive from any local authority will be sympathetically considered.