adopted:---

"(1.) Every medical practitioner shall forthwith give notice to the
Director-General of Health, in the prescribed form, upon becoming
aware that any person attended or treated by him is suffering from
any venereal disease in a communicable form. The notice shall state
the age and sex and occupation of the patient and the nature of the
disease, but shall omit the patient's name and address.

"(2.) Every medical practitioner, other than the medical officer in
charge of a public hospital or of a clinic established by direction
of the Minister of Health, shall be paid for each such notification
a fee to be prescribed by regulation.

"(3.) The provisions of subsection (1) hereof shall apply in the
case of a child under the age of sixteen years who is suffering
from congenital syphilis.

"(4.) Whenever a patient has changed his medical adviser, in
accordance with subsection (2) hereof, the medical practitioner
under whose care the patient has placed himself shall notify the
Director-General of Health in accordance with subsection (1)
hereof, and shall include in such notice the name and address of
the previous medical adviser."

Without some such system of preliminary notification no adequate
statistics can be collected as to the prevalence of venereal diseases in
New Zealand, and no conclusion could be arrived at in the future as to
the effect of the whole or any part of the programme for combating these
scourges. Again, without such notification, and the attachment thereto
of some method of ensuring that the patient is made definitely
acquainted with his condition, it is practically impossible to enforce
the provisions of section 8 of the Social Hygiene Act for the crime of
"knowingly" infecting any other person.

Here the Committee would refer to case 2 quoted above. Of what use is it
to provide free clinics if those who make use of them are permitted, as
soon as the urgent symptoms are relieved, to disseminate disease
broadcast, widening the circle of infection? Again, where is our
humanity if no step is to be taken to try to prevent a syphilitic child
being born to the man in case 1?

A very valuable result of anonymous notification would be the
possibility afforded of observing any unusual "flare-up" or succession
of cases, especially in country districts and small towns. Study of case
4 will show the gre