P.R. Laws tit. 24, § 352
Every person authorized to practice in Puerto Rico the profession of physician and surgeon, dental surgeon, and osteopath, and if the case has not been examined by a physician, practicantes, nurses, and midwives, are obliged to notify the local health officer of the district in which the patient resides, of the suspicion or the existence of any of the following diseases regarding which they may have gained knowledge in the course of their professional work: angina streptococcus (epidemic), anthrax maligna (pustula maligna), asiatic cholera, acute epidemic conjunctivitis, diphtheria, dysentery (amebic or bacillary), scarlet fever, yellow fever, typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, food infections (caused by the ingestion of food contaminated with bacillus of the salmonicidus group, bacillus botulinus, staphylococcus, etc.), influenza, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, glanders, pneumonia (in all its forms), plague (bubonic, pneumonic, or septicemic), acute anterior poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis), measles, exanthematous typhus, smallpox, Vincent’s angina, chancroid, dengue, lethargic encephalitis (epidemic), Malta fever, puerperal fever, filariasis, tropical frambesia (buboes), gonorrhea, leprosy, malaria, ophthalmia neonatorum, epidemic parotiditis, psittacosis, rubeola (epidemic roseola), cutaneous syphilis, tetanus (including infantile form), whooping cough, tuberculosis, tularemia, chicken pox, and hydrophobia.
Provided, That in every case of a fever lasting over seven (7) days, without precise diagnosis, the attending physician shall be obliged to send to the Biological Laboratory of the Department of Health, or to a laboratory approved for such purposes by the Secretary of Health, samples of blood in order to investigate the existence of typhoid fever, paratyphoid or malaria; and, Provided further, That in every case of chronic bronchial catarrh lasting over two months, samples of the sputum shall be sent to one of the laboratories above mentioned, in order to investigate the presence of the bacillus of tuberculosis.
History —Mar. 14, 1912, No. 81, p. 122, § 28; May 7, 1935, No. 47, p. 332, § 3.