It shall be the duty of the local board of health, health authorities or officials, and of physicians in localities where there are no local health authorities or officials, to report to the state board of health, promptly upon discovery thereof, the existence of any one of the following diseases which may come under their observation, to wit: Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid fever, bubonic plague or leprosy, and of such other contagious or infectious diseases as the state board may from time to time specify.
[ 1967 ex.s. c 51 § 16.]