[Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Canterbury Borough / City & County.

  • Canterbury (England). City & County Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Canterbury Borough / City & County. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    at Diphtheria.—Three cases of this disease were notified, as comi)ared with 26 cases in the pievious year. Of these cases i resided in the County area, being admitted from the General Hospital, and i was an adult patient. There were no deaths from diphtheria during the year. Immunisation Clinic.—Free immunisation is offered to all school children and infants. One thousand five hundred and sixty-eight attendances were made by 302 children either at the Welfare Centre or the School Clinic for the purpose of Diphtheria Immunisation, either witii or without a preliminary Schick Test. In addition, 2,359 children had been protected against Diphtheria previous to 1937. A certain proportion of the remaining children are, of course, naturally immune To the disease. During the past the treatment of this disease has often been a heavy charge upon the local rates, far exceeding the cost of immunisation, and a special effort should be made in the future to increase the percentage of immune children in the community. The following Table gives details of the work accomplished up to the end of 1937 : — Number of Sessions held (1937) 35 Number of attendances in 1937 (including a few immunised at the Health Offices, Sanatorium and Welfare Centre) ... 1568 Total number of children dealt with up to the end of 1937 2681 Cases immunised 1928-1930, but records lost 20 Number recorded in Card Index (1928-1937) 2661 Number of children whose names were added to Card Index during 1937 302 Number of Schick Tests performed in 1937... 331 No immunised child has died from the disease during the past five years. Ophthalmia Neonatorum. — There were no notifications during the year. The importance of early treatment of this disease cannot be stressed too greatly. Of all diseases of the eye. Ophthalmia Neonatorum causes the most blindness—27% of all cases admitted into blind institutions are due to this infection. The gonococcus is responsible in 60% of cases, and is the only organism which gives rise to corneal complications, but as in the early stage of the disease the exact causal organism is not at once apparent,