[Report 1927] / Medical Officer of Health, Burnley County Borough.

  • Burnley (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1927] / Medical Officer of Health, Burnley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/198 (page 10)
    found last year tliat out of 1,540 children exaniined on entering school, only 22-0% shewed signs of successful vaccination. This ],xircentage may be taken as a fairly accurate indication of the state as regards vaccination of the child population. The absence of Smallpox epidemics, especially of those of a severe kind, has undoubtedly caused the present generation to feel that Smallpox is a thing of the past. That it is not so is shewn by the Infectious Disease returns of last year, for in England and Wales there were no less than 14,769 cases notified. The disease over the whole of the country has been of a very mild type, but there is no certainty that it may not at any time become a very dangerous and fatal one, or, at least, have the disfiguring and maiming results of former epidemics. It is quite evident that we can not yet discard the protection of vaccination and re-vaccination, the greatest discovery ever made in the field of preventive medicine. In the body of the report an account is given of the distribution of the cases, and it shews the difficulty of coping with the disease, more especially when it presents itself in such a mild form. In the epidemic, so far, no vaccinated child has had the disease, and in those who have been vaccinated, the shortest period subsequent to the vaccina- tion has been 27 years. No re-vaccinated person has, so far, contracted Small- pox. The incidence of the other Notifiable Infectious Diseases has not pre- sented any unusual features. Measles has been fairly prevalent and there were 31 deaths. Further progress has been made in the substitution of ashbins for ashpits. During the year advantage was taken of the local Act of Parliament which provides for the Local Authority paying half the cost of the substitution of a bin for an ashpit when the Local Authority require such substitution to be made. In this way 843 bins were substituted. Altogether there were 1,004 ashpits abolished in 1927. There are now in Burnley 11,517 ashpits and 14,453 bins. The gradual abolition of multiple ashpits is being brought about. These, however, usuaU}^ serve back-to-back houses, of which we still have 2,195 in Burnley. With the demolition of the Finsley Gate area this number will be lessened by 154 in the near future. 23 common ashpits in that district also will disappear. The erection of ashpits practically ceased in Burnley 20 years ago. There are 11,517 still existing which were built before that time, every one of which is a posible source of danger to the public health ; even a well kept one must cause a nuisance, if only at the time it is emptied.