[Report 1891] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council.

  • Isle of Wight (England). Rural District Council. n 83204987.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1891] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/60 (page 14)
    Zymotic diseases. Scarlatina. ♦ 2.-THE SANITARY HISTORY OF THE YEAR. As the sanitary incidents of the year are passed in review, attention is more particularly directed to those zymotic, or preventible, as they are sometimes called, diseases which may have prevailed in your District during the year, and to the means adopted at the time to limit their operation. But the consideration of the broader question of the measures taken by the Sanitary Authority, with a view to the prevention of such diseases in the future, is of far greater interest than their inci¬ dence in any particular year. And, although the protection of the community from zymotic disease is a primary duty, and the degree in which this end has been attained is a test of the success of sanitary administration, the interests of the public health, I need scarcely remind you, extend infinitely beyond the limits of protection from specified diseases, for the ability to labour, the personal habits, the comfort and happiness of the population are influenced, directly and indirectly, in no small measure by the sanitary conditions under which they live. In the Isle of Wight Rural Sanitary District, I beg respectfully to say, these interests are confided to you, and these conditions are largely under your control. The zymotic diseases present in your District in 1891 were, scarlatina, diphtheria, membranous croup, measles, whooping cough, enteric or typhoid fever, and erysipelas. There were cases, also, of puerperal fever, which were not notified, and which I had no opportunity, therefore, of investigating, and deaths from diarrhoea. At the close of the year 1890 scarlatina prevailed at Arretan, there was a case of the disease at Newchurch, there were two cases in one house at Guildford Farm, Haven Street, and four cases in one family at Carisbrooke. There had been, ap¬ parently, a large number of cases of mild scarlatina at Arreton without medical attendance, not one of which was notified, and it was only the accident of entering a cottage and observing a child with scarlatina rash, which led to the discovery of the outbreak. At Newchurch, the disease, the presence of which was notified, did not spread, but a boy from Alverstone attend¬ ing Newchurch School had scarlatina, which was communica¬ ted to other members of his family who attended Alverstone School. These children were sent back to School as soon as the fever stage had passed, and thus the whole population of Alverstone and its neighbourhood became infected. Had these first cases been notified, as they would have been if they had received medical treatment, much expense and trouble would have been avoided in that community. My attention was called to the existence of scarlatina at Alverstone by the Sub- registrar, who informed me that a death from scarlatina in