[Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.

  • Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of control, as in diphtheria, or again, to an apparently spontaneous modification in virulence of some organisms, notably the streptococci which are the causal agents of scarlet fever, many cases of puerperal infection, and of the complications of measles, while improved social hygiene has accounted for the decline of diseases of the enteric group. But where these changes are the result of human intervention, they can only be maintained by constant vigilance, occasional carelessness may lead to serious outbreaks and new variants and organisms are always liable to cause a change for the worse in the general situation. There was a recrudescence in 1949 of the poliomyelitis epidemic of 1947 and a high weekly notification of cases was recorded until the end of the year, correlated with and perhaps due to an exceptionally mild Autumn. Darlington was fortunate :n having only two cases of recognisable disease. They were both relatively mild, but even so left residual handicaps that are likely to necessitate the wearing of appliances for years or for life. This alone serves to emphasise what a grave and long-continuing problem poliomyelitis presents in its individual as well as its collective aspect. In Circular 2/50 of 25th January, 1950, wherein the Minister of Health lays down certain principles for the compilation of annual health reports, a direction is contained that a special form of return is to be included of cases of food-poisoning. Under Section 17 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, suspected food-poisoning is made a disease notifiable by registered medical practitioners and since this gives a very wide scope to their powers in this respect, it might seem that all cases were known to the Health Department. But many patients who have in fact suffered from this disorder are so slightly ill that the practitioner is unlikely to trouble to notify unless strongly pressed to do so. Small outbreaks are often disappointing because, though a strong presumptive evidence of true food-poisoning exists, no results are ever produced by investigation to confirm it. This was the situa- tion in Darlington in 1949 in respect of the two outbreaks brought to the notice of the Health Department, the details of which are set out below in approved form:— Total number of outbreaks — 2 Organisms or other agents responsible—Not found. Number of cases Number of deaths 6 Food involved — In one instance a foreign (New — Nil. Zealand) tinned ham was suspected as the only foodstuff apparently con- sumed in common by all patients, but no evidence to incriminate it was dis- covered on bacteriological and other analysis. On the other hand, one patient not included above was discovered in the course of routine investigation to be a carrier of S. typhi-murium. After a long period as an in-patient at Hundens Hospital she was still an intermittent carrier and as her normal employment was quite