[Report 1892] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.

Birmingham (England). Council.

Date:: 1892

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1892] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

56/108 (page 48)

Smallpox (continued). Scarlet Fever. Diphtheria persons engaged there. The four other cases occurred in houses associated with those thus infected. On several occasions the workshop was fumigated, and on one the goods which had been exposed to infection were destroyed. After the end of May no case occurred which appeared to be con- nected with those at the workshop. The source of infection of the remaining cases was not satisfactorily accounted for. One of the patients was, however, a tramp, who evidently contracted the disease before reaching the Birmingham Workhouse, and two others were of the vagrant class, one having been in the Casual Ward at the Workhouse shortly before his illness, and one being an inmate of a Common Lodging House. The three patients whose illness was not recognised as Smallpox till after recovery were not of course removed to the City Hospital. All the other patients were admitted to that institution, and two of them weie found to be unvaccinated, a girl aged 9, and a youth aged 18. After removal of the^cases the houses were fumigated with sulphur, and the walls were stripped of paper and limewashed. Infected bedding and clothing were sent to the disinfecting station. Notice was sent to schools, prohibiting the attendance of children from infected houses, and inmates of such houses were kept from work when necessary. In some instances workplaces were fumigated, and in others neighbours’ houses were similarly purified. One case occurred at a milkshop, and the stock of milk had to be des- troyed and the shop closed until after disinfection. Another was at a Common Lodging House. All the rooms in the house were fumigated, those on the top storey were limewashed, twenty beds weie sent to the disinfecting station, and the lodgers were kept from work till after disinfection was completed. In all cases of Smallpox efforts were made to get the inmates of houses invaded, vaccinated, but few of them were willing to undergo the operation. Scarlet Fever was notified in 1,418 cases. The disease was most prevalent in Balsall Heath, where the cases gave a rate of 4'7 per 1,000 persons living ; in St. Martin’s Registration Sub-District the Scarlet Fever case-rate was only 2 0, the lowest in the town. Efforts were made to obtain the removal of cases to the City Hospital, and 1,131 were admitted there during the year. After the removal or termination of a case the infected rooms were disinfected by fumigation, stripped of wall paper, and lime-washed, and the beds and other articles used were sent to the disinfecting station. Children in houses invaded by the disease were prohibited from attending school till the danger of their carrying infection was past. Throughout almost the whole of the year the cases diagnosed as Diphtheria were numerous, the total number being 456. The deaths, however, were comparatively very few, numbering 67, or 1 to every 7 cases ; in 1891 and 1890 one patient in every four succumbed. Moreover, a very large proportion of cases were in adults, many of them were of