[Report 1901] / Medical Officer of Health, Atherton U.D.C.

  • Atherton (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1901] / Medical Officer of Health, Atherton U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    «• 3 Scarlet Fever has been prevalent in this district during- the whole year, 86 cases having been notified, of which there were four deaths. During the first half of the year the disease occurred in single cases, but in September a number of cases arose together in Howe Bridge, amongst children attending the Howe Bridge Schools. .'\t these Schools the drainage was undergoing alterations, owing to the extension of the School premises, and on examination of these premises, I found that children were playing in a yard over open drains. I made an examination of the scholars, of whom two were sent home as suspicious cases. One of these two developed Diphtheria. The School was fumigated and disinfected ; the part of the playground undergoing repair was shut off to the scholars, and the epidemic subsided. The disease then assumed more serious propor- tions in Atherton, the largest number being notified in December, viz., 50 cases. Five of these occurred in one house, four in another, three in a third, and so on. Most of the cases have been traced to personal contact with infected cases, and indeed all the cases seem to have occurred in this manner, no other cause having been discovered. Thirty-two cases were removed to the Sanatorium, but so many remained at home that it makes the chance of an epidemic almost as great as if no Sanatorium existed. The isolation of cases at home is not carried out satisfactorily. In many cases children suffering from the disease being nursed in the kitchen, the other children of the family running in and out promiscuously, and to this I largely attribute the prolongation of the epidemic. Cases have also been discovered in accidental manner, unreported, owing to the ignorance of the parents as to the nature of the illness, and as the character of the disease has been slight, there may have been other unsuspected cases at large. On