Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on prevalence of measles, enteric fever and diphtheria in the borough of Lowestoft, and on general sanitary administration in that town / [S. Monckton Copeman].

  • Copeman, S. Monckton (Sydney Monckton), 1862-
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on prevalence of measles, enteric fever and diphtheria in the borough of Lowestoft, and on general sanitary administration in that town / [S. Monckton Copeman]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    his successor (Dr. Thomas), who came into office on September 1st, 1895, I found it difficult to obtain reliable information as to the origin of the measles, but as the result of the investigations of Dr. Thomas, it would appear that the first known case of the disease was that of a visitor, aged 29 years, who came to stay at Kirkley, who developed measles very shortly after arrival in the locality, and who eventually died of this malady on Juiy 9th, 1895. No other death from measles was registered for more than a month after¬ wards, while between the second and third there was again an interval, to early September, of about three weeks. From this time onwards, however, deaths from measles occurred almost daily, and, occasionally, two, three, or even more in one day up to the end of November. In December only three deaths from this disease were registered, and by the end of the year the malady had ceased to assert its presence.* Although the disease had, after its first introduction, spread to a certain extent from house to house, it was not, as already stated, until the beginning of September that it obtained any serious hold on the population. This period corresponded with that at which the various schools re-opened after the summer vacation, subsequently to which time the gathering together in these establishments of numbers of children, some of whom though perhaps not known to be ill were yet in a highly infectious condition, would appear to have conduced in no small degree to the further and rapid spread of the disease. In JVEay 1891 the I own Oouncil had directed that the school attendance officer (Mr. Cobb) should notify to the Medical Officer of Health, on a form supplied to him for that purpose, the names of any children whom he found to be absent from school on account of measles, and that he should be paid a fee of twopence per case for such notifications. Dr. Thomas stated to me, however, in reference to this subject that, when he entered on his duties as Medical Officer of Health, he was not informed by anyone of the presence of the disease in the town and that the Inspector of Nuisances was equally unaware of its existence. The first knowledge of the true state of affairs was afforded by a list forwarded to the Medical Officer of Health early in September by Mr. Cobb, which contained the names of no less than 85 children whom he had found to be absent from school on account of measles, either because they were themselves the subject of the disease or because it had broken out in their families. The Medical Officer of Health at once endeavoured to obtain authority for closing the various schools which these children had been severally attending, but failing to obtain such authority he at once visited all the elementary schools in the town and obtained information in each case as to the number of absentees, and instructed the school authorities to exclude for a time rot only all children who had just recovered from the disease, but also all who were coming to school from houses known to have been infected. He also set to work to visit personally a large number of invaded dwellings with the result that he found that most of the children of school age who had been attacked had recovered from their illness, and that the malady was now mainly affecting infants and other children below school age. He found, moreover, as he informed me, that in many instances mothers appeared to have no proper appreciation of the danger of the malady, and not infrequently made the statement to him that “ everyone must have the disease, and the “ sooner they had it the better,” and that with this object in view, children had been purposely taken to houses, certain of the inmates of which were at the time suffering from measles. Dr. Thomas further informed me that, in his opinion, the exceptionally severe type of the disease, together with the unusual death-rate among those attacked, was in. some measure, at any rate, dependent on the high atmo¬ spheric temperature which prevailed during the autumn of 1895, together with the fact that a large proportion of those cases which terminated fatally were complicated with diarrhoea, and, later on, with diphtheria, the true nature of which was, in a number of instances, definitely determined bv means of bacteriological examination. w * For table giving number weekly in 1895 of fatal cases, see Appendix.