[Report 1965] / School Medical Officer of Health, Blackburn County Borough.

Blackburn (England). County Borough Council.

Date:: 1965

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1965] / School Medical Officer of Health, Blackburn County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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there was never at any time swarming within the school precincts of any biting insects of any sort although there may have been some black flies on the nearby demolition site. Fleas at this time were no more evident than expected and the vast majority of girls at the school had no experience of them. Hypodermic injection of numbers of pupils in such a limited period of time is not a practical supposition and most girls, as with drug exhibition, are too sensible to accept this method of stimulation. The possibility that toxic agents might be inserted through skin abrasions by newly-worn clothing and uniforms impregnated to produce non-flammable safety garments was discounted by the fact that most of the girls were wearing clothing worn previous to the outbreak and the use of borax/boracic acid compounds used for such purposes, whilst it can irritate sensitive skins is not particularly toxic. Invasion—In view of the so recent Poliomyelitis outbreak and the very intensive use of Sabin vaccine it was necessary immediately to exclude the possibility that the latter might be involved in the St. Hilda’s incident. The record of every girl affected in the school was cross-checked to ascertain the vaccination history. The girls at the school come from the County as well as the County Borough and of the girls from the Borough none were vaccinated at the school. They had vaccine at various parts of the town, at varying times. They received vaccine from more than one firm and the batch numbers varied from girl to girl. Other persons of the same age group at other schools who had similar batches of vaccine had no such illness and it must be remembered that about 15,000 school children shared the experience of being vaccinated but none shared the experience of the St. Hilda’s school. The second vaccine does had for the most part been given between 2 and 3 weeks previously. The possibility of another type of neurotropic virus having caused the outbreak by inducing a mild encephalitis was a theory with many draw- backs. It is difficult to envisage a virus so sophisticated at its first emergence as to be specific for limited areas of nervous tissue in the mid-brain or 4th and 5th segments of the spinal cord necessary to produce the syndrome at St. Hilda’s. To be so limited by existing individual immunity as to be confined to the Junior members of a closed community and to strike down the susceptibles within hours without spreading over a time interval. To appear without manifestations of herald cases and to leave the affected persons for the most part restored to reasonable vigour within a week. At this stage, it is convenient to study the hospital investigations. Dr. P. D. Moss, Consultant Paediatrician to the Blackburn and District Hospital Group, examined all the cases admitted to Park Lee Hospital. His findings are summarised below. He found the striking features were swooning, moaning, chattering of teeth, hyperpnoea and tetany. No drugs were administered and the tetany was controlled by rebreathing into a plastic bag under supervision. Thirty- four girls remained in the ward overnight. Six girls required re-admission over the weekend and three new cases were taken in over this period. By Sunday, 10th October, there were still 20 cases on the wards. They were detained because they were still fainting, overbreathing and having attacks of tetany. Some had been discharged only to be re-admitted. Fifty-four