[Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Worksop Borough.

  • Worksop (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Worksop Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/40
    streptococcal Infection be notified? The answer to this seems to be HnoMl they are too numerous and too variable to permit full epidemiological investigation of each notifieationo The second question is: Should we continue the anomalous present practice of notifying only scarlet fever with rash? Here the answer seems to be yesM, for it hae, with all its deficiencies, the limited value of providing an indicator of the trend and incidence of one of the most striking manifestations of haemolytic streptococcal infection - (a) a manifestation, which in the decade 1861 - 1870 had an average death rate of 2,282 per million at ages under 15, contrasted with 3 in 1947* Poliomyelitis. Only one notification of Poliomyelitis was received during 1948. Poliomyelitis has been notifiable in England since 1912, but there has been no epidemic comparable to that of 1947o Originally the disease occurred chiefly in young children - hence the name infantile paralysis - but in recent years an increasing proportion of adolescents and adults have been affected© The disease is thought to spread by person-to-person contact, but in which way is still unknown© The current view is that for every person showing clinical signs of the disease many are infected, but show few or no symptomso Doctor Horstmann of Yale University summarized the position as follows in the Lancet early in 1948:- MIn spite of all the information collected by many investigators in many lands we still cannot say why poliomyelitis suddenly became epidemic almost sixty years ago, why it is increasing rather than decreasing like other infectious diseases, why it is a summer disease with a preferanoe for certain lands, how it is spread or how it may be prevented o’5 Adequate facilities for the treatment of this disease are available at neighbouring hospitals© Diphtheria - National and Local incidence. Since the inception of the Diphtheria Immunisation scheme in 1940, the number of oases of, and deaths from Diphtheria has shown a very marked decrease. The number of cases in 1948 was also the lowest ever recorded, being about 47,000 below the average of 55*000 obtaining in the tan-year period 193l/40o Apart from the avoidance of unnecessary suffering, this has resulted in substantial savings in hospital costs, and has freed Medical and Nursing personnel for other work. Total of deaths and original notifications during the past 9 years have been as follows:-