[Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Edinburgh City.

  • Edinburgh (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Edinburgh City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    70/258 (page 50)
    work suffers from the defect that clear-cut comparisons of the effect of treatment have not been made with untreated cases from the same epidemic, or with cases in which other and possibly beneficial lines of treatment have been carried out in parallel. Erysipelas is a disease the ultimate progress of which it is most difficult to foretell, so that in any clinical trial of remedies for the condition, only the most strictly controlled observations are of value in estimating their exact effect. CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS. Thirty-three cases provisionally diagnosed as cerebro-spinal meningitis were admitted, of which 16 proved to be meningococcal infections. Eleven of these died, the fatality rate for all ages therefore being 6875 per cent. It will be noted, however, from the table appended that only four patients fell within the most favourable age group, 5-20, and that no fewer than 7 were under one year of age. At the latter period the outlook can seldom be regarded as other than hopeless, and 2 recoveries out of the 7 may be regarded as creditable. During the latter part of the year treatment by sulphonamides was pushed in addition to serum therapy. There are good grounds for believing that these substances exert a beneficial effect in experimental infections, and it is to be hoped that this will be paralleled in the natural human infection, as the results of serum therapy during past years have been anything but encouraging. Table showing age and sex of cerebro-spinal meningitis patients :— The following final diagnoses were made in the group of cases in which the diagnosis was not confirmed on further observation :—Tuberculous meningitis (2) ; post influenzal depression (2) ; whooping-cough (1) ; acute pyelitis (I) ; influenzal pneumonia (I) ; lobar pneumonia (1) ; broncho-pneumonia (1) ; gastro enteritis (I) ; dysentery (1) ; gastritis (1) ; acute colitis (I) ; enteric fever (I) ; meningismus (1) ; diphtheria (1) ; non-specific meningitis (1). CHICKENPOX. Seventy-one cases notified as chickenpox were admitted to hospital, of which 65 were correctly diagnosed. The following cases were noted in the misdiagnosed group :—Dermatitis (2) ; septic rash (I) ; secondary syphilitic rash (I) ; herpes (1) ; and no disease (I). No deaths occurred.