[Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Watford U.D.C.

  • Watford (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Watford U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/74 (page 24)
    may form a favourable opinion of the benefit likely to result from the Tth January Regulations. Twenty-one cases of Malaria were notified, but all these were simply a re-currence of the disease from previ¬ ous attacks. No cases of Dysentery or Trench Fever were notified. One case of Encephalitis Letliargica was notified, and had a fatal termination. Diphtheria Anti-toxin has been supplied to Medical Men for years, but it is not very largely used by them as t/ J U V- J v the majority of cases go into the Isolation Hospital for Treatment. Return cases of Scarlet Fever are so few that they need no consideration. Scarlet Fever. Scarlet Fever assumed unusual activity during the latter half of the vear in Watford, as was the case in many of the London Suburbs. The total notifications amounted to 164, and out of these 120 occurred during the last quarter of the year. The first quarter showed only 15 cases; the second T; the third, 22; and the fourth gave us the big jump already mentioned. The two Wards affected were : Callowland and Kings, and the rapid spread in the first Ward was assisted by the mild type of the disease and the existence at the same time of a large number of cases of Measles. Some cases were only spotted either when desquamating at School or by the family doctor, while several cases of Measles were diagnosed as Scarlet Fever and caused great trouble at the Isolation Hospital by giving rise to the former disease before isolation of the wrongly diagnosed cases could be effected. King’s Ward joined somewhat later, furnishing dur¬ ing the last three months of the year 59 cases compared with 71 coming from Callowland. Altogether, the type of the disease was not at all virulent, but the infection appeared to be of a sufficiently mixed character to develop into a more serious septic form under bad hygenie surroundings. During November it was difficult to cope with the cases in the Hospital, and some had to remain at home for a time until vacancies occurred in the latter.