[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.

    37/74 (page 35)
    The number of cases of Puerperal Fever notified was rather high for Watford, amounting to six, and of these, three recovered and three died. The Registrar General, however, gives five deaths from this disease, and I conclude he had included two cases of miscarriage who died from Septicaemia, but which were not notified. There appears to be either some uncertainty or re¬ luctance on the part of Medical Men to notify these cases, and in one instance during 1919 I only received the notification after the death of the patient. Although the cases notified are not large, there appears to be a tendency for an increase rather than the reverse as I see that during the ten years 1900 to 1909 only 15 cases were notified, but during the period 1910 to 1919 I re¬ ceived 33 notifications; the deaths for these two periods being 7 in the first ten years and 14 for the latter decade. Ii is difficult to find any reason for this increase as there appears no series of cases that can be traced to either infection by a Medical Man or Nurse, and, although a large number of cases are looked after by Nurses from the County Nursing Association, I am given to understand that every care is taken with regard to asceptic precautions in all dealings with cases of confinement. nLS there appears no connection between one and another of these cases one can only suppose that in each case the infecting organism has been introduced in a different way, sometimes from without and sometimes apparently by a process of self-infection. It appears, therefore, that next to preventing the en¬ trance of' organisms from outside at the time of the confi- ment, is the ensuring the mother from being herself th«* source of infection, and we may look upon pre-natal con¬ sultations as a definite step in this direction. With regard to Ophthalmia Neonatorum six cases were notified, three out of these being* illegitimate babies. The latter were removed to the Union Infirmary, where one died and the other two made perfect recoveries. The re¬ maining three babies also recovered completely without any damage to eyesight. Measles has already been dealt with, and there is not anything of importance to report on Whooping Cough, as it seems almost impossible to do very much to stop the spread of the complaint.