[Report 1895] / Medical Officer of Health, Consett U.D.C.

  • Consett (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1895] / Medical Officer of Health, Consett U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/14 (page 7)
    The above figures show that while the case mortality was very low among those attacked under 15 years of age (2‘1 per cent.), it was extremely high above that age period (22-7 per cent.), and progres- sively increased during each of the successive age periods from 10 yeai’s upwards. In the next table are given the rates of enteric fever attack in Consett during 1895 per 1,000 living of each sex at certain age periods, and it will be seen that there was a slightly greater incidence of attack on females than males, which is in marked contrast to the behaviour of the coincident epidemic of typhoid fever in the neighbour- ing town of Leadgate, where the incidence of attack was especially marked on the male sex : — At all Ages. Under 5 Years. 5—10 10—16 15—25 25—40 40—60 60 and upwards Males 15-9 1-9 23-1 17-1 29-3 17-5 3-8 10-4 Females.. 16-8 11-0 10-4 29-9 19-3 21-9 12-6 Total .. 16-3 6-6 17-0 23-5 24-5 19-3 7-4 5’1 Type and features of the Outbreak. In my report on the epidemic of enteric fever at Leadgate I pointed out that many of the patients notified as suffering from that disease at no time suffered from purging or diarrhoea, but that on the other hand there was frequently marked constipation. The same peculiarity was noticeable in respect to a large proportion of the cases notified in Consett as suffering from typhoid fever, as also in several other districts in the county where that disease has been prevalent of recent years. Many of the enteric fever patients in Consett had few or none of the prominent symptoms of that disease, the illness being ushered in with a feeling of weariness and lassitude, which advanced to varying degrees of prostration according to the severity of the attack. In other cases headache and bleeding from the nose, to- gether with pains in the back and bowels, were the prominent symptoms, while in the majority of the fatal cases the typical symptoms of typhoid fever were usually present—the rash in several cases being very prominently developed. Some of the cases were of very mild type, this being especially the case among those patients who were under 15 years of age, and in several instances the illness was so slight and its duration so short that I think they were pro- bably not cases of typhoid fever; on the other hand, I ascertained the existence of several cases of illness which from their history were probably those of typhoid fever, though they had not been notified. As at Leadgate, the great majority of the persons attacked by