[Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). Rural District Council.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Of the West Riding Rural Districts only Sedbrook and Rowland have a lower Scarlet Fever attack rate. Of the 28 West Riding Rural Districts 17 have higher aud the I’emainder lower Diphtheria attack rates. Doncaster Rural only has a higher Typhoid attack rate, but as one of your cases was imported from another district, and one was not a case of Typhoid Fever at all, the real attack rate of Typhoid Fever actually arising in your district is 'IZ ; but even so this would only bring you out third from top instead of second. I think there is some reason to suspect that a certain number of cases of Typhoid Fever in a mining district derive their source of infection from the mines themselves, and not from the sanitary condition of the homes. One of the three cases was a miner. Seeing that patients in the early stages of Typhoid Fever often continue to woi-k in the mines, even though they are suffering from slight Diarrhoea, it is fairly obvious that stools and urine contaminated with the Typhoid Fever Bacillus must be present in the workings of most pits, and therefore it is extremely probable that a virulent form of infection will often be present in one or more pits of the district, and as a large proportion of your population consists of mijiers your Enteric attack rate is more likely to approximate to that of mining towns than to that of purely Rural Yorkshire. In the matter of Erysipelas, the Barnsley Rural District is 7th lowest in its attack rate. Scarlet Fever. Of the 3 Scarlet Fever cases the first, occurring in Billingley, was undoubtedly infected at the schools in a neigh- boui’ing parish. Of the two cases at Stainbrough which occurred simultaneously in December the source of infection was not clear. A school girl aged 9 and her brother aged 23 both began to be ill on December 20th, and therefore pre- sumably were infected on the same date by the same person. This seems to exclude the school source of infection and might very possibly be due to a Baimsley place of amusement. Diphtheria. The 4 cases of Dii^htheria w'ere separated in time and geography in such a way that it is most unlikely that there was any connection between them. The first case was a woman of 50 at Woolley Colliery at the beginning of Februajy.