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11
ordinary therapeutic measures, artificial immunisation is not recommended
except in special cases. There were no deaths from measles.
Whooping Cough was notified in 279 cases, and there were three deaths
from this disease. Two of the deaths occurred amongst the 21 cases
notified in children under 1 year, and the other death amongst the 29 cases
in children between 1 and 2 years of age. There were no deaths amongst
the other 229 cases occurring in persons over two years of age. It has been
recognised for many years that whooping cough is a dangerous disease in
infants and immunisation has been advocated for some time. The results
of investigations are not as conclusive as could be wished, but it is
probably true to say that whilst a proportion of cases are prevented, and
in a further proportion the attack is modified, the whooping cough vaccine
which is available at present is not effective to any degree approaching
that of the diphtheria vaccine for the prevention of diphtheria. A further
disadvantage is that three injections are required, they must be intra
muscular injections and they are of greater bulk than the anti-diphtheria
injections.
Having regard to the above, immunisation against whooping cough
was discontinued at the Clinics for a time whilst poliomyelitis was
occurring in Deptford.
No outbreak of Food Poisoning occurred during 1950 but 27 individual
cases were notified all but one occurring in the second half of the year.
In many of these cases the notification was received so late that the
patients had recovered, the suspected food was not available for examination,
and even the causative organism could not be identified. In only
one case was the infecting organism definitely identified, the organism
implicated being Salmonella typhi-murium, but in this case it was not
possible to discover the food which was involved.
In fourteen of the cases the foods which, from the history given seemed
most likely to have been involved, were, cooked meats in various forms 7,
ice cream 2, shell-fish 2, duck eggs 2 and dates 1. The sample of dates
showed contamination with B. welchii but in the cases of the other
suspected foods either specimens were not available or no pathogenic
organisms were discovered. In the remaining cases, it was not possible
to identify any particular food either from the history given or from
examination of such specimens as were available.
It is disappointing that the investigations should show such little result
but this cannot be avoided where notification is late, and also in individual
home cases where it is not unusual for the whole of the food to be consumed
or disposed of before any symptoms arise.