View report page

30
Administration
No proceedings were taken under the Act, i.e., under sections
3(+), 4(4), 4(5), 5(2), 8(2), 9(2) and 22(4).
There were no special circumstances to which any undue presence
of rats and mice in the district could be attributed.
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis
This disease is a special type of meningitis which has always been
regarded as rare but of which recently more cases have been diagnosed.
The disease is caused by a virus which may be caught from mice.
Mice are frequently infected and the infection may stay with them
throughout their lives and even be handed on by the female mouse to
her offspring.
A case of this disease was diagnosed in 1949 and one mouse was
trapped in the house from which the patient was removed. This mouse
when examined at the laboratory, was not found to be suffering from
the virus infection. In March, 1950 another patient in the same road,
18 houses away, was also diagnosed as a case of lymphocytic choriomeningitis.
Traps were laid for mice in her house and eventually three
were caught, all of which were found to be infected with the virus.
A special offensive against mouse infestation was made in the
rectangle formed by the four roads in the neighbourhood (enclosing the
two houses from which the patients came), as it seemed highly suspicious
that the only two cases of this disease diagnosed in the borough during
the past year should have come from houses only a few yards distant
from each other. Many of the occupants said that they had never had
a mouse in their house while some others admitted to varying degrees
of infestation. Each of the 73 houses contained in the block was visited
and the purpose of the visit explained. For various reasons traps were
set in only 34 of the 73 houses and as a result sixteen more mice from
ten houses were caught and examined for virus. The virus was isolated
in four of these mice. With one exception these mice were caught in
houses in two of the roads, and the back gardens of these houses are
separated by an old, low brick wall or a wooden fence. The main
structures of the two sets of houses are 80-90 feet apart and many ot
the gardens contain sheds which mice might inhabit, but in fact mice
were only trapped in the houses.
An inquiry into the possible occurrence of further cases in Lewisham
was carried out and over 200 doctors were circularised but no other
cases, suspected or confirmed, were reported. Seven of the eight
medical officers of health of surrounding districts stated that no cases
had occurred in their areas during the preceding two years. The other
medical officer of health reported a case which occurred in 1950 in a
house 3i miles from the block of houses containing the two reported
cases. No mice were caught in the rooms occupied by the patient but
two were trapped in the flat below and from them the virus was isolated.
These boroughs, with Lewisham, cover an area of 66 square miles
with a population of 950,000.