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27
During the year notices were sent to Schools from the Public
Health Department excluding 175 scholars actually suffering from
measles, as compared with 1,105 in 1913. Seven of the deaths
occurred in the Croydon Union Infirmary and one in the Royal
Waterloo Hospital.
Measles is one of the most serious diseases of infancy and it is
desirable that the popular idea that measles is a slight illness should
be combated ; it is one of the diseases of infancy which requires very
careful attention and nursing on the part of the parents.
SCARLET FEVER.
Seven hundred and forty-eight cases were notified, as compared
with 470 in iqi3. Of these 5 or .66 per cent, ended fatally. (See
Tables II., IV., and V.).
SCARLET FEVER IN ST. JOSEPH'S CONVENT.
During the last five months of the year an outbreak of scarlet
fever occurred in St. Joseph's Convent, Upper Norwood. Within
the Convent is a school for approximately 350 girls who sleep in
eight dormitories in the building. The outbreak began in August
and by the end of the year 59 cases had been notified. The infection
was of a most persistent and elusive type, the incubation period in
several well-marked instances apparently extending over as long a
period as eight days. No sooner had the infection been suppressed
in one dormitory than it broke out afresh in another, and in the
majority of instances no clue could be discovered as to how
the infection had been conveyed from one group of girls
to those next infected. The whole of the girls in the
School were repeatedly examined medically, and any exhibiting
the slightest suspicious signs isolated from the others,
but in spite of these and all other strict precautions the
disease persisted into the early part of the present year. The
outbreak has now been definitely suppressed. All of the patients
were removed to the Borough Hospital and made good recoveries.
RETURN CASES OF SCARLET FEVER.
In 17 instances after patients had been discharged from the
Hospital subsequent cases arose, possibly infected by the discharged
patients. These subsequent cases numbered 20.