View report page

47
On February 10th, I received the Regulations from our Clerk and a lette
of the Local Government Board, dated February 6th, 1914.
One of the duties of mid-wives under the Regulations of the Central Midwives'
Board is, and always has been, to advise medical aid in cases of
inflammation of the eyes, however slight, and report to the County Medical
Officer of Health. He reports that in 1913, of the 36 cases reported in the
County, the eyesight was permanently injured in 3 cases, i.e., over 8 per cent.
In accordance with Article V. of the Regulations, I issued a circular letter,
dated 20th March, 1914, to all the medical men residing or practising in the
District, and one to all midwives residing in the District, reminding them of the
chief features of the Regulations, and asking them to state the average yearly
number of cases during the past five years each one had met with. I also, in
accordance with Article III., prepared and issued to the midwives books of
notification forms, 25 in each with counterfoil.
The Medical Officer of Health is an expositor of preventive and not curative
medicine. Therefore under these Regulations he cannot do more than endeavour
to see that an infant notified as suffering from ophthalmia neonatorum has
prompt treatment at the hands of a private practitioner, or in a public institution.
If the parent or guardian of the child does not provide this, the Medical Officer
of Health can either urge his Authority to prosecute the offender under Section
12 of the Children's Act, 1908, or (that failing) bring the case to the notice of
the Society for the prevention of cruelty to children. This disease is responsible
for a great deal of lifelong blindness and will, I expect, come under the consideration
of the present Royal Commission on venereal diseases. The Women
Sanitary Inspectors deal in this way with these cases under my supervision.
There were 16 cases notified during 1914, of whom one was notified to me
from the Edmonton Infirmary which belonged to another district.
Three cases were doubly notified, i.e., by doctor and midwife, and one by
two doctors.
ERYSIPELAS.
Seventy-seven cases were notified, compared with 50 the previous year,
besides two Belgians and four "foreigners," occurring in the Edmonton Union
Infirmary, and one in the Strand Union. All of our 77 cases were in separate
houses. There were five deaths from this cause, three of them being
"foreigners."
Eight cases occurred amongst people who were living in our district outside
the Union Infirmary, and yet unable to provide proper attention for themselves.