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TYPHOID FEVER.
This is another of those diseases whose complete absence
during the year under review, is a cause for congratulation, but the
organism causing the disease still survives in this country and any
failure on our part to maintain the highest possible standard of
hygiene could originate an outbreak of the disease at any time.
In fact the disease has not been stamped out but is being kept at
bay by our defensive measures, which can at no time be relaxed
if our present immunity is to be maintained.
SCARLET FEVER.
Sixty cases were notified as against one hundred and twenty
for the previous year. This figure represents an attack rate of
0.93 per 1,000 population.
Sixteen of these cases were removed to hospital, and the
remainder home nursed. There were no "return" cases. No
deaths were registered.
As will be seen from the above figures, the incidence of scarlet
fever was only half of what it had been in the previous year and in
nearly all cases the infection was of a reasonably mild kind. This
change in the character of the disease in recent years has been
commented upon previously, and at the moment there seems no
indication that a change for the worse is in any way likely in the
near future. In my own mind I find it difficult to decide whether
the organism causing the disease has lost a great deal of its virulence,
or whether the generally improved standard of living has built up
such a strong generation that the human body is now able to cope
with the invader very much more effectively. It may well be, of
course, that a combination of these circumstances is responsible,
but whatever the cause, the results can only be counted as eminently
satisfactory.