London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Brentford and Chiswick 1957
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Brentford and Chiswick]
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Scarlet Fever
There was again a reduction in the namber of cases of scarlet fever notified
and confirmed as such, the figures being 24 in 1957 as compared with 46 in 1956.
17 of these cases were admitted to hospital
In two instances a second case occurred in the household in which a previous
case had been notified and three cases occurred in one family. All the first
cases in these incidents had been admitted to hospital so the infection must
have occurred simultaneously, i.e. no new case was occasioned by poor isolation
at home
Diphtheria
No cases of diphtheria occurred during the year The last confirmed case
of diphtheria in the Borough occurred in 1948
Information concerning immunisation against diphtheria in the Borough, during 1957 has been supplied by the Area Medical Officer, and is as follows:-
| Number of children wh o | Age | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 | l | 2-4 | 5-14 | ||
| completed a full course of primary immunisation | 277 | 111 | 46 | 5 | 439 |
| received rein fore ing injections | - | - | 65 | 49 | 114 |
Number of children at 31.12. 57 who had completed a course of diphtheria immunisation at any time before that date (i e. at any time since 1. 1.43).
| B. 1952 or earlier | - | - | 829 | 1,711 | 2,540 |
There was a considerable drop in the number of children receiving a full
course of anti diphtheria inoculations during 1957 This may have been partly
due to the fact that the fear of poliomyelitis rather swamped the attention that
parents were prepared to give to the dangers of diphtheria, also the fact that
there was some publicity about the risk of any form of injection inducing poliomyelitis
may have discouraged parents, In order to combat this rather remote
possibility the County Health Department arranged that injections for prevention
of diphtheria and whooping cough should no longer be given in combined form,
but separately, and in April a scheme for young infants was put forward whereby
the various injections and the smallpox vaccination for an infant under one year
were spaced out as a rather lengthy course of treatment so that many children
having their first inoculation during the latter part of 1957 would be still
continuing with the course uncompleted well into 1958:
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