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TYPHOID FEVER- No case of typhoid fever was notified during the year.
PARATYPHOID FEVER - No notification was received during 1955.
DYSENTERY- This disease shows great variations in prevalence from year to year
and from place to place. During the year, 131 cases were notified. The ages of
the cases ranged widely but most cases occurred in children aged 5-9 years. Two
outbreaks occurred in houses occupied by several families.
The infection in all cases was of the Sonne type and the illness was mild in
practically every case. The mildness of the illness is such that medical advice is
not always sought, and unless the disease is kept constantly in mind, cases are likely
to be missed. In all cases of diarrhoea in children and on the least suspicion in
adults, a specimen of faeces should be sent for bacteriological investigation. Only
by such vigilance will this disease be kept under some degree of control.
Though the bowel is the usual habitat of dysentery germs, there is little
evidence to implicate contaminated food as the method of transmission. Infection
seems to be spread from person to person and contamination of hands the most likely
method.
TUBERCULOSIS- During the year, 61 notifications of pulmonary tuberculosis, and
6 notifications of non-pulmonary tuberculosis were received. This is the lowest
tuberculosis notification rate recorded in the Borough. In recent years the
notification rate has remained at much the same level, though the death rate from
tuberculosis has fallen and this suggested that there was still some reservoir of
infection which was not being treated. Persons continue to be certified as dying
from tuberculosis who have not been notified during life, but it is hoped that with
the improved facilities for diagnosis and treatment now available, any reluctance to
seek investigation and treatment will disappear. Early diagnosis and treatment are
essential to reduce the risks of the spread of infection.

The decline in the death rate from tuberculosis in this country started about
the middle of last century,, and it is difficult to assess the many factors which may
have played their part. The hunchbacks, the scarred necks and the discharging
sinuses around joints which were only two common among children and adolescents in
the early years of the century have gone and this reduction in non-pulihonary
tuberculosis is due largely to the pasteurisation of milk and the increasing
elimination of tuberculosis from dairy herds,
A permanent mass x-ray unit has been established at West Middlesex Hospital and
is open to the public without appointment.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM - For the second time since the disease was made
notifiable, no case was reported in the Borough. It is a tribute to preventive
medicine that this infection of the eyes of babies which was once a common cause of
blindness has now been brought under control. It is unlikely that the disease will
disappear completely but when it does occur, modern treatment should prevent any
damage to sight.
PUERPERAL PYREXIA - During the year 49 cases were notified as compared with 33
cases in 1954. A change in the definition of puerperal pyrexia was introduced by
the Puerperal Pyrexia Regulations 1951. No woman died from puerperal or postabortion
sepsis.
MEASLES - As was anticipated measles was widely prevalent in 1955 and 1,568 cases
were notified. 0J Measles is one of those infections of which the patient is liable
to be highly infectious before the diagnosis of his illness has been established.
Early infectiousness makes the application of preventive measures practically
impossible and largely accounts for the extremely rapid spread of the infection
throughout the susceptible section of the child community."
WHOOPING COUGH - The notifications of whooping cough, 177, were much more than
in 1954. Facilities for immunisation against this disease are available. The
condition is most fatal in young babies, and protection should be provided before
child is six months old. There is evidence that, with the improvement in the
vaccine the protection, if not complete, does mitigate the severity of the attac
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