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26
Plagues.—I am pleased to report that this disease did not appear
in the Borough during 1902.
Erysipelas.—I received during 1902 no less than 320 notifications
for erysipelas. This is equivalent to an attack-rate of 1.4 per 1,000
living. Of the total notified 63 were removed to general hospitals or
to the Infirmary. The deaths numbered 16, thus giving a mortality
of .07 per 1,000 living.
Chicken-pox.—The experience of 1902 justified the action of the
Public Health Committee, who recommended that chicken-pox should
be made a notifiable disease during the prevalence of small-pox in
the district. The Order of the Local Government Board made the
disease notifiable in Hackney for a period of 6 months beginning from
the 1st of January, 1902. This Order was not renewed by the Local
Government Board because in the meantime the London County
Council has requested the Local Government to make the disease
notifiable for the whole of London. It continued to be notifiable,
having been renewed three times, until the 6th January, 1903.
During the year 1902, there were 1,471 cases of this disease
notified in the Borough of Hackney. The interest connected with the
notification of chicken-pox is wholly in its relation to small-pox, and
the frequency with which the latter disease was mistaken for the former,
This mistake was not infrequently made: but the reverse mistake was
rather more frequent, that is, rather severe cases of chicken-pox were
regarded as cases of small-pox. There is also no doubt that many
cases were notified as chicken-pox, which were varieties of derm itits.
Several cases of scabies were also notified as chicken-pox.
The Public Health Committee accepted my view early in the late
small-pox epidemic, that it would not help much in the discrimination
of cases of chicken-pox from small-pox, unless with the notification
of the former disease there was also a systematic examination of the
cases as they were notified. I undertook to do this in addition to my
other duties of Medical Officer of Health.
My opinion of the value of notifying cases of chicken-pox during
the late epidemic of small-pox, is that it was a measure which I
thought necessary in acquiring a more complete control over the.