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
Hampstead 1904
Report for the year 1904 of the Medical Officer of Health
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39
The Sections in question, while not making the disease compulsorily
notifiable, extend to it provisions relating to isolation and disinfection.
During the year under review 741 cases have been brought to my knowledge, the sources of information of which were as follows:—
| Cases notified by medical practitioners | 53 |
| parents or guardians | 142 |
| head teachers of schools | 531 |
| employers and others | 5 |
| Death Returns | 10 |
| 741 |
In 166 cases it was found, on enquiry, no doctor was in attendance.
The fact of this large number of Measles cases being without medical
attendance is a matter of grave importance considering the serious
complications which so often follow the high death rate, and the fact
that each case reported keeps from School a number of children not
themselves ill.
Amongst the poorest families it is almost impossible to properly
nurse cases of Measles at home.
The mother of the family is obliged to give up doing any wage
earning work in order to nurse the patient, thus lessening the income at
a time when expenses are necessarily increased.
The family is debarred from the help from district nurses and
isolation from hospitals which it would receive in case of non-infectious
illness; while the hospitals provided for infectious diseases do not
receive cases of Measles.