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66
CHICKEN POX.—The London County Council, declared
Chicken Pox a notifiable disease on May 6th, 1902, and this
order remained in force until January 7th, 1903.
This action was taken owing to the difficulty which sometimes
exists in distinguishing between some mild cases of Small
Pox and Chicken Pox.
During the year 841 notifications were received. and of
this number 62 referred to children under 1 year of age, 817
under 5 years, 417 between the ages of 5 and 15, 32 between
15 and 25, and 13 to persons over 25 years of age.
The usefulness of this notification was exceedingly
doubtful. True, in one instance (Case 71) Small Pox was
discovered on investigating a case certified as Chicken Pox, and
the same enquiry led to the detection of another case (No. 72)
residing in the same house, but, with this exception, no discoveries
were made. The notification caused a considerable amount of
extra work to the Staff, who were already over-taxed In cases
where the age of the patient stated on the certificate gave rise
to any anxiety, the permission of the Medical Attendant was
immediately sought and obtained for my personal visit.
SCARLET FEVER.—The notification certificates received
amounted to 651, 492 of which cases were isolated in the
Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals. Subsequent events
showed that of the 492 cases removed to Hospital 14, or 2.8 per
cent. were returned home as not suffering from the disease.
After deducting this number we have a corrected total of 337
cases for the year. The attack rate for the whole Borough
equalled 4.88 persons for every 1,000 residents, which is above
the average (3.98) for the County of London. Only 10 London
Boroughs showed a higher rate. (See Table 19).
Sub-dividing the cases over the various wards and
examining the attack rates in each, we find Manor Ward in Lee