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1902]
102
CONTINUED FEVER.
Five cases were notified, which is also the corrected average for the
preceding ten years. They represent an attack-rate of 0.01 per 1,000.
Hospital Isolation.—Two, or 40 per cent., of the cases were removed
to hospital, while 3 remained at their homes.
Fatality.—One case, or 20 per cent., died. No death occurred among
the hospital cases, the single death being among the 3 cases nursed at
home.
RELAPSING FEVER.
No cases were notified.
CHOLERA.
No cases were notified.
CHICKEN POX.
Owing to the epidemic of Small Pox that prevailed since August, 1901,
the London County Council, with the consent of the Local Government
Board, under the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, made
the notification of this disease compulsory. The proposal to notify Chicken Pox
was not approved by your Public Health Committee, whose action was proved to
be fully justified by the fact that the utility of its notification was never demonstrated
in Islington. Indeed, it proved useless in detecting cases of Small Pox,
the sole purpose for which it was made notifiable. It is not at all certain that the
results obtained by the notification of one disease to detect another have been
satisfactory to the central body, for in a report of their Public Health
Committee on October 9th, they say, "that in 35 complete weeks 17,616 cases
(i.e., of Chicken Pox) have been reported, as against 6,352 cases of SmallPox.
That considerable difficulty in diagnosing the two diseases has been
experienced is evident from the fact that between 25th February and 9th
October, the services of the medical consultants appointed by the Council were
utilized in no fewer than 1,140 cases, of which 563 proved to be Small Pox,
322 Chicken Pox, and 248 other diseases." If the notification had been of use
they would have told us that there had been so many cases of Chicken Pox
notified of which so many proved to be Small-Pox.
Their statement is misleading, it proves nothing, although it leaves the
reader to assume that, but does not state, the consultations occurred
because of the notification of the disease. Nothing of the kind, however,
happened. The consultations took place before the notifications were made,
because the practitioners were in doubt; and they would have occurred even if
Chicken Pox had never been notifiable, if the experts had been available.