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33
Typhoid Carriers.
The investigation instituted by Dr. Theodore Thomas on
behalf of the Local Government Board as to the proportion of
patients who are supposed to remain infective after recovery
from typhoid owing to their harbouring the bacillus typhosus
was continued last year, and specimens of urine and fæces
from five patients who had been discharged from hospital
were sent to the Lister Institute, but all the examinations—
20 in number—showed the absence of the bacillus.
Errors of Diagnosis in Notified Infectious Diseases.
Of the patients certified as suffering from scarlet fever, 13,
or 3.7 per cent., from diphtheria, 14, or 5.4 per cent., and
from enteric fever, 2, or 11.1 per cent., were subsequently
ascertained not to be suffering from those diseases.
PUERPERAL FEVER.
Twenty cases of puerperal septicaemia, or 4.7 per 1,000
births, of which 5, or 1.2 per 1,000, births proved fatal.
There was a decline in the number of cases as compared
with last year, when 34 cases were notified with 13 deaths,
but, in proportion to the population, there were more cases in
Fulham than in any metropolitan borough.
ERYSIPELAS.
112 persons were certified to be suffering from erysipelas,
and 4 deaths were attributed to this disease.
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS.
Seven patients were notified as suffering from cerebrospinal
fever, but in two cases the diagnosis was not confirmed.
There were 3 deaths from the disease, all of which occurred
in hospital. In London, in 1910, 115 cases were notified,
with 10 deaths.