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Diphtheria is a disease caused by a characteristic bacillus
known as the Klebs-Loffler Bacillus, which occurs in the throats
of persons attacked by the disease. It seems to be conveyed from
person to person by direct contact, and there is no virulent disease
which will spread more rapidly under certain circumstances than
this will among school children. It is more or less directly conveyed
from throat to throat by children passing sweets, slate pencils,
and other articles which they are liable to put in their mouths,
from one child to another. Kissing an affected person on the
mouth will also frequently give rise to the disease, and an infected
child coughing in the neighbourhood of non-infected ones will also
often transmit the disease to them. Sometimes the bacilli will
exist in the throat for a long time without producing any symptoms,
but such children, while not suffering themselves, will be liable to
convey the infection to others.
For this reason they have been called "carrier" cases, and,
as expressed in previous reports, my belief is that a large part of
the spread of the disease is due to such cases. Since 1902 an
endeavour has been made in this Borough to prevent any of these
" carrier " cases returning to school, and each Annual Report has
contained some account of the working of the plan. This consists
in getting the parents of a child which is notified as suffering from
diphtheria to bring up the other members of the family within
a week or so after the removal or recovery of the case to the
municipal laboratory at the Town Hall for examination. If
diphtheria bacilli are found in the throats they are excluded from
school for a fortnight, and if then found to be free, are allowed to
return to school. The number of children thus examined in 1914
was 333, belonging to 173 families. Out of this number 18 had
diphtheria bacilli in their throats or noses, 4 of whom developed the
clinical symptoms of diphtheria, and were therefore notified.
Scarlet Fever.
The notifications of scarlet fever in 1914 were 568.
Of these 389 occurred in Bermondsey, 150 in Rotherhithe,
and 29 in St. Olave. This is a decrease of 164 for the Borough
on the total for 1913. The distribution of the disease in the
various Wards, as shown in Table 111. of Appendix, was fairly
uniform.