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and premises where these measures are necessary. In appropriate
circumstances the head teachers of schools are notified and the
London County Council regulations with regard to exclusion of
both patients and contacts are enforced. There are two exceptions
to this general arrangement. All cases of tuberculosis are
dealt with directly by means of the Tuberculosis Dispensary
organisation, visits being paid at regular intervals to the homes of
all notified patients, and in the case of measles and whooping
cough, since so many of the patients are children, the visiting is
done by the Health Visitors and not by the Sanitary Inspectors.
Special enquiries of any kind in connection with infectious diseases
are made by the Sanitary Inspector, and the body of a person who
has died from any infectious disease is not allowed to remain at
home or to return home from hospital, unless the Sanitary Inspector
is able to satisfy me that this procedure would be absolutely
safe and reasonable.
DIPHTHERIA.
The number of cases of this disease notified during the year
was 187 ; this is an increase of twenty as compared with last year,
in which year the number of cases of diphtheria was the lowest
recorded for more than thirty years. In 33 cases the diagnosis
was not confirmed, so that the actual number of cases of diphtheria
which occurred in the borough last year was 154. There were
four deaths, all of children of seven years or less, two from heart
failure, one from toxaemia and one from diaphragmatic paralysis.
The appended table records the attendances at the Schick
Clinics during the year. One patient who was immunised and
found to be Schick negative after immunisation in 1936, contracted
diphtheria this year. Two Schick Clinics are held each
week, one at the Public Health Centre on Mondays at 10 a.m. and
one at 98 Rotherhithe New Road on Fridays at 11 a.m. The total
number of children under school age immunised during the year
was 132, and the number of school-children immunised was 139