London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Camberwell 1955
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell.
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minor abrasions are given serum at hospital as a precautionary
measure. There are many objections to this: on the other
hand fatal tetanus has often followed slight injuries for which
anti-toxin serum was not given.
Poliomyelitis.
This disease has steadily increased in importance throughout
the world. Children under five years are most often attacked
by it, but the death rate is higher in older persons. The amount
of poliomyelitis occurring in most places is very much lower
than for other infectious diseases, but it is found that a very
high proportion of the population in areas where cases have
occurred have been infected and have produced anti-bodies
in their blood, without showing signs of the disease. The
practice in Camberwell has not been to isolate contacts of
cases, except when a new case occurs in an area where there
has been none for a considerable time.
The following table shows the deaths from poliomyelitis and other notifiable infectious diseases which have occurred during the past ten years.
| Disease | No. of Deaths | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | |
| POLIOMYELITIS & POLIO ENCEPHALITIS | – | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | – | – | 1 | – | 1 |
| Scarlet fever | 1 | – | – | — | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Whooping cough | 6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | – | 1 |
| Measles | 3 | – | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | – | – | 1 |
| Diphtheria | 1 | 2 | – | 1 | 2 | – | – | – | – | – |
| Pneumonia:— | ||||||||||
| Acute primary | 2 | – | – | – | – | – | – | |||
| Acute influenzal | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 1 | 2 | – | – |
| Dysentery | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Typhoid and paratyphoid | – | 1 | – | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Meningococcal infections Tuberculosis:— | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | – |
| Respiratory | 89 | 119 | 101 | 79 | 57 | 56 | 48 | 44 | 24 | 28 |
| Other forms | 10 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
The question of preventive inoculation is now very much
to the fore and inoculation of children in certain age groups is
commencing. There are three types of poliomyelitis and the
vaccine contains the virus of all of them. It is killed by the
addition of chemicals, and apart from an unfortunate accident
in America, it has had no ill effects and has been shown to have
a high protection rate. This vaccine is not however the last
word, and it may well be that the time is not far distant when