Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1926
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34
tween one and two years, but as the attack rate was
much less under one year, fewer deaths actually
occurred in infants.
Twenty-eight of the deaths occurred in males and
19 in females.
Hospital treatment is available in London in the
hospitals belonging to the Metropolitan Asylums
Board in severe cases in which the home conditions
are unsuitable, and patients are also admitted to
special wards in the Fulham Hospital. Of the cases
treated 166 were attended by the Fulham District
Nursing Association, and the work of the nurses was
greatly appreciated.
It will be remembered that during the height of
the epidemic the Council's Health Visitors were unable
to do the additional work without assistance and a
temporary Health Visitor was engaged from the 25th
January to 27th February, and on her relinquishing
this duty another was engaged until the 10th April.
Acute Poliomyelitis (Infantile Paralysis).—Seven
cases were notified in 1926, compared with three in
1925.
It is important to secure early treatment of this
disease for the purpose of minimising or even preventing
the paralysis. The diagnosis in the early stage is,
however, a difficult matter, and in three of the cases
it was found to be incorrect. One of the patients
was suffering from rheumatism, one from an influenzal
attack and the remaining case was found to be
encephalitis lethargica. Two of the four remaining
cases have recovered completely and two are improving.
As showing the infectious nature of this disease it
is interesting to record that one of the patients visited
friends in Wandsworth and seven days later a child
of the Wandsworth family was taken ill with the same
disease.
Epidemic Diarrhoea (Zymotic Enteritis).—Epidemic
diarrhoea in children under five years of age has been