London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

Fulham 1927

Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1927

This page requires JavaScript

35
the skin of the forearm and they are painless. The
immunity does not develop immediately after the injections
but takes several months and it is usual to
give a Schick test at the end of six months to ascertain
if the person has been protected.
Approximately 90 per cent. of children can be
immunised by three injections and only in about 10
per cent. of cases are further injections required. The
immunity probably lasts throughout life.
There is little doubt in view of the increase in the
number of cases of diphtheria during recent years that
the adoption of immunisation would lead to useful
results, at first only in preventing the individuals who
were immunised from contracting the disease, but in
the course of years as more and more parents brought
their children to be immunised there would be a considerable
reduction in the number of cases notified and
ultimately a reduction in the death rate. Fewer cases
would have to be treated in hospital and money would
be saved both on administration and treatment.
Diphtheria, like other infectious diseases, interferes
with the education, not only of those who contract it,
but of the other children in the house who have to
remain away from school for two weeks after the patient's
admission to hospital.
Scarlet Fever.
Notification of Scarlet Fever.—Three hundred and
sixty cases of scarlet fever were notified during 1927
which was equal to 2.2 cases per thousand of the population.
Females were more affected by the disease than
males in the proportion of 193 to 167 cases and the
only death which occurred was in a female child of
two years. The mildness of the disease can be judged
by the fact that there was only one death out of 360
cases.
The ages at which the disease occurred will be
seen from the following table which shows that, as in