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
Kensington 1954
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington Borough]
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64
The patient, a visitor to a London exhibition, fell ill shortly
after his arrival from the continent. He was removed to an
isolation hospital for treatment and eventually recovered.
Effective measures were taken immediately to control the spread
of infection and no further cases occurred.
Scabies
The number of notifications of this disease during 1954
was forty-two, which is the same as in the previous year and
compares with four hundred and sixty-three in the peak year of
1946.
Tube rculosis
During the year two hundred and forty-three new cases of
tuberculosis were notified, of which two hundred and eighteen
were respiratory and twenty-five non-respiratory cases.
The following table shows the number of cases added to and the number removed from, the notification register during the year:-
| Description | Respiratory | Non Respiratory | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | F | M | F | ||
| On register of notific-ations on 1st January, 1954 | 735 | 636 | 68 | 89 | 1,528 |
| Notified for the first time during the year | 113 | 105 | 10 | 15 | 243 |
| Brought to notice other than by notification | 87 | 64 | 2 | 7 | 160 |
| Removed from register on account of having - | |||||
| (a) recovered from the disease | 15 | 21 | 1 | 3 | 40 |
| (b) removed from district lost sight of, etc. | 112 | 100 | 6 | 12 | 230 |
| (c) died | 15 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 25 |
| Remaining on register on 31st December, 1954 | 793 | 677 | 72 | 94 | 1,636 |
The system of investigation into the environmental
conditions of tuberculous patients continued during the year.
All newly notified cases and those cases transferring into
Kensington or changing their address in the borough, have
been visited by the sanitary inspectors with the objects of
tracing the source of infection, preventing the spread of
infection and removing conditions favourable to infection.
Particular attention was given to the home conditions in
addition to the dissemination of advice to prevent the
transmission of infection to contacts.
During the year, three hundred and eighty-eight visits
were paid to the homes of tuberculous patients. In two hundred
and thirty-four of these, the environmental conditions were
such as to require no further action on the part of the public
health department; in a further forty-one cases it was found
that the patients had moved away, and in forty-six other
cases the investigation was postponed as the patients were
away in hospital or had not been contacted by the end of the
year. The action taken in the remaining sixty-seven cases
is summarised as follows:-