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64
Dysentery
Ninety-nine cases of dysentery were notified during 1955,
all of which were bacillary in origin, the majority being due to
Sonne bacillus. Generally speaking the cases were of a mild
type and there were no deaths.
Erysipelas
Each of the nine cases notified during the year was treated
at home. There were no deaths.
Meningococcal infection
Only two cases of this disease were notified during the
year and both were removed to hospital. There was one death
of a child under one year reported.
Malaria
Six cases of malaria were reported during the year.
Investigations showed that all the patients were persons who
had recently returned from abroad.
Poliomyelitis
There were thirty cases of acute poliomyelitis notified
and confirmed during the year; ten of the cases showed symptoms
of paralysis. There was no death from this disease during the
year.

Contacts of all cases notified were kept under surveillance
for twenty-one days, (or until the diagnosis was changed in
unconfirmed cases). In each instance an advisory pamphlet was
issued setting out the elementary precautions to be taken. A
number of Kensington residents, who were contacts of cases
occurring outside the borough, were also kept under observation.
In early August, all general medical practitioners in the borough
were circularised drawing their attention to the then increasing
incidence of the disease, so that they would be on the alert for
possible cases. (At that time of the year there was an unusual
preponderance of non-paralytic cases-seventeen compared with
two paralytic cases.)
The investigation concerning the possible association between
inoculations and the contraction of the disease, is still
continuing in co-operation with the Medical Research Council.
Acute encephalitis
Pour cases of this disease were notified in the borough
during 1955. No deaths occurred.
Measles
Of the fourteen hundred and twenty-five cases notified
during 1955, sixty-three were admitted to hospital for treatment.
One death occurred from this disease.