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In the Ministry of Health's Memorandum on Vaccination against
Smallpox, it is recommended that public health officers, likely to have
to deal with cases of smallpox at short notice, should be regularly
re-vaccinated at not more than yearly intervals. During the year twenty-
four members of the staff of the public health department were vaccinated
or re-vaccinated by the Medical Officer of Health.
Scarlet fever
The number of cases notified in 1959 was fifty-four and, of
this total, four were treated in hospital. There was no fatal case during
the year; in fact, there has been no death from scarlet fever in
Kensington since 1940.
Diphtheria
No case of diphtheria was notified during the year.
Diphtheria immunisation work, commenced by the Council in 1934>
was continued by the London County Council during the year. A summary of
the work carried out in Kensington is as follows
Number of pre-school children immunised 1,996
" " school " " 344
" " re-inforcing injections given 1,497
" " children attending for pre-Schick
tests 387
" which gave a positive reaction 270
" " " " negative reaction 103
" of children attending for post-Schick
tests 772
" proving negative 679
" proving positive 12
" who failed to attend for reading 81
Enteric fever
During the year, there were four cases of typhoid fever and
two of paratyphoid fever.
The first two cases of typhoid fever reported in 1959 were two
Cypriot women, aged 59 and 22 years respectively, associated with a previous
case reported on in my Annual Report for 1958. The older woman had
contracted the disease whilst nursing the original patient and had transmittei
the infection to the younger woman who lived in the same house. All the
contacts were kept under surveillance after submitting negative specimens
and no further cases occurred. The older woman became a "carrier" and
after hospital treatment returned to Cyprus; the Ministry of Health were
informed. The younger woman recovered in hospital.
The third case involved a woman aged 19 years who was admitted
to hospital suffering from a pyrexia of unknown origin. She had not
been abroad and neither had she departed from her normal routine prior
to the onset of the disease. All contacts remained well and submitted
negative specimens. The patient recovered in hospital, but the source
of infection remained undiscovered.
The fourth case of typhoid fever occurred in a little girl aged
3 years who had recently returned from a three months' stay with relatives
in Italy. She had, in fact, suffered the first symptoms of the disease
just before the return journey. She was still undergoing treatment in
hospital at the end of the year. All the contacts remained well and,
with the exception of the child's mother who was found to be a carrier of
Plexner dysentery, all submitted negative specimens.
The first patient reported with paratyphoid fever in 1959 was a
woman aged 45 years. Investigations showed that a younger colleague of
the patient, at her place of work in another borough, had contracted the
disease earlier, and it is thought that infection may have occurred during