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76
DISEASES NOTIFIABLE IN FINSBURY
Diphtheria
The eradication of Diphtheria has now been almost completed and
this disease which until 1943 regularly killed one or two children in
Finsbury each year and was responsible for between one and two hundred
cases of often prolonged illness each year until the war has gradu
ally disappeared and since 1947 has only occurred sporadically.
Thus in 1948 there was only one case: in 1950 a Finsbury resident
aged 62 developed the disease whilst under treatment in a hospital
in another Borough and an employee aged 22 in a Finsbury firm
resident elsewhere also contracted it: in 1952 a child of five developed
nasal diphtheria but was otherwise not ill In other years
no cases developed nor were any Finsbury persons known to have been in
contact with any cases from outside the Borough.
Also no deaths have occurred from diphtheria since 1947 apart
from the allocation in 1951 of one reported as due to a complication
of the disease which occurred 53 years previously.
This happy state of affairs may be largely attributed to the
energy displayed by the Council and its staff in securing the immunization
of a very large proportion of infants in the years from 1934
onwards.
The Immunization of infants was commenced in Finsbury in 1928 and
in 1934 serious attention was given to its extensive use, By 1939 a
substantial proportion of children had been protected. In that year
Dr. C. L Katial. then chairman of the Public Health Committee sug
gested to the local division of the British Medical Association that
it should press for the extension of immunization on a national basis
The recommendation was accepted and put forward to the Annual Representative
meeting of the Association held in Aberdeen two months
before the outbreak of war by the late Dr Fettes and myself and was
acclaimed as an accepted policy. This undoubtedly encouraged the
Ministry of Health a year or two later to undertake nation wide propa
ganda to secure the immunization of all infants. The campaign to
secure immunization was continued with success during the war in spite
of the difficulties associated with air raid conditions and evacuation
and after the war until 1948 since when it has been continued by the
London County Council.