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62
The following table gives information concerning the 19 cases of
infective hepatitis which were brought to the notice of this department
during the current year :—
9 cases (one non-resident) removed into hospital.
2 cases notified by Army Authorities (Royal Herbert hospital).
2 cases (one family) removed to hospital but sent home for
nursing.
6 cases traced via School Reports.
There is every reason for believing that this disease will be made
compulsorily notifiable during 1968.
Mental Illness
Public attitudes towards mental illness and disorder are changing.
No longer is it considered right or desirable that unfortunate
sufferers should be incarcerated in asylums to be subjected to what
is virtual torture. A more humane approach has led to the abolition
of judicial certification by the introduction of the Mental Health
Act, 1959, and mental illness is now afforded the same status as
other illnesses.
There appears to be some inconsistency in the fact that although
various agencies have stated that one person in nine spends some
time in a mental hospital and that one in three patients seen by
general practitioners had a neurotic illness, mental illness itself
defies accurate definition. Furthermore, could it be that with the
changing role of workhouses into hospitals following the introduction
in 1946 of the National Health Service Act with the consequent
redistribution of their inmates has resulted in a statistical distortion?
Ascertainment of reliable statistics is difficult but, nationally,
of those persons known officially, some 100,000 (equivalent to about
0.2% of the population) are mentally subnormal and severely subnormal.
Of these, 65,000 are in psychiatric hospitals for mentally
subnormal persons, some 1,000 are at home and, of the 34,000 in
training centres, one half are under the age of 16 years. Of those in
hospital, only 7,000 are under 15 years and these are probably
severely subnormal. It is conceded, however, that the number of
officially known mentally subnormal and severely subnormal may
well be only two-thirds of the true total. Furthermore, it has been
suggested that the total of other mentally ill persons is likely to
equal or even exceed those who are subnormal or severely subnormal.
Such a high incidence presents us with a problem of some
magnitude and urgency which demands appropriate efforts to
reduce it.
Clearly prevention, if made possible, would bring in its train
enormous advantages not the least of which would be the release