View report page

147
Venereal Disease.
A list of hospitals at which free treatment may be obtained will
be found in Section 2 of this report.
Information on this subject is given under the strictest secrecy
at the Public Health Department to persons who apply personally or
by letter. Disinfection of clothing, bedding, etc., is carried out free
of charge by the Public Health Department.
Enteritis.
Gastro-enteritis is not a notifiable disease, and the exact number
of cases occurring cannot be computed. Fourteen children were,
however, admitted to Hospital with this complaint, eight of whom
were aged less than one year. In most instances the disease was of
a mild nature. It has been mentioned under "Dysentery" that in the
case of two children admitted to Hospital with "enteritis," a revised
diagnosis of "dysentery" was made. It is possible that a number of
cases of mild enteritis treated at home are, in reality, caused by one
or other of the bacilli of dysentery. Examination of the stools is
thus of great importance particularly when the disease begins to
assume epidemic proportions. Outfits for bacteriological examination
of the faeces are available to Medical Practitioners on application to
the Medical Officer of Health.
A small scale epidemic of "gastro-enteritis" occurred in a
Foster-Home. The affected children were all admitted to hospital very
soon after the commencement of illness, but the disease was of an
extremely virulent character, and two of them succumbed. In no
case were pathogenic organisms discovered in the faeces. A postmortem
examination in one of the fatal cases revealed that the cause
of death was a supperative meningitis, and the pneumococcus was
isolated from the brain; there was no abnormality in the gastrointestinal
tract. Haemolytic streptococci were found in the throat of
one of the other patients, whilst in another case a throat swab yielded
an almost pure growth of B.Coli.
On investigation it was discovered that the 'nurses in charge of
the ward at the Foster-Home had recently suffered from sore throats,
which were shown to be streptococcal. Haemolytic streptococci were
found to be present in the case of only one of these nurses, and these