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The total number of notifications relating to Holborn residents received during
the year was 495 in comparison with 400 in the year 1927.
Attention has had again especially to be called to the non-notification of whooping
cough, primary pneumonia and ophthalmia neonatorum. A special reference card
with complete list of notifiable diseases is supplied to all doctors practising in the
Borough.
In addition to the above there were received 195 notifications respecting patients not
residing in Holborn, many being in-patients of hospitals in the Borough. All these were
forwarded to the Medical Officers of Health of the districts concerned. The 195 notifications
so received were as follows:—
Diphtheria 65
Scarlet Fever 21
Puerperal Fever 1
Pneumonia 2
Erysipelas 1
Cerebro-spinal Meningitis 2
Encephalitis Lethargica 4
Tuberculosis 89
Enteric Fever 10
195
Smallpox.
Early in the year, a poster was put up in the Borough calling attention to
the advisability of vaccination and revaccination if the precaution had not been
taken within the last five years.
One case of smallpox was notified (10/2/29, a male 19 years of age,
inmate of the Metropolitan Asylums Board Hostel, Little Gray's Inn Lane). The
Medical Officer of the Hostel asked the Medical Officer of Health to see the patient
and the smallpox specialist of the London County Council was also consulted.
Owing to the scantiness and very unusual character of the rash diagnosis was
one of extreme difficulty; the patient was removed to the South Wharf of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board for observation where, after development of the rash,
the diagnosis of smallpox was confirmed. Arrangements were made for the
vaccination or revaccination of the staff and inmates of the hostel, 126 vaccinations
being carried out. To keep the contacts under observation the hostel was visited
daily until the end of the incubation period, and information of the places of
destination of imnates leaving the hostel and of the work places of regular residents
was sent to the Medical Officers of Health of the districts concerned. It was
evident in this case that the disease had been contracted while the man was an
in-patient at the Holborn and Finsbury Hospital. Information was sent to the
Medical Officers of Health of Metropolitan Boroughs and surrounding authorities
respecting a patient discharged from the Holborn and Finsbury Hospital stated to
have had "spots on his face" Eventually this man was discovered in the
Hackney Casual Ward, found to be suffering from smallpox, and removed to the
M.A.B. hospital. Infection in four cases, including the one notified in Holborn.
was traceable to this man.
In the early part of June, information was received that a male, aged 65,
removed from a metropolitan casual ward suffering from smallpox, had been an
inmate of a common lodging house in the Borough. On enquiry it was found that
the man, a street newspaper seller, had resided at the common lodging house up