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6
the form of butter, or cooking fat, or margarine is not likely to grow
food poisoning germs, but this is very likely indeed in the case of
brawn or pork or other meat pies, cream fillings (whether real or artificial)
in cakes, ice-cream and so on, and it is these items which have to be
very carefully guarded.
Infectious diseases
Tuberculosis, being the most important of the infectious diseases,
particularly as far as loss of working years is concerned, has been dealt
with separately above.
With regard to the more acute infections, 1948 was a "measles year";
there being 2,642 cases as against 810 in 1947. Before the war thcre used
to be a definite biennial periodicity in measles incidence, but this
flattened out during the war, possibly due to evacuation. It has, however,
shown signs of recurring since the war ended. There were less cases of
pneumonia (67 against 104 in the previous year) and in fact there were
less cases of this disease than for many years past. Poliomyelitis
(infantile paralysis), after the heavy number of cases in 1947 when
there were 72 of this and allied diseases, dropped to 9 in 1948. Scabies,
a disease of overcrowding, poverty, defective hygiene and sanitation,
has been dropping each year since the peak period during the war in 1944,
when there were 654 cases, to 54 in 1948. Scarlet fever was up slightly,
but with the extremely mild type of disease which is common now, it is
of little significance. Whooping cough, however, showed a considerably
increased incidence, there being 789 cases notified which was more than
double the number notified in any of the previous six years. Whooping
cough, in fact, can be regarded as the most important acute infectious
disease in childhood, not only because of the fact that children may die
during the disease, particularly from broncho-pneumonia, but also
because they may develop later complications such as lung abscess or
enlarged glands in the chest which may incapacitate them for many
months or years. In view of the fact that there have been recent
advances in the methods of preventing these later complications and
because there have been better means of treating the actual disease,
it is desirable that a greater proportion of whooping cough cases should
be removed early to hospital. The bed position, I understand, is not so
bad that cases of whooping cough requiring in-patient treatment cannot
be taken in.
Old people
The committee at the end of the year had before them a comprehensive
report on old people which I had prepared and they later decided
on various methods in which they could help agencies dealing with
old people in the borough. Further details with regard to this are found
on page 21 of this report.
The end of local maternity and child welfare
In my last report I commented on the fact that 1947 was the last
full year for which the borough council would be reponsible for most of