London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Paddington 1913
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, Metropolitan Borough of]
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31
DIPHTHERIA.
stress of an emergency being less efficiently performed than when no hurry exists. The
nation is exposing itself to an absolutely unnecessary chance of an epidemic of smallpox on
a huge scale, and individual parents are not acting in the best interests of the future of
their children.
TABLE 27. Vaccination Returns.
| Children Born. | Successfully Vaccinated. | Insusceptible to Vaccination. | Died Unvaccinated. | Per cent, of Children Born. (Cols. 1-4.) | Vaccination Postponed. | Exempted under Act. | " Rest." | Per cent. of Children Born. (Cols. 6-8.) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cols. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 1901 | 3,364 | 2,676 | 5 | 313 | 89.0 | 23 | 34 | 313 | 11.0 |
| 1902 | 3,262 | 2,692 | 12 | 291 | 89.8 | 35 | 19 | 276 | 10.1 |
| 1903 | 3,315 | 2,621 | 10 | 296 | 88.2 | 43 | 32 | 308 | 11.7 |
| 1904 | 3,311 | 2,578 | 8 | 307 | 87.4 | 52 | 22 | 344 | 12.6 |
| 1905 | 3,188 | 2,495 | 11 | 261 | 86.8 | 61 | 40 | 320 | 13.2 |
| 1906 | 3,174 | 2,545 | 9 | 224 | 87.5 | 36 | 41 | 319 | 12.5 |
| 1907 | 3,092 | 2,349 | 7 | 255 | 86.4 | 28 | 97 | 356 | 15.6 |
| 1908 | 3,098 | 2,346 | 8 | 244 | 83.8 | 28 | 201 | 271 | 16.1 |
| 1909 | 2,920 | 2,242 | 11 | 207 | 84.2 | 27 | 243 | 190 | 15.7 |
| 1910 | 2,916 | 2,093 | 6 | 232 | 79.9 | 26 | 356 | 203 | 20.1 |
| 1911 | 2,821 | 2,014 | 10 | 228 | 79.8 | 31 | 367 | 171 | 20.2 |
| 1912 | 2,808 | 1,990 | 5 | 185 | 77.6 | 34 | 388 | 206 | 22.4 |
| 1913 Jan.-June | 1,400 | 909 | 1 | 92 | 71.6 | 53 | 234 | 111 | 28.4 |
DIPHTHERIA*
Last year 296 certificates! of diphtheria were received, or 48 more than in 1912, the
morbidity rate being equal to 205 per 1,000 persons, as compared with 174 in 1912 and an
average rate for the five years 1908-12 of 1.19. (See Table 17.) The local rate deduced from
the figures published in the Quarterly Reports of the Registrar-General was 2 09, 0"49 higher
than that for the County and the highest of all the rates for the year included in Table 18. In
the County (see chart facing p. 24) as a whole, the prevalence of the disease was generally below
the average for the ten years 1908-12 until the thirty-sixth week, after which it was slightly
above. In the Borough the prevalence was generally above the average, and there were some
wide oscillations. The principal periods of high prevalence were (a) during the tenth to the
eighteenth weeks, and (b) from the forty-first week to the end of the year. It should be
explained than an addition of three cases to any week's total produces an increase of nearly
1.5) per 1,000 in the corresponding annual rate, which fact makes it easy to understand the
numerous wide excursions exhibited in the chart.
The number of cases recorded as belonging to each Ward in each quarter of the year are
shown in Table 21, in contrast with the corresponding averages for the years 1908-12. The
variations in the morbidity rates in the different Wards are shown on the next page.
* Unless otherwise stated, cases of membranous croup are included in the figures of " diphtheria."
†A case of rather severe diphtheria in the person of a woman, aged 26, in service in the Borough, was
reported from Bedford. The patient was ill when she left Paddington.
Two cases originally certified as diphtheria have been transferred to scarlet fever, owing to the after history
of the cases.
Two patients, both males, aged 6 and 10 years, were certified to have "diphtheria and scarlet fevor." Four
patients were reported during the year with second attacks of the disease.