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17
Two deaths were attributed to measles, one of a child aged between 1 and 2 years and
the other of a child aged between 2 and 5 years.
The Women Sanitary Inspectors visit cases of measles with few exceptions and arrange,
where necessary, for the attendance of the District Nurses.
The cases requiring nursing assistance during the year numbered 11 under 5 years of
age and 8 over 5 years of age. The number of visits paid by the nurses was 61 and 38 to each
group respectively.
Thirty-eight cases received treatment in hospital.
GERMAN MEASLES.
This harmless, but infectious disease, is notifiable in Paddington; 1,163 cases were notified
in 1929, as compared with 109 in 1928, 78 in 1927, 124 in 1926, and 375 in 1925. Nearly
all the 1,163 cases occurred during the first half of 1929. Sixty-one patients received treatment
in hospital.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM.
This disease is notifiable in London under section 55 of the Public Health (London) Act,
1891, the London County Council having by resolution in 1911 made this section applicable
to the disease.
Nine cases of purulent eye-discharge of the new-born were notified in 1929. Of these
8 recovered without any impairment of vision. The result of the remaining case is not
known, the child having been discharged from hospital to another district.
As soon as a case of this disease is notified, intensive efforts are made by the Council's
staff to ensure that proper treatment is carried out. Daily visits are paid and private or
charitable medical treatment is invariably enforced. Where necessary the infant and its
mother are removed to a hospital, provision of this accommodation being ample. All necessary
nursing attention is given by home visiting on the part of the Paddington and St. Marylebone
District Nursing Association.
In addition to true purulent discharges some eleven cases of slight discharge from the
eyes of infants reported by midwives to the London County Council were referred to this
Department and received attention, no doubt preventing in a few instances the onset of the
more severe form of the disease.
During 1929, 4 cases were referred to the District Nursing Association, 99 visits being
paid.
Six cases of ophthalmia of the new-born were treated in hospitals as in-patients.
PUERPERAL FEVER.
There were 4 cases of puerperal fever notified during 1929, all of which were removed to or
nursed in a hospital. There is no difficulty in obtaining institutional treatment for women
suffering from this disease. Cases of puerperal fever referred to the Metropolitan Asylums
Board are concentrated as far as practicable in three institutions, namely, the Eastern Hospital,
Homerton, the North-Western Hospital, Hampstead, and the South-Western Hospital, Stockwell,
where special wards are set aside for these cases and special medical and nursing staffs
provided. The Board have also provided an obstetric consultant at these three institutions.
Paddington mothers go, as a rule, to the North-Western Hospital, Hampstead, which is
within easy reach of the Borough.
Six women were certified as having died from puerperal fever, two of them not having
been formally notified.