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were in Victoria Ward, 3 in St. John's, 2 in Covent Garden, and 1 in
St. Margaret Wards. Nine children were treated at hospitals, 5 as
in-patients. Both eyes were affected in 15 instances. Thirteen were
reported to have recovered without permanent impairment of vision.
Two prematurely-born children died ; the sight was entirely lost in one
eye in two cases, and much impaired in one eye in one case.
In each instance the Health Visitor has visited at the house daily,
or less frequently as the circumstances demanded, and has taken steps
to see that proper medical and nursing attention was secured for the
child. The Inspectors of the County Council under the Midwives' Act
have co-operated by calling attention to cases which come under their
observation.
The cause of the infection is usually gonorrhoea, especially in the
severer forms, and it had been suggested that facilities should be provided
to enable medical men to have a bacteriological report stating the
particular organism present in the purulent discharge.
The Local Government Board, in reply to an enquiry, stated that if
in any case the City Council find it necessary to take swabs from the
eyes of persons suspected to be suffering from Ophthalmia Neonatorum
to ascertain whether they should deal with the case under their powers
relating to infectious disease, the Board consider that the City Council
can legally incur expenditure for that purpose. Bacteriological examination
was made in two instances, the gonococcus was not found in either
ease, but the bacillus xerosis was present in one.
The attention of the County Council was called to a midwife who
attended a case (in 1911), and the matter was eventually laid before the
Midwives' Board, who ordered her name to be removed from the register
of midwives for failing to take steps to have a medical practitioner to
attend the case and for treating the child's eyes with chloride of mercury
and silver nitrate without making a record in her register. The
mother died, the child lost its sight, and another woman was infected
(see under Puerperal Fever in Annual Report for 1911).
Cholera, &c.—Notifications were received from Port Sanitary
Authorities of persons coming to Westminster from districts affected
with cholera, plague and yellow fever. The numbers were 13, 24 and
(i, respectively. They were kept under observation.
Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis has occupied much attention during the last year owing
to two causes; first, the development which has taken place through
the Local Government Board extending the Orders so that by the end of
the year all forms of the disease are required to be notified; and, secondly,
to the coming into force on July 15th of provisions of the Insurance
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