View report page

21
POLIO-MYELITIS AND ENCEPHALITIS.
Acute Polio-myelitis and Encephalitis, or inflammation of the grey matter
of the spinal cord and brain, commonly known as infantile paralysis, was made
notifiable on the 1st September, 1911. No notification was received during the
year. There were 132 notifications in London.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum is an infectious inflammation of the eyes in newlyborn
children, and is the most common cause of blindness beginning in infancy.
It became compulsorily notifiable on the 13th March, J911.
Arrangements were made by the London County Council for cases of
inflammation of the eyes in newly-born which are notified to the Medical Officer
of Health of the County Council by midwives to be visited in the first instance
by an Inspector under the Midwives Act, when, if hospital treatment is urgently
necessary, immediate steps should be taken to obtain it and information sent to
the Medical Officer of Health.
5 cases were notified in the Borough during the year, 2 in St. Giles and
Bloomsbury and 3 in the Holborn District. These cases were visited by the Lady
Sanitary Inspector. 1 of the infants was attended at an Ophthalmic Hospital,
3 by their own doctors, and 1 was removed to the Central London Sick Asylum,
all having nurses also in attendance.
PHTHISIS OR CONSUMPTION.
The number of deaths from phthisis during the year was 95, or a death-rate
of 1.98 per 1,000, or 1.74 if corrected for sex and age distribution. Of these 35
belonged to St. Giles and Bloomsbury, a death-rate of 144, and 60 to the Holborn
District or a death-rate of 2.54 per 1,000.
Although the death-rate from phthisis is still high in the Borough there has
been a satisfactory reduction in the death-rates during the past 10 years, as is
shown in the table given below, the last 5 years having been much less than the
first 5 years of that decennium.
It must also be remembered that in Holborn there is a much larger proportion
of persons living in common lodging houses than in any other London Borough.
In Holborn the rate is as many as 355 beds per 10,000 of the population; whereas
in Hampstead there are no common lodging houses, and 12 Boroughs have less
than one-tenth the proportion of Holborn.