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13
Although no cases of small-pox were notified in Hornsey, we
suffered from several " false alarms," which served the useful
purpose of testing the efficiency of our methods for dealing with
an actual case of the disease.
At one time it seemed not unlikely that London would be
attacked by a small-pox epidemic, and it was therefore considered
desirable to take certain precautionary measures in this
Borough. Some twelve thousand leaflets, urging the desirability
of vaccination or re-vaccination, were sent out to the public
elementary, secondary and private schools in the Borough; and
the doctors who practise in Hornsey were circularised regarding
the disease so that they might co-operate as much as possible
with the Health Department in discovering the first case.
Posters supplied by the Guardians were displayed throughout
the Borough; and it is satisfactory to be able to report that the
public, and especially the unvaccinated children, availed themselves
to a great extent of the offer of vaccination. Small-pox
does not tend to spread and to become epidemic in a wellvaccinated
community, and, although this Borough is never safe
from an imported case of small-pox, yet it is in a far stronger
position now to withstand an epidemic than it was in the late
summer of last year. The widespread neglect of vaccination in
former years has been due much more to the indolence and apathy
of parents than to any conscientious objections which they may
have had to this certain method of preventing disease ; and there
are very few persons who, in the face of an epidemic of smallpox,
are found to hold their objections tenaciously.
The Borough of Hornsey contains no small-pox hospital, but
arrangements have been made for the treatment and isolation of
its small-pox patients at the small-pox hospital of the Uxbridge
Joint Hospital Board. The Borough of Hornsey now has the
right to use ten beds in this hospital.
Typhus Fever, Continued Fever, Cholera, Dysentery,
Relapsing Fever, Trench Fever, Cerebrospinal Fever, Poliomyelitis.—There
were no cases of these diseases notified.
Diphtheria.—There were 123 cases of this disease notified
during the year. The cases were scattered and not related to a
milk supply. Diphtheria is almost always a case-to-case infection,
and is spread by missed cases and carriers. One small