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34
The Petroleum Spirit (Motor Vehicles, &c.) Regulations
and the
Petroleum (Carbide of Calcium) Order, 1929,
came into force in December, 1929.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
Legal proceedings have been taken on three occasions.
(1) Under the Public Health Act of 1875 for the abatement
of a nuisance. The defendant was ordered to carry out the work
within 28 days and to pay £1 9s. 0d. costs.
(2) Under the Shops (Hours of Closing) Act, 1928, for not
being closed for the serving of customers at the prescribed time.
Two cases. The defendants were fined £2 and £1 respectively.
PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER, INFECTIOUS
AND OTHER DISEASES.
The incidence of the acute infectious diseases (notifiable) is
set out in Table F, page 48. The numbers are well under the
average for recent years.
Small-Pox. — No case of small-pox occurred in Hornsey
during 1931, in spite of the prevalence of this disease in many
parts of London and the Home Counties.
Early in 1932, however, three cases of Variola minor
occurred.
The story of how this mild infection was introduced into
the Borough is interesting. The first case was a girl of 14 years,
who, about Christmas, paid a visit to friends in an adjoining
Metropolitan borough. On January 7th she had headache and
feverishness, and on the 14th her illness was diagnosed as smallpox.
The suspected source of infection was telephoned to the
Medical Officer of Health of the Metropolitan Borough, and he
found, on visiting the address, that a son of the family was
recovering from a missed case of mild small-pox!—and that the
father was coming out in a small-pox eruption, and just ready
to send to the small-pox hospital!! Fortunately the Hornsey
contacts accepted the advice to get protected by vaccination, and
only two further cases occurred. These were in relatives of the
first case living in another house, containing four families,
totalling 16 persons. But for the good sense of these people in
regard to vaccination the community might have been put to the
unnecessary trouble and expense of an outbreak of this mild
small-pox.