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population and the younger adults protected against the danger of
poliomyelitis. A note on vaccination against the disease appears
later in this report under the personal health services.
Dysentery
Twenty-three cases were notified during the year, all caused
by shigella sonne. There were no outbreaks in schools and arrangements
for minimum periods of exclusion, detailed in previous reports,
continued.
Typhoid Fever
One case of typhoid was notified during the year, a man of
35 years who was not admitted to hospital. He made an uneventful
recovery and it was not possible to isolate the organism for phage
typing. The symptoms were those of enteric fever. The patient
had been innoculated against typhoid A and B about five or six years
previously.
Measles
580 cases of measles were notified, eleven of them over the
age of 15 years, and of these seven were more than 25 years old.
Twelve patients were treated in hospital, three cases being complicated
by pneumonia and three by tonsillitis. All made uneventful recoveries.
Diphtheria
Once again there were no cases of diphtheria in the Borough.
Smallpox
There has indeed not been a case of smallpox in Hornsey
since 1932. This broad statement present little of the true
picture, and the continued relative freedom of this country from this
disease results only from the constant vigilance of public health
authorities at ports and all over the country. On Christmas day,
1961, a passenger arrived by air from Pakistan and stayed in a
neighbouring borough. Shortly afterward he fell ill with smallpox.
Shortly after it was found that another patient, not associated with
the first one, had arrived in England on 19th December. He went
to West Bromwich. A third proceeded to Bradford, a fourth to
Birmingham and yet another stayed at Birmingham and went on to
Cardiff. Thus in a very short time five cases of smallpox were
imported from Pakistan by air into the country. During the course
of the year 66 cases of smallpox were notified and 23 patients died;
each case gave rise to a considerable number of contacts, all of
which had to be very carefully kept under surveillance by the local
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