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362
MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGH.
As compared with the preceding year, there was a greatly
increased prevalence of Measles and of Whooping Cough. Nurse
Ager paid 27 visits of advice and assistance, and the Health Visitors
and the Ranyard Nurse visited many other infants and children.
In view of the decision of the Ministry of Health to rescind the
Order for the compulsory notification of Measles as from the end of
1919, it is necessary that the earliest possible information should
reach the Medical Officer of Health regarding cases having (or
suspected of having) Measles, which come to the knowledge of the
officials of the Education Authority. Accordingly, the L.C.C., as
the Education Authority for London, has made arrangements whereby
if any school or schools are threatened by exceptional Measles
prevalence the School nurse is to make a daily visit to the Infant
Department of any such School in which there are children under
five years of age in attendance requiring to be kept under observation.
The school nurse has to inspect the children in the class
specially affected, and any actual or suspected cases are immediately
to be reported to the Medical Officer of Health. The Head
Teacher will also notify at once all cases sent home by the school
nurse.
This procedure will probably give us as much information
of the existence of Measles as was obtained under the Order for its
compulsory notification; and so we shall continue to be able to put
into force the arrangements for visitation and occasional nursing
assistance which were previously made by the Borough Council.
The arrangement made in 1919 for securing the services of a
visiting nurse in connection with cases of Measles, Whooping Cough,
Summer Diarrhcea and Ophthalmia, occurring amongst infants and
young children, will inevitably lead to a reduced mortality from
these cases by ensuring nursing advice and attention for selected
cases. It is, however, inevitable that during a severe epidemic of
Measles or Whooping Cough the arrangement with a nurse who is
already undertaking other nursing duties will not suffice, and the
Ranyard Nurses Mission have undertaken on these occasions, if and
when so ordered by the Borough Council, to provide temporarily
an additional nurse at the low cost of two guineas per week.