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151
Report of the Medical Officer of Health
"The sick should be isolated from the healthy, and if
appropriate isolation and nursing cannot be obtained at home the
patient should be treated in an isolation hospital. The sick room
and its contents should be disinfected at the end of the illness.
"No child should be allowed to attend school from an infected
family."
Of the five cases notified none died, but four of the cases were
permanently paralysed, the latest inquiries in the current year
showing that complete recovery had not taken place.
The mortality is about 12 per cent. as a rule, but a large
proportion of the cases who recover are permanently paralysed.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum.
The above disease was made a notifiable one in London on
the 1st March, 1911, and since then 34 cases have Becn notified
in the Borough and 489 in the whole of London.
This disease is, as its name implies, a disease of new born
children. The importance of notification is that if treatment is
not immediately carried out blindness results, and the principal
duty of the Sanitary Authority is to see that the patients have
immediate and proper treatment. When a notification has Becn
received the Inspector visits the house and ascertains if a medical
man is in attendance and if the mother has sufficient knowledge to
carry out the treatment ordered. If not, then arrangements are
made with district nurses to carry out the treatment, and if a
doctor is not in attendance the parents are advised to call in one
at once or take the patient to a special hospital.
Of the 34 cases notified, six were in Clapham, one in Putney,
11 in Streatham, one in Tooting, and 15 in Wandsworth Three
of the cases in Wandsworth occurred in the Workhouse.