London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

London County Council 1904

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]

This page requires JavaScript

52
were now exhausted so on October 1st she had to descend to playing with Ellen R. (æt. 3); Ellen
failed with her measles on October 12th.
On October 5th Henry George I. was born, and two days afterwards Nellie I. was allowed to
see the new arrival, it being now three weeks since she herself had had measles; this interesting
experiment proved that even after the lapse of three weeks a convalescent from measles should be
shunned, for Henry George began to suffer from his measles on October 19th; he happily recovered
This popular young lady, Nellie I., was therefore directly responsible for no less than 11 cases,
which could be definitely traced to her.
Careful inquiries were made at all the houses known to be infected (92 in number). There
were ascertained to be in all 341 children of school age; of these 198 had not suffered before,
130 had had previous attacks, and 13 were uncertain; of the 198 who had not previously had
measles, 182 suffered while 16 escaped; of the 130 who were said to have had previous attacks, 125
escaped while 5 suffered second attacks.
Amongst the 16 said to be unprotected who escaped, 4 were aged 12, 1 was a baby who died of
pneumonia, and 3 were isolated.
Union-street School.—That the long summer vacation does not stamp out measles is shown
by the fact that several cases occurred during the summer holidays also in this district. Fourteen
days before the school had opened a certain child had measles; her sister, who was aged 51/2, and had
previously had an attack, attended school on the re-opening on August 22nd and on the subsequent
2 days; during this period she was noticed to have a bad cold, she ceased attending, and a
doctor saw her and diagnosed phthisis. He saw no rash, and the mother states that there was no rash.
When I saw her a fortnight later she was recovering from apical pneumonia, and there was no
doubt that she had conveyed the infection into the school; it is possible she had a second attack
of measles without a rash (there was a very definite history of a previous attack of measles).
Within a fortnight from her attendance with running eyes and nose a number of cases—in all
16—began to fall, 12 of these, however, being in the very fairly protected class (II.) in
which she attended. The head mistress at this school has been a lecturer on hygiene and is very
keen and observant as soon as her suspicions were aroused she took energetic measures in the way