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Ophthalmia
neonatorum
20
The incidence of ophthalmia neonatorum which, since 1921, has remained fairly
constant between 8 and 10 new cases per 1,000 live births, commenced to fall
slightly towards the end of the period 1931-40 and, in recent years, has fallen to below
five per 1,000 live births. There were 202 cases in 1952 (3-9 per 1,000 live births), full
details of which are shown below :

The difference between the 202 notified cases and the 185 cases included in the above
analysis arises from the fact that the analysis includes only those cases of which the
mother was a resident in the County.
Pneumonia
Notified cases of pneumonia in 1952 numbered 1,908 or 0.567 per 1,000, compared
with 0.717 per 1,000 in 1951. This disease is considerably under-notified,
particularly at ages over 65, and it is believed that over the whole age-range only about
one-quarter to one-third of the total cases are notified. There is, however, no reason to
believe that this fraction varies from year to year so that the notifications may still be
used as a relative index of incidence. It will be seen from Table 14 that the 1952
notification rate is lower than either war-time or pre-war rates. (See page 12 for
comment on the death-rate.)
Poliomyelitis
The number of confirmed notifications of poliomyelitis (309) which was higher
than that in 1951, was considerably lower than in the epidemic years 1947, 1949 and
1950. The weekly notifications rose sharply to 30 in the thirtieth week, and did not
return to the inter-epidemic level until ten weeks later. Of the total notifications during
the year, 204 were paralytic and 105 non-paralytic. At school ages the non-paralytic
cases slightly exceeded the paralytic in number, but at all other ages the paralytic cases
exceeded the non-paralytic.