View report page

33
Those added by the London County Council are cerebro-spinal fever, glanders,
anthrax, hydrophobia, acute polio-encephalitis and myelitis and ophthalmia
neonatorum.
Chicken pox, which was notifiable during part of 1911, was not on the list during
1912.
In the case of phthisis, 1912 was the year which saw it made a disease uniformly
compulsorily notifiable.
In 1911, the notification was only partial, and affected those who resorted to Poor
Law or other institutions, in accordance with the terms of the Public Health
(Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1908, and the Public Health (Tuberculosis in Hospitals)
Regulations, 1911. The Local Goverment Board, which had issued both of these^
superseded them, however, at the end of 1911, and issued a new set, the Public
Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1911, which came into operation on the 1st
January, 1912. A separate section of the report dealing with phthisis will be found
elsewhere, and in it further information with regard to notification and the disease
generally is given.
Apart from the notifiable diseases, records are kept of some others which are
infectious, viz., measles, wbooping cough and diarrhoea.
The information with regard to these is obtained chiefly as a result of
investigations made by the Women Inspectors, though a certain amount is given in
returns sent from the Schools and by the local Registrars.
Table II of the Local Government Board Series, which will be found at page 105,
contains a certain amount of information with regard to the infectious diseases.
Some points call for further consideration, however, and that is given here.
Notifications.—The total number of notifications received during 1912 was
1,219. This is lower by 63 than the figure for 1911, but higher than that of 1910
by 428.
The cause of the increase in the two previous years was of course the large
number of notifications of cases of phthisis received under the various Tuberculosis
Regulations.
Part of the reduction in 1912, as compared with 1911, is due to a fall in the
number of cases of scarlet fever. Other diseases which were slightly less prevalent
were enteric fever and erysipelas.
In 1912 the notification rate (proportion to population of notified cases of
infectious disease) was 10"4 as against 10'8 in 1911.
The number of notified persons removed to one or other of the hospitals for
isolation and treatment was in practically all cases larger than in the previous year.
The percentages of the totals and the actual numbers were as follows:—