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THE HEALTH OF BARKING
SECTION C.
PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER, INFECTIOUS AND
OTHER DISEASES.
DIPHTHERIA.
The graph on the opposite page shows strikingly the decline in the incidence
of diphtheria from 1928 to 1946 when only 7 notifications were confirmed. One
child, who was not immunised, died.
Until the beginning of the war, large epidemics would break out at intervals
(see 1930—358 cases and 1934—398 cases); evacuation came in 1939 and artificially
reduced the number of cases and from 1940 only cases where the notification was
confirmed by hospital diagnosis are counted, which again artificially lowers the
curve. But through the years 1939 to 1942 an increasing number of people were
having their children immunised and in 1942 a large campaign was launched.
This campaign has been pressed home year after year until the disease is now well
on the way to being stamped out.

The value of mass immunisation hits the reader in the eye, though this picture
is a statistical over-simplification. But there is further evidence for " it has been
shown that out of every five children suffering from diphtheria during the years
1942, 1943 and 1944, four were children who had not been immunised and of
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