London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Barking 1954
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]
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staff". After referring to the services provided by the Royal Society
for the Prevention of Accidents it continues: . . . this would seem
a particularly effective method of providing the M.O.H. with material
for his campaign against this largely preventable hazard". Perhaps with
the help of the Home Office, the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry
of Health may yet convince his lay colleagues in his own Ministry
and in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government that the
prevention of accidents in the home is more important than trivial
legal niceties.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES The following notifications were received during the year:—
| Notifications | Deaths | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pneumonia | 47 | 29 | ||
| Tuberculosis: Respiratory | 60 | 71 | 11 | 12 |
| Non-respiratory | 11 | 1 | ||
| Scarlet Fever | 113 | - | ||
| Dysentery | 93 | - | ||
| Puerperal Pyrexia | 60 | - | ||
| Measles | 58 | - | ||
| Whooping Cough | 43 | - | ||
| Food Poisoning | 25 | - | ||
| Erysipelas | 21 | - | ||
| Scabies | 10 | - | ||
| Malaria | 2 | - | ||
| Meningococal Infection | 2 | - | ||
| Poliomyelitis | - | - | ||
| Diphtheria | - | - | ||
In addition I was unofficially informed of 290 cases of infective
hepatitis (epidemic jaundice), a disease which is not, at present, notifiable
in Barking.
Pneumonia
Although pneumonia is notifiable, it is not infectious in the sense
of being a disease spread by germs from person to person, and there
is little point nowadays in its being notifiable.
Tuberculosis
I have included tuberculosis here to emphasize that it is an
infectious disease just as much as diphtheria or measles. It is such
a big and important topic that I have devoted a special section to it.
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