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30
More than one Case in any One House or Family.
I have heard it said that in previous outbreaks in this country,
it has been extremely rare to find more than one case in a house.
This has certainly not been true in the severe and widespread outbreaks
which have occurred in the Dominions. It was not strictly
true of the present outbreak in Beckenham.
From one house, three cases were notified, but two of these were
" abortive " cases.
From one house, two cases were notified, one of which was an
" abortive " case.
In addition to these, there were at least seven other houses in
which, as well as the notified case, there were cases of illness of a
suspicious nature though of verv short duration.
Age and Sex Distribution.
Of the thirty-three cases, sixteen were males and seventeen
females.
Age under 2-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-29 30-39 40 yrs.
2 yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. and over
No. of
Cases 1 2 7 10 5 4 2 2
The disease is called Infantile Paralysis because in the earliest
days, most of the cases occurred among children under the age of
two years.
In this recent outbreak in Beckenham, only one of the thirtythree
cases was under two years old: on the other hand, thirteen
cases (or 39% of the total number) were in persons aged fifteen years
and over.
Severity of Cases.
To classify cases merely as " Severe," " Moderate " or " Slight "
would not be very informative. I am not aware of any recognised
definition of the various degrees of severity met with as the results of
this disease, and so I have tried, by as accurate description as is
possible, to indicate what facts I have taken into consideration in
placing the cases in the different categories.
Very Severe Cases with complete paralysis of one or more
limbs.
Severe Cases with paralysis of one or more groups of
muscles, resulting in crippling or a severe
degree of disability.
Moderate Cases with marked weakness in a group of
muscles, resulting in some degree of disability.
Slight Cases with some weakness in single muscles'
but with no real permanent disability.
Abortive Cases with no residual paralysis or muscular
weakness.