View report page

Shewn also is an increase of 92 in the number of inhabited
dwellings, of £118 in the product of a penny rate to over £6,000, and
a reduction of the accident death rate from 0.43 to 0.28 per 1,000
population.
Infectious Diseases Control
The Annual Report for 1957 referred to a special investigation of
Poliomyelitis in Beckenham which dealt with 118 confirmed cases
occurring in the Borough between 1947 and 1957. Eighty-five of these
cases occurred over a 9-year period, so that it is especially pleasing to
record that this year there were no notifications of poliomyelitis in
Beckenham.
Poliomyelitis vaccinations commenced in the Autumn of 1956—
in 1957, 2,709 children had received a course of two injections and by
the end of 1959, 10,799 children had received a third injection.
In November 1958 evening Clinics were commenced to enable
persons in the 15-26 age group to be immunised other than at their
place of work or by their own family doctor. These are still held on the
first Monday and Tuesday of the month (excepting bank holidays) at
6 p.m. at the Town Hall Clinic. Special evening Clinics were held at
West Wickham as and when necessary. From the start there was a
good response of young persons to this opportunity, with an average
attendance of 70 per session, and even today, a few of this age group
attend the Clinic.
One hundred and twenty-one more persons were vaccinated against
Smallpox, and this is a much better figure than last year's decrease of
175. The figures for primary immunisation against Diphtheria and
Whooping Cough show a rather surprising consistency over the years;
only three less children were immunised for the first time against
diphtheria, and 73 less children against whooping cough.
With births each year at about 900, approximately 600 children
are immunised in their first year against whooping cough and diphtheria.
There is room for much improvement as this year more children were
vaccinated against Smallpox than were immunised against either
diphtheria or whooping cough.
Dysentery is a disease which year by year, is just kept at bay. As
the organisms live in the lining of the bowel, and do not normally
enter the body, no satisfactory vaccines can be prepared, and control
is largely a question of treatment of cases which are notifiable and
carriers which are not. Temporary carriers are numerous, largely
harmless and mainly evanescent, and action by the Health Department
Inspectors is directed to assist the family doctor and to seek the
convalescent carriers by the bacteriological examination of feca
specimens. Investigations in recent years shew how much general
contact infections in schools spread the disease, and this is our
experience in Beckenham as shewn by the report in Section F.
6