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SECTION F.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
A table of the notified Infectious Diseases will be found
in the Appendix. The only serious epidemic was a small
outbreak of infantile paralysis, to which I have referred
more fully elsewhere in my report.
415 visits were made to notified cases of infectious disease
(diphtheria, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, etc.). On the
removal of a case to the Isolation Hospital, the release from
quarantine (home cases) or in other necessary cases,
disinfection was immediately carried out by spraying rooms
and their contents with formalin, and the clothing and
bedding were steam disinfected at the disinfecting station.
Public Library books found in any premises in which
infectious or contagious disease occurred were also disinfected
by formalin vapour in a special metal chamber.

SCARLET FEVER.
143 cases were notified during the year, and of these 88
were transferred to hospital, the remainder being nursed at
home. As for a good number of years now, the infection
proved to be of a very mild type, though he would be a bold
man to guarantee that it will remain so. The great disadvantage
of the mild type of scarlet fever is that there
must be many cases in which people have the disease
without realising it, and consequently spread it about among
others owing to lack of the precautions normally adopted
in cases of this illness.
DIPHTHERIA.
There were no cases of diphtheria notified during the
year, which is probably a tribute to the efficacy of immunisation,
but there are so many other factors to be considered
in the prevention of this disease that it would be intellectually
unpardonable to be so unwise as to rush to the
conclusion that immunisation is the only relevant factor—
an error into which the unstatistically minded are all too
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