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38
SECTION G.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Except for the incidence of Paratyphoid and the great
increase in measles, there has been nothing of note during the
year. The close liaison with the Hospital Authorities and with
the General Practitioners has continued to assist in the exercise
of control over the spread of infectious diseases. It is especially
important that this liaison should be as close as possible because
so much depends upon the early notification to the Department,
especially does this apply to the more acute infections and to
cases of food poisoning. As most of the notifications during the
year applied to measles and whooping cough, both, fortunately
of a mild nature, and owing to the fact that little can be done
from the Department's point of view in the following up of these
cases without employment of a special infectious diseases nurse,
the activities of the Department during the year under review
have not been unduly heavy. The absence of diphtheria and the
absence of any extension of infantile paralysis have also eased
the task. Three hundred and sixty-nine visits were made by the
Sanitary Inspectors during the year to notified cases of infectious
disease. On the removal of a case to hospital, release from
quarantine (home cases) or in other necessary cases, disinfection
was immediately carried out by spraying rooms and their contents
with formalin, the clothing and bedding being 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.
In my introduction to this report I have mentioned the need
for the notification to the Local Authority of all forms of disease
which by their nature are infectious and not necessarily only
those on the statutory list at present. Such diseases as " Q "
fever, canicola fever, Weils disease, glandular fever are some of
the diseases that could quite well be added to the list of notifiable
illnegses.
Smallpox.
In the early part of the year considerable anxiety in Public
Health Departments followed the Brighton epidemic of acute
smallpox but, fortunately, the dissemination of the disease was
very satisfactorily controlled. However, the importation of
smallpox in a severe form is always possible and for this reason
a plan of campaign in the event of cases arising in the area has
been approved by the Health Committee and the staff kept in a
state of preparation to meet any danger that might arise. At the
time of writing there has been an outbreak of variola minor