View report page

treated and recovered in Redhill Isolation Hospital. The cause of the
disease could not be traced.
One case of paratyphoid B was notified in August in respect of an
inmate of one of the mental hospitals, who subsequently recovered.
The above represent a slight reduction on the number of cases
experienced in recent years.
Dysentery.
There were 43 notifications of cases of dysentery received in 1947
and 40 of these were inmates of one of the mental hospitals, the remaining
3 cases being inmates of the other mental hospital.
These numbers are appreciably lower than the corresponding totals
for the last two years, and it is hoped the improvement will be maintained.
Three of the cases died of the disease during the year.
Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis.
One case of cerebro-spinal meningitis was notified during April, and
he recovered completely in the Isolation Hospital.
Another case suspected of suffering from the same disease was
admitted to an isolation hospital, where she died the same day. Death
was believed to have been caused by septicaemia.
Poliomyelitis.
No little concern was caused by the publicity given to the widespread
outbreak of poliomyelitis which affected the country chiefly during the
second half of the year. It had previously been generally recognised that
obvious cases of this disease were usually associated with a high proportion
of contacts showing no symptoms and a much smaller percentage
who had transitory symptoms, which latter were by no means peculiar
to this disease, e.g., tonsilitis, headache and diarrhoea, usually accompanied
by a varying degree of pyrexia.
With a widespread outbreak, coupled with Press and wireless
publicity, a large proportion of the population became concerned lest they
were suffering from the disease, and the doctors were unusually
harassed by enquiries. The general policy was adopted of advising all
persons suffering from indispositions accompanied by a temperature who
had been in probable contact with a case to isolate themselves as far as
possible for a week, definite contacts among schoolchildren or those
associating with young children being excluded for three weeks.
The lack of an easily applied and definite means of diagnosis also
complicated decisions upon which suspected cases should be admitted
to hospital and what final diagnosis should be assigned to them. In
20