View report page

3
be at least half responsible. One cannot pretend that the
population of Erith has better health than any other community,
nor can one say that the infecting agent and the
media of infection were any less. Perhaps our vigorous
attack on flies which showed an abnormal increase in numbers
was a contributory factor. There is another explanation
of the comparative absence of the paralytic type and that is
the number of occult or mild cases which were diagnosed as
flu', cold, tonsilitis, etc., which never progressed to the
paralytic stage to come under observation as Poliomyelitis.
Although measures were taken to combat infection in the
shape of closing the paddling pool, communal cup drinking
fountains, banning Tonsilectomy and other sanitary procedures,
we can feel relieved that Erith was not stricken as
elsewhere.
As mentioned later in the report, Smallpox advanced
very near in that we had six close contacts with the Bilston,
Staffs. outbreak. Here again we escaped when all the facts
pointed to a certainty that cases might be expected.
The Maternity and Child Welfare Services are as popular
as ever. We, unfortunately, lost the services of Mr. O'Sullivan
our Consulting Gynaecologist, who has been helping us for
many years. We were fortunate, however, to secure the
services of Mr. Fouracre Barns of Queen Mary's Hospital,
Stratford and the ante-natal clinics continued as before,
without interruption. In view of the continued high incidence
of prematurity, the health visitors, at my instigation, have
been seeing the new mothers more often in their own homes
by extra visits. This was to find evidence to support a view
I have held that a deep-seated psychological factor may be
present. Much development has taken place in psychosomatic
medicine in recent years, accelerated no doubt by
the needs of war and I think that a mother carrying her first
child in these post war years of economic recovery is more
unstable emotionally, due to war experience, than her pre-war
counterpart. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the
advent of a child to such a mother raises many fears and
thoughts of a private character that would cause her physical
state to deteriorate and influence the development of the
child or the course of her pregnancy. The health visitors get
much private information at a mother's home that would not
be divulged in a clinic. They are able then to dispel many
prepositions, fears and fancies in a mother's mind that arrive