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5
The years 1961 and 1962 will be remembered for the
fact that on five separate occasions during this period
smallpox was brought into this country by air travellers from
Karachi resulting in 62 cases in England and Wales of which
24 proved fatal. Although there was no real threat to the
Borough an indirect effect of these cases was the overwhelming
public demand for vaccination. The occurrence of
a single case of smallpox in Woolwich in January, 1962
caused a local agitation for vaccination clinics to be opened
in Erith but this was successfully resisted. Nevertheless many
hundreds of people in the Borough received vaccination
through their family doctors and many cases of vaccinia
occurred some of which simulated smallpox and raised
difficult problems of diagnosis. 1 should like to place on
record the help which we received in this connection from
Dr. J. V. Armstrong of the Brook Hospital, one of our local
smallpox consultants.
It is a matter of continual surprise that public anxiety
on such occasions can be so great but that, during quiescent
periods, there should be so much neglect of routine vaccination.
There are good reasons why parents should ensure the
primary vaccination of their children in infancy, not the least
being the risk of severe reactions and the possibility, however
small, of post-vaccinal encephalitis when primary vaccination
against smallpox is carried out in adolescence or in later life.
In March, 1962 the report of the Royal College of
Physicians on Smoking and Health was published and confirmed
very convincingly the association that exists between
heavy cigarette smoking and cancer of the lung. Its initial
impact on the public was considerable but there is now a
real danger that the report, with all its implications, will be
forgotten unless vigorous action is taken by the Government,
local authorities and other responsible bodies to keep the
issue alive as one of the outstanding public health problems
of the day. At the time of writing a five-day visit to the area
of a mobile unit of the Central Council for Health Education
is being planned to act as a spearhead in a week's campaign
concerned, mainly, with the problem of smoking by schoolchildren.
We are approaching the end of an era in local government
in the Greater London Area. With the London Government
Act, 1963 on the Statute Book one is becoming increasingly
pre-occupied with the future of the Health and Welfare
Services in the proposed London Borough 18.