London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Finchley 1914
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Finchley]
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The following table shows the latent period as given. It will be seen that 4 days appears to be by far the most common period.
Days between the premonitory symptoms and jaundice.
| Days | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | No history of premonitory symptoms |
| No. of cases | 1 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 2 | — | 1 | 1 |
It is noticeable that in 2 cases after the first premonitory
symptoms were over the child returned to school, and after
an attendance of 2 days in on ecase and one day in another,
again fell ill. Such an abatement of symptoms is not at
all unknown in other acute infectious diseases.
Incidence of the Disease.—As before stated, it is known
that this outbreak was not entirely confined to children.
Judging from the details obtained of the 40 cases, the disease
appears to have been much more frequent among the girls
than the boys. Of these patients 25 or 62.5% were girls,
and 15 or 37.5% were boys. This greater incidence amongst
girls has been observed in previous epidemics. It will be seen
also from the table set out below that the disease appears to
attack chiefly the younger children. 72.5% occurred under
the age of 10 and 85% under the age of 11.
TABLE
| Ages — | Total. | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Females | — | |||||||||
| — | — | — | 15 | |||||||
| Total | 5 | 9 | 7 | 5 | — | 4 | 40 |
Local Incidence.—The disease was much more prevalent
in East Finchley than elsewhere. 29 cases came from this
district, 7 from North Finchley, and from Church End.
But the disease was not more conspicuous amongst the poor.