View report page

50
Annual Return of Food Poisoning Notifications (Corrected).
1. Local Authority: HORNCHURCH U.D.C. Year: 1954.
2. Food Poisoning Notifications (Corrected) Returned to R.G.
lst Quarter. '2nd Quarter. Srd Quarter. 4th Quarter. TOTAL
3 Nil. 1 3 7
3. Outbreaks Due to Identified Agents :
Total Outbreaks : Nil. Total Cases : Nil.
4. Outbreaks of Undiscovered Cause :
Total Outbreaks : Nil. Total Cases : Nil.
5. Single Cases :
Agent Identified : 2. Unknown Cause : 5 7
(Salmonella typhimurium in both cases.)
Erysipelas.
12 cases were notified during the year. My lack of conviction
noted in last year's report as to the benefits accruing from notifying
this disease persist.
Dysentery.
3 cases were notified during the year. This again represents a
minor incidence and although is probably by no means representative
of the actual occurrence of the disease in the district—since many mild
cases will never be investigated—it remains tangible evidence that no
major outbreak has occurred.
Poliomyelitis.
The year saw a reduction in the number of eases from 9 last year
to 4 this, and satisfactorily of the 4, 3 were non-paralytic, and 1 showed
some paralysis.
All the cases were males, their ages being 15, 12, 7 years, and
14 months.
The paralytic case is of some interest in that although it can
clearly not be established with certainty, substantial evidence could be
adduced to suggest that this case—a boy of 14 months—might well
have had contact with a child closely associated with a definite ease of
Poliomyelitis who had suffered from a febrile illness (which could have
been an abortive Poliomyelitis) and which would, within the terms of
its incubation period, have fitted into the general picture of the present
case.
The paralysis in this case affected the left foot and it appeared to
be making reasonable progress. It was not hospitalised because it came
to light through the medium of an orthopaedic department at a late
stage.
The usual routine measures of supervising contacts were put in
force.
The paralytic case illustrates in some measure the complexity of
securing a really full history of the circumstances of a case and especially
of endeavouring to ascertain the contacts involved. One must
draw a definite line somewhere, but it almost seems that in some eases
the more serious type of contact may relate to a friend, playmate, or
visitor to a house, rather than to an actual inmate of a house. Not
only in Poliomyelitis but in infectious disease enquiries generally, it is