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21
SMALLPOX.
During the first year of my tenure of office as Medical Officer
of Health, there were in Leyton seven persons suffering from smallpox
; and two years afterwards, in the year 1930, there were as many
as 138 cases of smallpox in the Borough. Since 1933—some 18 years
ago—Leyton has been quite free from smallpox. It is now so rare
that the occurrence of but one case would not only mobilise the
resources of the whole public health department, but would no
doubt be the cause of headlines in the local press and something
akin to panic in the town. During these 18 years of freedom from
smallpox, cases of virulent Asiatic smallpox have gained entrance
to this country, and many close contacts of these cases have been
kept under close supervision in Leyton. The fact that recent
epidemics of smallpox in this country have been stamped out at
once does not find its way into the public press, because the prevention
of disease—even although it requires close vigilance from
day to day—is not "news".
ENTERIC FEVER.
Enteric Fever, one of the great killing infectious diseases of
a generation ago, is now not only rare, but mild. Last year there
were three Leyton residents found to be suffering from enteric
fever (one from true typhoid, and two from paratyphoid), of whom
all made good recoveries. In the last eight years there has been
no death from enteric fever; but in the same period fifty years ago
that disease killed 103 Leyton residents.
About the same period Diarrhœa and Enteritis used to kill
Leyton children under five at the rate of over 100 a year ; but it
has now been brought under control to such an extent that no death
is attributable to that cause in the year under review.