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40
SECTION G.
INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
I have shown in Table V in the Appendix a return of the
notifications of infectious diseases received during the year,
where it will be seen that, in all, two thousand, six hundred and
fifty-seven notifications were received of which one thousand
six hundred and sixty-three were of measles. Not all of these
cases received a home visit from the Sanitary Inspectors,
visitation being limited to the more acute attacks of infection
and the follow-up of the cases admitted to hospital—which
numbered one hundred and thirty-eight. Home enquiries by
the Sanitary Inspectors totalled four hundred and six.
Broadly speaking, there was no event of serious import
during the year, the exception being a controlled outbreak of
paratyphoid, upon which I report later.
Anterior Poliomyelitis.
Sixty-one cases were notified, thirteen of which were
admitted to hospital. While these figures tend to imply that the
disease was widespread, in effect there was only one acute case,
which arose in June and was still in an iron lung at the end of
the year. A few of those admitted to hospital showed evidence
of partial paralysis which cleared up under treatment and without
resulting in permanent paralysis. The balance of the cases
were notified as infantile paralysis, but did not reach the development
of the paralytic stage.
Smallpox.
Fortunately there were no cases of smallpox, although the
disease did appear elsewhere in the country in its severe form.
It is a disease which is not infrequently undiagnosed in the early
stages and, because of this, there is not infrequently a spread
of the infection before the diagnosis is confirmed. The possibility
of a case being smallpox should always be uppermost in the
minds of doctors when called to a case where the diagnosis is
uncertain.
Owing to the ease and speed of modern travel, the importation
of smallpox from countries where the disease is endemic
is an ever present possibility, and the Health Committee
have accepted a plan of action to be exercised in the event of a
case of virulent Smallpox arising in Orpington. It is also for
this reason that yearly vaccination of Health Department staff
is undertaken.