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13
midwife forbidden to attend any further case for at least
one month.
Erysipelas.—There were 7 cases notified—4 from
Southgate and 3 from New Southgate. There were no
deaths.
Diarrhoea was very prevalent during the prolonged
heat of the summer, and caused 13 deaths, or 8.9 per cent.
of the total number of deaths, in 10 of which the victims
were infants under one year of age. This is equal to a
rate of .9 per 1,000 of the population. The same rate for
England Wales was .96.
Measles.—There was very little Measles during the
year in any part of the district excepting quite at the
beginning of the year at New Southgate, where an
epidemic had broken out in the last quarter of the previous
year, which ended in January of last year, causing 2
deaths in that month. During the rest of the year only
1 death was recorded.
This immunity from Measles during the past year was
no doubt due to the general prevalence of the disease the
year before, culminating in the above-mentioned epidemic
at New Southgate, whereby the majority of those susceptible
to the disease contracted it. Hence there was very
little susceptible material left last year.
The question of adding Measles to the list of notifiable
diseases was again brought before your notice in
the form of a motion proposed by one of your members
that it should be. I recommended you not to do so for
reasons of which the following are the chief.
(1) The main object of Notification is to check the spread
of disease by the prompt information to the Sanitary Authority
of the occurrence of the earliest cases, so that steps can be
taken to prevent their spread by immediate isolation of these
first cases, and if necessary by the closing of the schools. But
in the case of Measles this object is defeated, because it is
during the first four days of indefinite illness before the chaacteristic
rash appears by which Measles declares itself, that
it is most infectious : and, therefore, by the time information
of the earliest cases can be received and acted upon the infection
has had time to spread widely, and notification is then too late
to be of any service.
(2) The chief mortality from Measles is amongst the poorer
classes, who are chiefly responsible for the bulk of the spread,