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The incidence of the Tottenham smallpox cases shows all too
clearly that the risk of smallpox is still with us. When one
remembers that the state of vaccination in Great Britain as a whole
is anything but satisfactory, the danger will be more clearly
appreciated. It is not so many years ago that the percentage of
infants being vaccinated in Southgate was less than 10. By the
end of 1955, records prepared in the Area Health Office show
that 68% of Southgate children reaching the age of two years were
protected against smallpox by vaccination. By the end of 1957,
this figure had risen to the very satisfactory level of 80%. This,
of course, is almost entirely due to the constant advice given to
parents attending our clinics, by our Area Assistant Medical Officers
and Health Visitors, who by their efforts and by their persuasion
have encouraged mothers to take the fullest advantage of the
vaccination facilities now provided at all our clinics.
Food Poisoning, including Sonne Dysentery.
One might say that the figures relating to the incidence of
food poisoning (including Sonne dysentery) reported in the
Borough over the past few years indicate that this type of infection
can now be regarded as virtually endemic among the resident
population. Having regard to the increasing number of food
poisoning outbreaks which are being reported each year throughout
the country, even when the much more accurate system of recording
is taken into account, it must be realised that the commoner
organisms which cause food poisoning, especially the salmonella
group, seem to have established themselves throughout the population,
especially the urban population of these islands. Fortunately,
we can at least say that the simpler, non-fatal form of food poisoning
has now taken the place of such diseases of the gastro-intestinal
tract as cholera and the enteric fever group. In other words, killing
diseases which formerly swept the population in vast, overwhelming
waves have now been replaced by comparatively mild attacks of
food poisoning caused by germs apparently introduced within comparatively
recent years into this country.
This, of course, is satisfactory when the picture less than 100
years ago in regard to such diseases as cholera and typhoid fever is
placed against the food poisoning and dysentery situation as we
know it today. But this is only part of the story. So long as
outbreaks or even individual cases of food poisoning are occurring,
so long must it be recognised that these attacks are neither haphazard
nor the result of some unfortunate coincidence. Food
poisoning is the logical result of faulty methods in the preparation,
handling, selling and cooking of food. The fact that the number
of outbreaks of food poisoning, however small these outbreaks may
be, reported each year from England and Wales, is very much
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