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INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
The procedure with regard to infectious diseases was considered
in detail in the report for 1937. During 1938, 12
cases of contacts of infectious disease were reported by Port
Medical Officers of Health, 8 such cases being related to enteric
fever, while 4 were contacts of smallpox. In all cases the
usual observations were made of the contacts and no untoward
happenings took place.
The Medical Officer of Health was called in consultation
with the local Medical Profession on 37 occasions.
The differentiation of the streptococcal infections into those
which are not scarlet fever and those which are scarlet fever
is one not now of much medical importance, although the Public
Health Act, 1936, still makes notification necessary regarding a
case of streptococcal infection showing a certain syndrome, the
main part of which is a rash, and to which the name "scarlet
fever" may be given. As long as the legal responsibilities are
not more in accord with the present day medical attitude regarding
the streptococcal infections, so will there continue to be
attached to the syndrome "scarlet fever" a greater importance
than it deserves, "scarlet fever" being, in fact, but one manifestation
of an infection by the streptococci. From the medical
point of view, importance is to be laid upon the streptococcal
infection and not upon whether the infection in a particular case
has caused a particular type of rash, or not. Such, no doubt, is
the explanation of the fact that, of the 37 cases in which a
second opinion was asked, no less than 17 were of streptococcal
infections.
The other diseases were—german measles (4), infantile
paralysis (4), Diphtheria (2), chickenpox (2), tuberculous
meningitis (2), pneumonia (1), encephalitis (1), measles (1),
typhoid fever (1)—(observation proved negative), enema rash
(1), urticaria (1).
Due consideration was given to Sections 60 and 61 of the
Middlesex County Council (General Powers) Act, 1938. The
obligations imposed upon parents by these sections are practically
similar to what had become the routine practice in
Wembley, both as regards informing the Head Teachers of
schools and as regards the advice given to families on the outbreak
of notifiable disease amongst their members. To have
statutory weight to such practice of course is valuable, and the
Council resolved that immediately on the Act coming into force,
these sections be adopted.
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