London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Wood Green 1959
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Wood Green]
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Tuberculosis
For your further information, I set out below a broad classification of the cases of tuberculosis notified during the past five years in relation to employment:-
| 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clerical | 12 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| Manual Labour | 17 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 10 |
| Housewives | 8 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 |
| Factory workers | - | 5 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
| Children | 5 | 5 | 1 | - | 3 |
| Professional classes | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Domestic Service | 2 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Nurses | 1 | - | - | - | - |
| Shop Assistants | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Armed Forces | 2 | - | - | 1 | - |
| Retired Persons | 2 | 2 | - | - | 3 |
| Unclassified | 1 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
| 56 | 37 | 25 | 33 | 43 |
The number of cases on the register at the end of the year was
681 as set out in table on page 46.
Our scheme for the B.C.G. vaccination of Wood Green schoolchildren
continues and is working very well. As I explained in
my Annual Report for 1958, of course, this work is undertaken by
the School Health Service.
Satisfactory as the infectious diseases picture is, not only
in Wood Green but throughout the country as a whole, few Medical
Officers of Health are entirely happy on the question of notification.
Notification is, and must remain an essential part of
our defence mechanism against the spread of infectious diseases.
But times change, and infectious diseases with them. Recommendations
have been made by the Public Health Committee of the British
Medical Association and by the Society of Medical Officers of
Health, relating to suggested changes in the general pattern of
notification designed to bring our procedure into line with modern
conditions. As this matter is being taken up and will presumably
be considered by the Ministry of Health in due course, there would
seem to be little point in discussing it further here. I would
merely mention, once again, the anomaly which exists in regard to
scarlet fever. As has been said, it is thoroughly illogical that
a legal distinction continues to be drawn between a streptococcal
infection which includes a rash, i.e. scarlet fever, and a streptococcal
infection which does not include a rash. It may be that
until everyone concerned is completely satisfied that the present
mild form of scarlet fever is here to stay - and this is by no
36