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47
DYSENTERY
During the year 1938, notifications were received of 81 cases of dysentery.
Forty-one of these were removed to hospital, and in thirty-nine other cases the
patients were in hospital when the disease supervened. One case was nursed at
home. Bacteriological confirmation of the presence of the dysentery bacillus
in the stools was obtained in 44 cases. Information from the various hospitals
to which the patients were sent showed that twenty-one of the notified cases were
discharged as not suffering from dysentery, and three patients died of enteritis.
The monthly distribution of the 81 cases was as follows : January, 36 ; February,
10; March, 5; April, 1; May, 4; June, 3; July, 3; August, 5; September, 9;
October, 2; November, 2; December, 1. The cases were therefore sufficiently
numerous during the earlier part of the year to constitute epidemic proportions,
especially as it is probable that there are many more missed cases of the disease
than the numbers notified.
The ages of the patients varied considerably. The youngest notified patient was
aged 7 weeks, and the oldest patient was 83 years. The cases occurred in the
following age groups:—
Table No. 37
Under
1 year
1
to
2
2
to
5
5
to
10
10
to
15
15
to
25
25
to
35
35
to
45
45
to
55
55
to
65
65
†
Total
11
18
27
8
—
1
2
—
5
—
9
81
Thirty-eight of the notified patients were males and 43 were females.
From the clinical notes which are available in respect of certain patients, it would
seem that in the majority of cases the attack was mild. A proportion of the patients
showed blood in the stools during the early phase of the illness and diarrhoea and
vomiting were common features.
From published statistics it appears evident that there has been for the past few
years a gradual increase in the number of cases of dysentery in England and Wales.
Dysentery used to be regarded as an institutional or an asylum disease but it is now
spreading over the population generally. Two or three large outbreaks were reported
in provincial towns during the late summer and autumn of 1937 and the number of
cases both in Shoreditch and the rest of London rapidly increased during the last few
weeks of 1937 and the first few weeks of 1938. The figures of the last quarter of 1937