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VI. PREVALENCE OF AND CONTROL OVER INFECTIOUS AND
OTHER DI SEA SES.
Weather Conditions.
The Meteorological Office reports that for combined
dullness, wetness and coolness, 1954 was the worst year since
1941, and the worst summer since 1890, with a marked deficiency
of sunshine from May to August. Following the driest
winter (1953-54) since 1933-34, a dry spring preceded a dull
wet summer and a mild and some times stormy late autumn and
early winter.
The winter generally was dry, but it was the coldest
January and February since 1947. Snow occurred for 10 days
in January, 7 in February and 6 in March. April, which was
sunny and cool, was the driest since 1938. May was a rather
wet month and June, the wettest for 40 years, was cool and
dull. August was cool, dull and rather wet. September
proved to be the first sunny month since April and registered
the warmest day of the year at 87°F., whilst October taken as
a whole was the warmest month of the year and was generally
rather dry though windy, November was wet and fairly mild
with few dense fogs. The year ended with an unusually mild
December and from the 15th onwards rain was scarce and sunshine
above average.
The holiday weekends were disappointing and except for
Easter which was dry and sunny though cool, Whitsun was the
wettest and August the dullest since the beginning of the
century.
The weather on the whole was not such as to produce a
serious effect on health, though the cold spell after
Christmas and the disappointing holiday weather must have
had its effect.
Notifications.
A total of 956 notifications of cases of infectious
diseases were received during the year, as compared with
1,496 in 1953, the reduction being largely accounted for by
fewer notifications of measles this year. 350 visits were
made by the Sanitary Inspectors in connection with infectious
diseases.
Table 14 on page 73 shows details of notifications
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