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Measles.
Measles is one of the few diseases where little impression
has so far been made upon incidence although modern treatment
and nursing have greatly reduced the number of deaths. For
instance in the years between 1901 and 1910 no less than 1,728
deaths from the disease occurred in the Borough, equivalent to
an average annual rate of 5.63 per 10,000 population; in the
decade 1928-1937, deaths totalling 409 reduced the rate to
1.82, and during the past 10 years, 1945-1954, there were
7 deaths, the rate being 0.07 per 10,000 population.
Notifications for the year numbered 144, and there were
no deaths. There were 656 cases notified in 1953.
Meningococcal Infection.
There were 7 notifications and 2 deaths during the year,
compared with 8 notifications and 3 deaths last year.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum,
Of the ten cases notified, 4 belonged to Stepney.
Paratyphoid Fever.
One case of Paratyphoid B, type 3a, occurred in August.
The patient, a married woman aged 32, and mother of four young
children, ate a meat pie on the 22nd July, some 16 days before
her serious illness. On or about the 25th-27th July she
suffered from mild diarrhoea for three days and also vomited
and had nose bleeding. On the seventh day she became more
acutely ill, and her doctor tentatively diagnosed cerebrospinal
meningitis and she was admitted to a fever hospital
on the 9th August. On 2lst August the hospital notified the
case as Paratyphoid B, having found stools positive. The
patient recovered and was discharged on the 26th October.
None of the patient's children ate any of the pie, nor
did they become ill, and specimens taken from them on the
25th August and subsequently were negative. Specimens taken
from the employees of the shop where the pie was made and
sold were also negative.
The Central Public Health Laboratory at Colindale, which
reported the patient as being type 3a, followed up seven
cases of a similar type which occurred between the the 14th17th
August at Wembley, Edgware and Pinner (all possibly infected
by cream cakes), but could not find any connection
between them and "the Stepney patient.
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