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75
SECTION VII.
PREVALENCE AND CONTROL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
In addition to food poisoning, which is reported on in Section VIII, the following
diseases are notifiable in the Borough :—
Anthrax Ophthalmia Neonatorum
Cerebro-spinal Meningitis Pneumonia—Acute Primary
Cholera Pneumonia—Acute Influenzal
Continued Fever Poliomyelitis
Diphtheria Polio-encephalitis
Dysentery Plague
Encephalitis Lethargica Puerperal Fever
Erysipelas Puerperal Pyrexia
Enteric (or Typhoid) Fever Relapsing Fever
Glanders Scarlet Fever (or Scarlatina)
Hydrophobia Smallpox
Malaria Tuberculosis
Measles Typhus Fever
Membraneous Croup Whooping Cough
Zymotic Enteritis
Included in the above list are measles and whooping cough. These diseases
became notifiable on 1st October, 1938. No notification, however, is required
if a previous case in the household has been notified within the past two months.
German measles is not notifiable.
Although notification of an infectious disease in a house is incumbent not
only upon the medical practitioner in attendance but also upon the head of the
family or the nearest relative or person in charge of the patient, in actual fact it
is a rare thing for a lay notification to be received. If the patient is an inmate of
a Hospital, in most cases the certificate is to be sent to the Medical Officer of Health
of the district in which the usual residence of the patient is situate, but cases of
malaria, dysentery and the acute pneumonias, are always notifiable to the Medical
Officer of Health of the district in which the patient is residing at the time he is
notified.
In London, the London County Council maintain institutions for the isolation
and treatment of the sick suffering from infectious diseases. Cases from Woolwich
are usually admitted to the Brook Hospital, Shooters Hill, or to the Park Hospital,
Hither Green, but during times of pressure cases are sent to Joyce Green Hospital,
Dartford, or indeed, to any of the fever hospitals belonging to the London County
Council.