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50
As the incidence of scarlet fever was light, one of the wards
at the Rayners Lane Isolation Hospital was opened for the admission
of measles cases. During the four months, February to June, 91
cases were admitted to the local hospital and 7 cases to other isolation
hospitals. A very high proportion of those admitted were
adults of Irish nationality, being men engaged in the district as
labourers or girls employed as domestic servants. Some of these
attacks were of quite a severe nature and for them skilled nursing
which could not be obtained in their homes was urgently required.
Five cases of measles proved fatal.
Whooping Cough.
Whooping cough appeared in the first half of the year in eight
schools, most being only lightly affected, in only three of them
were there as many as twenty cases altogether. In one of these it
reappeared in the last quarter of the year when over fifty children
were attacked. In addition to this school, three others had a few
cases during the Christmas term. Altogether notice was received
of the occurrence of 223 cases.
Chicken-Pox.
Chickenpox appeared in most schools during the course of the
year, being much more prevalent from February to June than at
any other period. Four schools had over fifty scholars away, the
total number of intimations from the head teachers received being
541.
Mumps.
Mumps appeared in eight departments. Only one school,
however, was heavily affected, accounting for 69 out of the total of
248 cases.
Influenza.
Although influenza appeared on the death certificates of some
six people who died in the first half of the year, it was not until
almost Christmas time that the district was affected by an influenza
epidemic. The disease soon reached epidemic proportions, though
up to the end of the year the character of the illness was a mild type
being typically a three-days' rise of temperature with no complications.
Epidemic Jaundice.
A number of cases of jaundice occurred amongst children
attending the Infants' Department of one of the public elementary
schools. Information was received of its occurrence amongst eleven
children, of whom two, though attending the school, were home
contacts of previous cases, the intervals separating the onsets of
the jaundice in the cases at home being sixteen days in one instance
and thirty in the other. Excluding these possible home infections,
three classes were affected, five children being scholars in one class
and two each in two others. The intervals between the cases most
commonly were about twenty-eight days.