View report page

44
Provision of Antitoxin.
Diphtheria antitoxin is available free of charge for medical
practitioners for the treatment of necessitous patients. 22 lots were
issued during the year, totalling 176,000 units.
Diphtheria in Schools.
Over a period of three weeks five cases occurred in two classes
in one department of a public elementary school. Two children
in the same class of another school within a week of each other
succumbed to diphtheria, both cases proving fatal. Apart from
these instances, there appeared to be no association of the incidence
of the disease and school attendance.
SCARLET FEVER.
Incidence.
500 cases of scarlet fever were notified during the year, an
incidence rate of 2.72 per thousand population as compared with a
figure of 2.41 for the country as a whole.
The number of cases notified in the first quarter was 162,
these being evenly distributed, the weekly notifications ranging
from 8 to 16. 165 cases were notified in the second quarter;
the distribution was less even, the notifications in two consecutive
weeks being 23 and the range for the other weeks being from 6
to 16. The summer quarter was that of lowest incidence, the total
notifications being only 67 and only in the first week of the quarter
were double figures reached. In the last quarter the incidence,
while slightly higher on the average than in the summer quarter,
remained each week at single figures until the last month of the
year, the 46 cases notified in the last four weeks bringing the total
number of cases for the quarter to 106.
Of the 514 patients notified (including those in whom the notification
was later withdrawn) 144 were treated at home throughout
the illness at the election of the parents, 339 were removed to the
local isolation hospital and 34 were removed to isolation hospitals
of other local authorities. Of this 34, 26 were removed elsewhere
because there was no accommodation available for them at the
local isolation hospital, this straining of accommodation occurring
for two short periods in March and in May. Of the remainder
treated in outside hospitals, six were out-patients or in-patients at
general hospitals in London at the time of diagnosis, one was
removed from Redhill Hospital and one patient, at the wish of his
parents, was admitted to the London Fever Hospital. Five patients
who began their treatment at home were later admitted to hospital,
one because of the development of aural complications, one because
of limited accommodation at home, one because of the
difficulty in nursing, and the other two at the election of the
parents. Of the 339 cases treated in hospital, 230 were removed
primarily because of domestic circumstances, of which, in the case
of 58, the reason was the absence of a separate bedroom for the