View report page

5
the high mortality amongst infants from gastro-intestinal affections.
Statistics relating to tuberculosis are likely to be fallacious during
the war because of the transference of population. It is the duty
of a medical practitioner, on becoming aware that his patient is
suffering from tuberculosis, to notify the fact to the medical officer
of health of the district in which the patient is residing, this duty
being imposed on him irrespective as to whether or not the patient
had previously been notified in some other area. Many of the
transferred persons who have already been notified in their own
districts will, in due course, be notified in the area in which they
have been temporarily transferred. There may, of course, be more
than one transfer in respect of any particular person. While such
persons are notified and their names added to the registers of the
receiving authorities, in very many cases it is unlikely that they
will be removed from the registers of their own areas. Tuberculosis
statistics, therefore, for many districts, will give erroneous impressions
because of the increase in the notifications and the numbers
of persons on the register, while, taking the country as a whole,
the summation of these notifications for the different areas will
give a figure much larger than in former years, and therefore give
a fictitious impression of a heavy increase in the incidence of the
disease.
Reference is made in the body of the Report to the lessening
of the incidence of scarlet fever in the last quarter of the year, a
time when, of course, a heavier rate of infection is expected. This
phenomenon, which, however, was not shared by diphtheria (which,
although the numbers are small, did, in fact, show a doubled rate
of incidence in the fourth as compared with the third quarter), was
in keeping with the experience of the local medical practitioners
that, with the onset of hostilities, illness seemed to have disappeared.
While the disturbances resulting from the war, with its
excitement and concentration of attention on matters other than
one's own personal feelings, might have been an explanation in
part of the very large reduction made by his patients on the time
of the general medical practitioner, a demonstration of the influence
of mind over matter, it is difficult to imagine that a reduction in
the incidence of scarlet fever could be ascribed to the increased
resistance to the haemolytic streptococcus infecting the fauces of
the more youthful members of the community brought about by
similar influences. Whatever the explanation the future may
yield—and probably it will prove necessary to accept the occurrence
as being entirely fortuitous—there is no doubt as to the benefit
derived through the absence of a heavy incidence of infection at
a time when so many demands were being made on the staff in
other spheres. This low incidence of scarlet fever was not the only
instance of a departure from the expected demonstrated by infectious
illness, as measles, which should have made its appearance in the
latter months of 1939, heralding in the bi-annual epidemic in the