View report page

63
ERYSIPELAS.
Each year from 1934 onwards something between 31 and 48 cases of
erysipelas have been notified. The incidence of this disease appears to
be entirely unrelated to that other illness caused by a streptococcus,
namely scarlet fever. Although the highest incidence did occur in the
same year as the maximum prevalence of scarlet fever, when 716 cases
were notified, it was almost as common the next year when there were
only 390 cases of scarlet fever. On the other hand, the year of almost the
lowest prevalence of erysipelas saw the next to the highest number of
cases of scarlet fever.
38 notifications were received in 1945, but in three the diagnosis was
amended. 24 of the patients were females. The face was affected in 27
instances, a leg in 5 and the ear in 3.
24 of the notified cases were treated at home, 13 in isolation hospitals
and one in a general hospital.
CEREBRO SPINAL FEVER.
Each year sporadic cases of this infection occur, mostly in small
numbers. This is one of the diseases expected to become more prevalent
in war conditions, and the country was in fact subjected, during some of
the war years, to the greatest prevalence it had hitherto experienced.
While the height to which the incidence reached was probably attributable
to war conditions, it is likely that even without the war an undue prevalence
would have occurred, as the incidence of infection had been rising
before the war. The number of cases notified locally in the years 1934-39
were 1, 2, 2, 7, 4 and 4. The 36 cases in 1940 were part of the national
epidemic. In the next years notifications were 25, 13, 7 and 7.
In 1945, 11 cases were notified, but in three the diagnosis was
amended. After one case in January, followed by two in February,
there was a lull until the third case in May. The district was then free
until three cases occurred in October. No case appeared to be associated
one with another.
Two cases proved fatal. The first patient, a female of 60, succumbed
the day after her return from a holiday and died 3 weeks later. The other
was a baby of under one year of age.
Of the notified cases 6 were treated in Redhill County Hospital, two
in general hospitals, and three in isolation hospitals.
ACUTE ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS.
Better known under the name of Infantile Paralysis, though of recent
years not by any means confining itself to attacking infants, this is a
disease of which sporadic cases occur each year, though at times taking on
an epidemic prevalence, mostly in the late summer or early autumn.
The numbers of notifications received in the years 1934-39 were
0, 1, 5, 4, 6 and 6. In the next four years only in 1942 were any cases
notified, namely, 4 in that year. There was one case in 1944 and three
in 1945, Two of these occurred in July and the third, in which infection
was probably contracted outside the district in July, had an onset in
August.