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two instances was the diagnosis confirmed. The first was an adult
female who fell ill in February. In the following month a boy of six
succumbed. Post-mortem examination of a woman of 69 who died in
April led to the recognition that she had suffered from meningococcal
meningitis. This case had not been notified.
ACUTE ANTERIOR POLIOMYELITIS
Poliomyelitis is a disease which only comparatively recently has
developed an epidemic phase. Though sporadic cases are known to
have occurred for many years, the greater of the epidemics have occurred
only in this century more particularly in America, Scandinavia and
Australia. The first serious infection in this country was in 1920; there
was another in 1938. The first country-wide epidemic in Great Britain
was in 1947. Since then the incidence each year has been much higher
than it was in the years before 1947, being particularly heavy again in
1949 and 1950. The numbers of notifications in each of the years for
1947 onwards were 7,766, 1,848, 5,967, 7,752, 2,609, 3,902, 4,542. The
local figures for the same years were 57, 14, 23, 30, 8, 18, 18.
The disease in this country is most common in the late summer and
autumn. Whereas before 1947, after the outbreak of the year had passed
there would be a period of many months freedom from new cases, since
1947 there has never been any period of complete freedom though the
bulk of infection fell in the same months as before. The monthly
percentage distribution of cases for the period 1947-53 is: 0.6, 0.5, 0.3,
0.4, M, 1.9, 9.3, 32.2, 27.2, 16.0, 7.0, and 3.5.
1954 was a year of relatively low incidence, only 1,955 cases being
notified in the country, a rate of 0.04 per 1,000 population. This was
the first year since 1947 that the weekly numbers of notifications on no
occasion reached 100.
The local attack rate was low, there being only seven notifications.
There was a doubtful case in an adult in July. Whatever infection she
suffered from was probably contracted out of the district. Then towards
the end of July there was a grouping of three cases in one part of the
district. On the 24th July a girl of five was admitted to hospital with a
paralytic attack, the onset of illness being the 18th July. On the 27th
July, a boy of six from the same locality was admitted with a paralytic
attack, the date of onset being the 21st. This boy attended the same
school, but not the same class as the first patient; the school closed on
the 23rd July. The third case of the grouping was a younger sister of
the first case who fell ill on the 29th July, with a non-paralytic attack
The only other case up to this was a child of one year who was recognise
on the 26th August to be suffering from a paralytic attack. The chili
attended the Headstone Drive Day Nursery, being last there on the 21st
August. The date of onset of the illness was the 23rd.
Then followed two more cases in one household. On the 5th
September a boy of six fell ill being admitted to hospital on the 7th
suffering from a paralytic attack which proved fatal the next day. His
brother of six months was removed to hospital with him suffering from
what proved to be a paralytic attack.