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81
PUERPERAL PYREXIA
Three women confined in their homes in the district developed a
raised temperature and were notified to be suffering from puerperal
pyrexia. In only one was the cause a uterine infection.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM
Only one infant was notified as suffering from ophthalmia
neonatorum. He was removed to hospital and recovered with no impairment
of vision.
NON-NOTIFIABLE INFECTIONS
Knowledge of the prevalence of some of the infections which are not
notifiable in the district is obtained from intimations received from the
Head Teachers about the absence of children from school.
Chicken Pox
Eight hundred and fifty-five intimations of children being absent
from school because of chicken pox were received throughout the year,
a figure almost double that of the previous year. After very few cases in
January, the 145 cases of February were followed by the peak figure of
295 in March, there then being a fall to 100 in April. The figures for the
succeeding months were fifty-six, eighty and eighty-six, the infection
being present in many schools until the schools broke up for the Summer
holidays. While most of the schools attacked in the Spring term were almost
free for the rest of the year, some were not really attacked until the
Summer term, and one was affected in both terms. On resumption of
school after the Summer holidays all schools were almost completely free
from cases, except one which had not been attacked earlier in the year
and which had a number of sufferers.
Mumps
This infection was very heavy in the first half of the year, the district
being almost free from it in the second half. Nearly all schools were
affected in the Spring term and much less heavily involved in the Summer
term. There were some which escaped entirely. In all, 1,295 intimations
were received.
Although mumps in childhood is generally a trivial infection, in older
children it can give rise to serious complications. Three children were
taken to hospital suffering from mumps encephalitis. In one of these
Patients, a girl of twelve, the condition proved fatal.