View report page

96
in when the parents' diagnosis is at fault. This would account for the
absence of children being reported allegedly because of some infectious
condition when the fact that no other case is reported from the school
about the same time suggests that the child was really not suffering from
that illness.
Chicken Pox
Only 149 intimations were received of children being absent from
school because of chicken pox. A few schools were affected in the summer
term. About half the cases though were the pupils of three schools affected
in the autumn term, particularly in the second half of it.
Mumps
The district was very heavily attacked with mumps in the first half of
1960. In that year in all there were 1,295 intimations. In the whole of 1961
there were only fifty-six. There were groupings of cases of twelve, seven,
six and five at some schools; but nearly all schools were virtually free.
German Measles
This infection often occurs when the usual variety of measles is
prevalent; but it sometimes occurs when the other is absent. At many of
the schools which are affected by measles in the spring term there would
be some cases of german measles; but in many of these german measles
became more prevalent in the summer term, by which time the school was
free from the usual variety of measles. On the other hand, the school most
heavily affected with in all 130 cases, was attacked in the spring term when
it was almost free from the ordinary measles. Intimations were received of
586 cases. Apart from the 133 cases at one school there were twenty-seven
in another and twenty-one at a third, all in the spring term, after which the
schools were virtually free. On the other hand, five schools which had
been almost free in the spring term had sixty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty,
thirty and twenty-seven cases in the summer term. The district was almost
entirely free from this infection in the second half of the year.
These cases of german measles are not important in themselves, but
they are disturbing because of the risk of transmission of infection to the
expectant mother. Again, it is not the mother herself who is the special
concern but her unborn baby, especially during the first twelve weeks ot
pregnancy. Of such complicated pregnancies there were, in an investigation
carried out in this country, twice as many abortions and almost twice as
many stillbirths, four times as many infants weighing less than 5½ lbs at
birth and eight times as many infants who had major congenital defects.
These were mostly of hearing, the proportion defective being about
twenty per cent and to a less extent defects of the heart and eye. The infant
mortality rate of infants following rubella in the first twelve weeks of